The Daily Drift

Word of advise ... if a demonic car is coming at you aflame you might consider running away

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Today in History

841   Charles the Bald and Louis the German defeat Lothar at Fontenay.
1658   Aurangzeb proclaims himself emperor of the Moghuls in India.  
1767   Mexican Indians riot as Jesuit priests are ordered home.  
1857   Gustave Flaubert goes on trial for public immorality regarding his novel, Madame Bovary.  
1862   The first day of the Seven Days' campaign begins with fighting at Oak Grove, Virginia.
1864   Union troops surrounding Petersburg, Virginia, begin building a mine tunnel underneath the Confederate lines.  
1868   The U.S. Congress enacts legislation granting an eight-hour day to workers employed by the federal government.  
1876   General George A. Custer and over 260 men of the Seventh Cavalry are wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn in Montana.  
1903   Marie Curie announces her discovery of radium.  
1920   The Greeks take 8,000 Turkish prisoners in Smyrna.  
1921   Samuel Gompers is elected head of the American Federation of Labor for the 40th time.  
1941   Finland declares war on the Soviet Union.  
1946   Ho Chi Minh travels to France for talks on Vietnamese independence.  
1948   The Soviet Union tightens its blockade of Berlin by intercepting river barges heading for the city. 1950   North Korea invades South Korea, beginning the Korean War.  
1959   The Cuban government seizes 2.35 million acres under a new agrarian reform law.  
1962   The U.S. Supreme Court bans official prayers in public schools.  
1964   President Lyndon Johnson orders 200 naval personnel to Mississippi to assist in finding three missing civil rights workers.  
1973   White House Counsel John Dean admits President Nixon took part in the Watergate cover-up.  
1986   Congress approves $100 million in aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua. 

Non Sequitur

Stone ship

“Tjelvar’s grave”, Boge, Gotland, Sweden, 1938

Tjelvar’s Grave is one of the best preserved stone ship settings in Gotland. According the legend Tjelvar, the first man lived in Gotland, is buried there. Archaeologists have dated the grave to made in the late Bronze Ages, 1100-500 BC.

Tjelvar’s grave is 18 metres long and 5 metres wide. The height of the gunwale stones diminishes towards the centre of the ship, which has also been filled with stones to form a boat-deck. A plundered stone-slab coffin, containing cremated bones and a few potsherds, was uncovered in an excavation in the 1930s.

More info on stone ships.

Nonprofit linked to McCrory to host retreat for big donors

More and more NC is looking like SC - and that is NOT a good thing

by John Frank
 

A private nonprofit formed to promote Gov. Pat McCrory’s agenda is hosting a $5,000-per-person retreat that features exclusive policy briefings with the governor just as the legislative session enters a crucial phase.
The two-day event, which starts Thursday, is expected to draw 100 to 150 corporate representatives and wealthy donors to the luxury Grandover Resort outside Greensboro.
South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley will join McCrory on the first day for a reception, dinner and forum. The second day’s agenda includes a session on state policy issues with McCrory and other civic and business leaders, according to a fundraising invitation.
The organization hosting the retreat is the Renew North Carolina Foundation, a group formed by McCrory allies shortly after his November election that recently rebranded itself and recruited new leadership.
Two tickets to the dinner with the governors cost $1,000. Two passes to the entire retreat cost $10,000. A year-long membership in the foundation carries a $25,000 or $50,000 price tag, depending on the level of perks offered.
The invitation sent to potential donors comes just as dozens of bills arrive on McCrory’s desk and repugican leaders work behind the scenes to finalize a $20 billion state budget and a $1 billion tax overhaul measure. The retreat will take place the same week that lawmakers hope to reach deals on a number of key legislative priorities ahead of an impending adjournment.
Foundation Chairman John Lassiter, a close McCrory friend, said the timing is not intentional. He said the group promised two retreats when it formed late last year, and this is the first.
Lassiter, who helped lead the McCrory’s transition office, said it is not a fundraising event for the candidate. But he added, “We’re honored the governor can join us.”
Jack Hawke, a foundation board member and who managed McCrory’s 2012 campaign, said most donors gave six months ago when they joined the organization, and the retreat is not aimed at “having people who are lobbying the legislature for particular causes.”
“It’s a discussion on major issues facing the state, and a round of golf, that’s about it,” he said.
‘Not everyone has that access’
But critics see a problem with the timing and the high-dollar event.
“North Carolina’s budget and tax code are being negotiated behind closed doors, simultaneously Gov. McCrory is going to a ($10,000) getaway weekend with his secretly funded front group,” said Micah Beasley, a state Democratic Party spokesman. “North Carolina needs leadership that’s focused on jobs and the economy, not piling up special-interest cash.”
Bob Phillips at Common Cause in North Carolina, a government watchdog group, questioned the pay-for-access aspect of the event.
“The perception problem is that a limited group of people with deep pockets get access … and people likely with business before the state,” he said. “Not everyone has that access.”
501c4 flies McCrory’s colors
Renew North Carolina reorganized earlier this year, adding new leadership and a new logo that mirrors McCrory’s campaign colors. Bob Singer, a Greensboro banking attorney at Brooks Pierce law firm, is the new president. New board members are Bill Graham, a former gubernatorial candidate and Salisbury attorney, and David Benford, a Wilmington real estate agent and repugican cabal player.
The 501c4 nonprofit changed its name April 30, according to Secretary of State records. Hawke explained that the original name was too close to another entity, the Foundation for the Carolinas. “They said our name was impacting their fundraising, so instead of getting in an argument, we changed our name,” he said.
Organizers initially anticipated raising $600,000 in less than two months and set a $900,000 fundraising target for 2013. In an interview this week, Lassiter declined to provide fundraising numbers to date, nor would he say how many memberships the group sold.
The foundation can raise unlimited funds from any source – including lobbyists and corporations, which are prohibited from giving directly to candidates – and doesn’t need to disclose its donors. By comparison, state political committees must abide by donation limits and disclose contributor information.
It’s still unclear how the foundation plans to spend its money. Lassiter said it would take an in-depth look at policy issues, particularly economic development, government efficiency and education – three areas McCrory has made his focus.
“If (McCrory) is taking steps in those areas that we think are the right ones, we will advocate them,” he said. “We will raise funds to get the message out.”

Did you know ...

That Sweden's healthcare system costs less and has better outcomes than ours

That young repugicans are more liberal than they think

About the latest round of attacks in the politician's war on women

About how wingnut ideology suckered Americans into hating their government

Whistleblowing 2.0

From the Pentagon Papers to Bradley Manning to PRISM

by Patrick McCurdy

With computer technician Edward Snowden’s bombshell revelations about the extent of state snooping — coupled with the ongoing court martial of Private Bradley Manning — 2013 is the year of the whistleblower. These ongoing cases also highlight the perennial plight of the whistleblower along with the state’s enduring efforts to prosecute them as a means to reinforce rank and file obedience. Information has always been a battleground. But, in an age of networked communication, the whistleblowing game is changing what information is leaked and who has the opportunity to leak it. What has changed little are the consequences for those who dare to become whistleblowers.
Few aspects of our lives remain unaffected by the ascent of the information society. Equally, the NSA leaks suggest there are few aspects of our digital lives which are not subject to mass surveillance of some kind. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange recently and accurately quipped that Facebook was “the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented.”
The information hungry security-state cannot (yet) be run by computers alone. Its vast networks require architects, admins, analysts, auditors, developers, engineers and others. These high tech trades do not work exclusively for the government. Instead, many are brought into the fold in a neoliberal partnership where work is contracted out to multimillion dollar consulting companies and private security firms. Nowhere is the scale of the security state more apparent than the vast numbers of people authorised to access classified information. For example, while the U.S. government will not confirm numbers, the BBC has conservatively estimated that “2.5 million U.S. military and civilian personnel” can access SIPRNET, the source of the Cablegate diplomatic cables. Thus Manning’s SIPRNET access — along with at least 2.5 million fellow security-cleared individuals — is not exceptional but typical of military work in the network society.
Whistleblowing is no longer the sole domain of key-holding, Harvard-educated elites at the top of the information food chain. Both Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden held low-level positions relative to their chain of command and security clearance. In a vast system where millions of government and contracted personnel have access to troves of data, leaking is an opportunity available to anyone with clearance, opportunity and motive.
In the age of Whistleblowing 2.0, not only are the whistleblowers different; the data is different too. Digital information is promiscuous. In the bygone days of analog leaking, paper memos or photograph negatives could be incinerated, leaving little evidence of their existence. While leaks can still come in the form of detailed secret reports, the may also appear as unwieldy datasets requiring specialised computer and analytical skills to unpack and interpret them. As the Snowden case attests, leaks can also be as banal as a PowerPoint presentation. Yet, as Slavoj Žižek has argued, the value in such disclosures isn’t necessarily in their actual content — how surprising is it, really? — but in pushing the public to a point where it can no longer pretend not to know.
Aware of this fact, in 2008 the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center penned a classified report on WikiLeaks — eventually, in turn, released by WikiLeaks — which stated: “Web sites such as Wikileaks.org use trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers. The identification, exposure, or termination of employment of or legal actions against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from using Wikileaks.org to make such information public.”
In short: If you can’t denigrate the message, denigrate the messenger. Indeed, there has been no shortage of malicious misgiving lobbed at WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange; Vice President Joe Biden once likened Assange to a “high tech terrorist.” State efforts to defame the messenger are nothing new, and there are striking parallels with Daniel Ellsberg’s 1971 unauthorised leak of the Pentagon Papers.
Like Manning and likely Snowden to come, Daniel Ellsberg was charged under the 1917 Espionage Act. White House tapes released in April 2001 reveal that President Richard Nixon was keen to seek retribution in the Pentagon Papers case stating, on June 15, 1971: “Goddamn it. … Somebody has got to go to jail [pounding desk]. Somebody’s got to go to jail, that’s all there is to it. Our people here can’t just [unclear] anything about the war. … You’ve got to fight it.”
President Nixon also wanted to go beyond the criminal courts and try Daniel Ellsberg in the media, as an extract of a conversation between President Nixon, Henry Kissinger and U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell makes clear.
“We’ve got to get him,” Nixon said of Ellsberg. “Don’t worry about his trial. Just get everything out. Try him in the press. Try him in the press. Everything, John, that there is on the investigation, get it out, leak it out. We want to destroy him in the press. Press. Is that clear?”
Kissinger and Mitchell agreed. Nixon knew the information could not be discredited, so he had to discredit the messenger. At minimum, character assassination must also be anticipated. (In Assange’s case, his physical assassination was actually called for.) State power, especially for government workers, is premised on obedience. Thus Nixon wanted to send a clear message to any possible whistleblowers that they could expect the full force of the law if they followed their conscience instead of government codes of conduct.
In the midst of the unfolding leaks making headline news we must not lose sight of symbolism laden in the public shaming and punishment of whistleblowers. Manning’s prosecution in the public eye, and the yet-to-be-determined government response to Edward Snowden, will no doubt be constructed to visibly convey the seriousness of betraying state secrets. It is not only Bradley Manning who is on trial but the very act of leaking and whistleblowing. While the U.S. government is not seeking the death penalty in its charge of “aiding the enemy,” the thinly veiled public torture of Manning during his pre-trial detention, and his stalled and extended prosecution, are intended to make a brutal example out of him.
The Manning case must also be seen as symptomatic of the bigger crackdown by the Obama administration on the unauthorized leaking of information. His administration has charged an unprecedented six whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, double that of all past presidents combined. Moreover, the recent activities of the Department of Justice subpoenaing phone records from the Associated Press and the personal emails of journalists provide further evidence of the current administration’s stance towards leaking.
The fates of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden remain to be determined. The one certainty in the Snowden case is that the Obama administration will not take his brazen act of leaking lightly. If anything, Snowden could put even more pressure on the court martial of Manning, a leaker whom the government at least has in custody. Manning faces a military court concerned only with the act of leaking and not the motivations behind it. And while a military judge will ultimately pass judgment on him, history will be another judge. Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight and having the fog of war lifted, Manning will be seen as following in the footsteps of the likes of Daniel Ellsberg, who has been one of Manning’s most high-profile public supporters.
Unlike Manning, Snowden purposefully stepped into the spotlight to take responsibility for leaking information with the public good in mind. Those who have watched the full interview between Snowden and Glen Greenwald will have no doubt noticed the preemptive line of questioning designed to refute any future charge of aiding the enemy. Moreover, it clearly establishes Snowden as a textbook whistleblower. The outpouring of public support for him has indeed been encouraging.
As technology changes, the means, forms and faces of whistleblowers change, even while their value to a democratic society is clear. Being a whistleblower often comes with harsh consequences, yet what is even more dangerous is a society whose citizens are afraid to speak truth to power. From the Pentagon Papers to the PRISM leak, whistleblowers continue to play a vital role in keeping power in check. Long live the whistleblower.

The repugican cabal Dream

An America Like Heaven that is For white christians Only  

Imagine the wingnut dream government, where our leaders have nothing to do with anybody who does not accept jesus as the their savior. That is the recent actions of the mayor of Vero Beach, Fla., writ large. “I refuse to support any organization that does not believe in jesus christ,” said Mayor Craig Fletcher in response to a proposal before the city council to make the week just past, June 16-23, Humanist Recognition Week.
“It’s a proclamation for Humanists. They do not recognize jesus christ as their savior,” Fletcher thundered. “I’ll have nothing to do with it. If you want to out vote me, that’s fine. Go ahead, make a motion and get it done.”
Oh boy, a chance to be martyred! Fletcher must have been delirious with joy.
And at the hands of atheists, no less! (there’s a lot of that going around). Speaking of persecution, Sarah Palin is even writing a book from a perspective she knows nothing about, about something that isn’t even happening!
Alas, Fletcher took it all back. Turns out when you lambaste those who do not have christ that you’re lambasting not only atheists but jews. Fletcher had taken the jew out of judeo-christian.
Ooops.
As Rabbi Michael Birnholz reminded him: “When the statement of the mayor specifically talks about believing in jesus christ, as a faith tradition that doesn’t have jesus as the messiah, that would not include us in the business of the city, which is very problematic and very distressing.”
Problematic is an understatement.
Yes, the kid gloves were off. America, like heaven, is for christians only. Don’t listen to the pope. The cult hierarchy insists atheists are going to hell, no matter what the kindly new Pope said in a lamentable excess of love and inclusion.
Look at Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life and his recent demand for House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to “explain her beliefs.”
What? Our elected officials are now subject to the mandate of the catholic cult? I think we’re seeing now whey so many Americans both in colonial days and before Kennedy feared the prospect of a catholic president.
Indirect rule by the catholic cult, anyone?
Clearly it is not just wingnut catholics who have trouble grasping the concept of America as outlined by the god-free United States Constitution.
If not Father Pavone, then Mayor Fletcher, at least, realized his mistake and issued a two-paragraph apology: “It was a horrific statement and on reflection was way out of place for an elected official to take such a stance. I hope everyone will find it in their heart to forgive me.”
It is typical that World Net(Wingnut) Daily chose to portray this incident as the mayor apologizing “for [his] pro-jesus remark.”
That wasn’t pro-jesus, folks. That was anti-everybody else, as twenty-five faith-based leaders recognized when they met to draft a letter to the city council. Rev. Casey Baggott said, “We’re concerned because we work very hard as a community of faith leaders to be inclusive, to be tolerant of one another, and we are concerned that that meeting may not have demonstrated that.”
Can we have a “Testify!”?
But of course, it is the liberals who are really the judgmental extremists, not those who wish to exclude all non-christians from the business of government. I mean, what’s extreme about theocracy?
C’mon, who doesn’t want a 24/7 inquisition? It worked so well for Kabul….
Bad example?
Okay, try this: Tony Perkins recently proclaimed that the evil leftist Obama is in collusion with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) using fundamentalist christianity’s own weapons against them: intimidation, fear-mongering, and spreading lies.
You can feel Perkins’ outrage, can’t you? How dare they! Those are our weapons!
Perkins warned that Obama is trying to remake America into a socialist state ruled by a totalitarian government bureaucracy. I guess that’s worse somehow than a totalitarian government theocracy.
Nasty old Obama, said Perkins, is trying to “steamroll the American people and implement his radical vision for America.”
It was okay, remember, for the shrub to steamroll the American people and implement his radical christian vision for America. The United States came perilously close to theocracy during the shrub's junta.
Perhaps Mayor Fletcher lost track of time. Or perhaps he accidentally let the extremist theocracy plans for America out of the bag. You can almost hear the gleeful snickering: “Har! Those silly jews think they’re going to heaven!”
Perkins claimed that “The majority of Americans do not agree with the President’s leftist agenda” but I don’t know where he’s getting his numbers. Polls show exactly the opposite. More and more people – half or more – now accept and support equal rights for gays and lesbians, for example and folks actually like having the government in its corner when it comes to emergency relief, as that Obamaniac Gov. Chris Christie had the temerity to admit.
No fundie loves the prospect of a safe martyrdom more than cowards like Tony Perkins. It’s real easy to liken yourself to some of the mythical martyrs of old when your chestnuts do not face the prospect of roasting on an open fire. You know your martyrdom will be metaphorical and a product of your own imagination.
The outrage that Americans are actually expecting to be able to enjoy their own beliefs! Perkins was upset that the military can’t bully its servicemen and women into submission on issues of christ’s lordship over not only the nuclear football but our tanks and planes, or rape its uppity servicewomen into submission in Jesus’ name.
He sure didn’t mention how much of our tax dollars go to shoring up the cult. That would be inconvenient to say the least, so he goes instead after money supposedly spent to legalize same-sex ‘marriage’ (his quotation marks) and using tax dollars to persecute christians!
Oh dear. Tony really has fallen in love with the myth of a persecuted christianity: “We must stand boldly, yet in love (?), against hate-filled anti-christian groups who incite hatred and violence to intimidate us into silence.”
Love? Yes, that’s my question mark. Is he serious? This hate-filled spew followed by a claim to love? Where is the love in saying of those you oppose, “this pernicious evil against the people of faith in America”?
That’s some love, Tony, I gotta say. I strongly suspect that if heaven exists, Tony and Mayor Fletcher and the rest of their kind are in for a whole lake-full of disappointment when they get there – the same disappointment they will get in 2016.
Though I also suspect they will be protected from both traumas by protective, teflon-like layers of cognitive dissonance.

Canadians Pay Taxes for Universal Health Care, and Now They're Richer Than Us

by Philip Caper

I’ve been watching with some dismay the wrestling match going on between the governor and the Maine Legislature over the opportunity offered by the federal Affordable Care Act to expand our MaineCare program.
Proponents of expansion of MaineCare make their argument on both moral and economic grounds. Such expansion would provide health care coverage for almost 70,000 low-income Mainers who will otherwise receive no assistance from the ACA. More coverage would result in better management of our burgeoning level of chronic illness as our population ages. That will drive down the use of expensive crisis-oriented emergency services as well as the illness-inducing stress produced by out-of-control health care bills in low-income patients already afflicted by poor health.
Since 100 percent of the costs of the proposed expansion would be borne by the federal government for at least the first three years of the program (gradually reduced to 90 percent by 2020), MaineCare expansion under the ACA would also provide significant economic benefits to Maine in the form of federal dollars and the jobs they will create in every county in the state. According to a new study released last week by the Maine Center for Economic Policy and Maine Equal Justice Partners, if MaineCare were expanded under the terms of the ACA it would stimulate more than $350 million in economic activity, lead to the creation of 3,100 new jobs, and result in the generation of up to $18 million in state and local taxes.
Since the Legislature has now refused to override the governor’s veto of the expansion, those federal dollars (including those originating from Maine taxpayers) and their associated benefits will go to other states that accept the deal.
Some opponents of expansion claim that they don’t trust the feds to keep their word (even though it’s now written into law) and that we won’t be able to get rid of the extra costs should they renege on their commitment. Others are simply philosophically opposed to bigger government. It seems as though some are opposing MaineCare expansion simply out of spite.
This fight could be avoided, and is just a symptom of a more fundamental underlying disease — the way we pay for health care in the U.S. Our insurance-based system requires that we slice and dice our population into “risk categories.”
This phenomenon was made worse by PL 90, the “pro-competition” health insurance reform law passed by the repugican legislature in 2011. Now we’re seeing older, rural Mainers pitted against younger, urban ones. This type of discrimination is the very basis of the insurance business.
Many wingnuts still characterize Medicaid as “welfare,” and many think of it as such. Presumably other types of health care coverage have been “earned” (think veterans and the military, highly paid executives, union members and congressional staff). We resent our tax dollars going to “freeloaders.” Until the slicing and dicing is ended, the finger pointing, blame shifting and their attendant political wars will continue.
In sharp contrast, our Canadian neighbors feel much differently. Asked if they resent their tax dollars being spent to provide health care to those who can’t afford it on their own, they say they can’t think of a better way to spend them. “Isn’t that what democracy is all about?” I’ve heard Canadian physicians say, “Our universal health care is the highest expression of Canadians caring for each other.”
Here in Maine, the response tends to be much different. Canadians seem to think health care is a human right. We don’t — yet.
If everybody was in the same health care system in the U.S., as is the norm in most wealthy nations, we would be having a much different and more civil conversation than what we are now witnessing in Augusta. No other wealthy country relies on the exorbitantly expensive and divisive practice of insurance underwriting to finance their health care system. They finance their publicly administered systems through broad-based taxes or a simplified system of tax-like, highly regulated premiums. Participation is mandatory and universal.
Taxation gets a bad rap in the U.S. and consequently is politically radioactive. Yet it is the most efficient, most enforceable and fairest way to finance a universal health care system.
In her excellent New Yorker essay called “Tax Time,” Jill LePore points out that taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity and for prosperity. Taxes insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and take some of the edge off of extreme poverty. Taxes protect property and the environment, make business possible and pay for roads, schools, bridges, police, teachers, doctors, nursing homes and medicine.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.” The wealthy pay more because they have benefited more.
Canada’s tax-financed health care system covers everybody, gets better results, costs about two-thirds of what ours does and is far more popular than ours with both their public and their politicians. There is no opposition to it in the Canadian Parliament.
What’s not to like about that?
Oh yes, and the average Canadian is now wealthier than the average American. Their far more efficient and effective tax-based health care system is part of the reason.

What Happens Without Affirmative Action

The Story Of UCLA

The Supreme Court is expected to rule this week on a case that may shake up race-conscious admissions in higher education. The justices could change the shape of affirmative action or even strike it down altogether.
California is one of eight states that have already scrapped affirmative action. That means state schools can no longer consider the race of its applicants. At the University of California, Los Angeles, the change has been messy, ambiguous — and sometimes a little ugly.
After the state passed the ban in 1996, the percentages of black and Latino students at UCLA quickly began to fall. Things came to a head in 2006. That year, in a freshman class of nearly 5,000 students, just 96 were African-American.
Corey Matthews — one of the "Infamous 96," as those students came to be known — said it shaped his experience at the huge school. Even in lecture halls filled with hundreds of students, he says, he was often the only African-American student.
UCLA realized there was a problem, so it decided to start something called "," taking into consideration a wide range of factors in its admissions decisions — from GPA, to family income, to whether an applicant was the first in the family to go to college. Race was not one of the factors, but indeed, the percentages of black and Latino students began to rebound.
Then things got complicated again.
Last year, a UCLA professor released a study claiming the school was letting some black and Latino students in at higher rates than white or Asian students who should have ranked just the same under the new holistic review.
In other words, the study said, UCLA was breaking California law and instituting affirmative action.
UCLA's newspaper, Daily Bruin, published a on the study and ran an suggesting the school re-evaluate its admissions policy.
In response, student groups led rallies to protest the study and the Daily Bruin. They said a reference in an op-ed to an "undue percentage" of minority students was offensive and minimized those students' hard work.
"The reaction was not pretty," James Barragan, the paper's editor in chief, tells NPR's Rachel Martin.
"I got a long email calling me an embarrassment to my race because I wasn't supporting the cause," he says.
Barragan, whose parents are Mexican, says he agrees that the goal should be to get more racial diversity on campus — but only if it is done fairly.
"We feared at the paper, once we saw the study, that this diversity was coming at a cost of other students who were also qualified to be there and maybe weren't getting the same opportunity," he said.
UCLA says it stands by its admissions policy and points to a review by faculty that refutes the study's findings. A school spokesperson told NPR that UCLA's holistic review is not only legal, but also a fairer and more equitable way to evaluate applicants in an increasingly diverse state.
If the Supreme Court finds affirmative action unconstitutional this week, a lot of schools could wind up facing the same dilemma UCLA has dealt with for nearly two decades.

Ziggy

Ways Not Getting Enough Sleep Messes You Up

Ways Not Getting Enough Sleep Messes You Up

As far as your health is concerned, nothing can be gained from losing sleep.

The Return of the Twinkie

Snack lovers went into a slight panic when Hostess went out of business last year, because that meant no more Twinkies. To me, it meant no more Merita bread, and I still haven't adjusted. But fear no more, Twinkies will return July 15th!

Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo bought Twinkies and other Hostess cakes for $410 million.

Apollo Global Management, founded by Leon Black, is known for buying troubled brands then selling them for a profit; its investments include fast-food chains Carl's Jr. and Hardee's. Metropoulos & Co., which has revamped then sold off brands including Chef Boyardee and Bumble Bee, also owns Pabst Brewing Co.

***

The trimmed-down Hostess Brands LLC has a far less costly operating structure than the predecessor company. Some of the previous workers were hired back, but they're no longer unionized.

When Twinkies return, they will cost $3.99 for a box of ten. Other Hostess products, such as Wonder Bread, were bought by different companies. More 

Rapping in Sign Language

The star who went viral after the Bonnaroo Music Festival wasn't any of the headliners -it was the woman who danced along with them. Holly Maniatty is a sign language interpreter, a professional who works all kinds of concerts. Rap shows are a special challenge as the words fly fast and are often freestyle, wandering far from the recorded version. Maniatty holds her own interpreting on the fly, but she also does plenty of research beforehand. She talked about her first rap show, for the Beastie Boys in 2009.

To prepare for the show, Maniatty says she logged more than 100 hours of research on the Beastie Boys, memorizing their lyrics and watching past shows. Her prep work also includes researching dialectal signs to ensure accuracy and authenticity. An Atlanta rapper will use different slang than a Queens one, and ASL speakers from different regions also use different signs, so knowing how a word like guns and brother are signed in a given region is crucial for authenticity.

Signing a rap show requires more than just literal translation. Maniatty has to describe events, interpret context, and tell a story. Often, she is speaking two languages simultaneously, one with her hands and one with her mouth, as she’ll sometimes rap along with the artists as well. When a rapper recently described a run-in with Tupac, Maniatty rapped along while making the sign for hologram, so deaf fans would know the reference was to Tupac’s holographic cameo at Coachella, not some figment of the rapper's imagination.

Read more about Maniatty's work at Slate.

Five Surprising Home Buyer Turn-Offs

by Tara-Nicholle Nelson

The prospect of selling your home effectively makes you a marketer. And effective marketing requires that you understand the mind and priorities, likes and dislikes of your target buyer. In real estate, we all know that buyers like to see homes that are pristine, huge and well-located. Sometimes, though, it’s much harder to recognize when our own homes might actually be triggering buyers’ distaste - or disgust. 

Earlier this year, I gave you some critical insights into what specific things turn buyers off - and now I’m back with a handful more! Whether you’re preparing to sell your home, or you’re in the market to buy a home and want to be aware of what the property’s resale prospects might be, here are five home features and characteristics that are big-time turn-offs for today’s home buyers.

1.  Pools. Twenty years ago, having a pool was seen as a luxurious amenity - almost a status symbol that you had made it, if your home had one. Fast forward a couple of decades, though, and many home buyers are turning down homes specifically because they have a pool.

There are a couple of core buyer subgroups who love pools: people who live in places where summers are super hot and people who really like to swim. But those buyers are vastly outranked in number by these other subgroups: 

• people who know they won’t swim enough to use a pool, and think that maintaining one would just be a waste of their time, energy and money
• people who would rather have a yard, and are looking for homes in areas where they either have a pool or a backyard - but not both, and
• people who have young children and see a pool as a safety hazard.

If you happen to have a pool, your best bet is to market your home as best you can to those buyers who truly want one, and to mitigate the perceived negatives of pool ownership by being both pragmatic and creative:

• ensuring the pool has a well-functioning fence and cover, 
• staging the rest of the backyard in a way that maximizes the non-swimming activities a buyer will see as possible in the outdoor space, and/or 
• offering to pre-pay for a year of the buyer’s pool maintenance as an incentive of the home sale transaction.

2.  Your stuff.  Yes - your taste is immaculate. But it’s your taste. What buyers are really looking for when they come to view a home is a palate on which they can envision easily applying their tastes. Accordingly, a primary goal of smart home preparation is depersonalization or neutralization, simply removing most or all of the personalized touches that make your home reflect you unless they are also neutral enough that any buyer, from any age group or cultural background can step in and put their mind’s eye to work at filling in what the place would look like if they lived there.

That said, it’s also entirely possible that your things might not be as attractive, nice or tidy in the eyes of a buyer as you perceive them to be. In the same vein, the tchotchkes, knickknacks and memorabilia that you see as cozy and warm are highly likely to be seen by buyers as dumpy clutter. I have personally been in homes with a number of buyers where the fact that the sellers still had so much stuff or such bad stuff throughout the home distracted the buyers from appreciating the property’s true potential, and what it might be like if they simply made some cosmetic edits and redecorated.

We’ve talked a lot over the years about the idea of simply pre-packing, staging by boxing up everything but the very most basic daily essentials and get them ready to move - some sellers find that to be a much more effective way to think about the project of decluttering.  Also, you can reset your own perspective on what you need to get rid of or move out to put your home on the market by visiting professionally staged Open Houses, hiring a stager just for an hourlong consult or even asking your agent to walk through your home and stick mini-Post It notes on things that need to be moved out before the listing goes live.

3.  Carpet.  Obviously, old, dirty, pet-impacted and bizarrely colored carpets (red?!) are not a draw for buyers. But this generation of home buyers takes the carpet conundrum even further, exhibiting a distaste for carpet - period. Concerns about the relative difficulty and expense of cleaning carpets, to the cost of replacing them when you want a decor change, to the tendency of carpets to hold pet hair, mites and other allergens that may impact family members with respiratory issues are, collectively causing carpet to fall out of favor with today’s home buyers. 

The majority of home buyers express a desire to have hardwood floors in their next home; other hard floor surfaces, from bamboo to tile to concrete to cork, are rapidly outpacing the popularity of carpets (though some buyers do still prefer the softness and warmth of carpets in their bedrooms). 

If you were thinking about replacing your carpets before you put your home on the market, consider replacing at least the living and dining areas with hard wood or a similar finish.  And if your home has carpet over hardwood, talk with your agent about exploring the idea of ripping it up - it might not be as expensive to repair or refinish as you think, and in many areas, buyers prefer even an imperfect hardwood floor over nice carpets.

4.  Gold bathroom fixtures.  Gold bathroom fixtures are part of a larger category of buyer turn-offs perhaps best described as things that are old, but not old enough to be vintage, retro, classic or historic. As a general rule, this includes household appliances, finishes and decor that dates from the ‘70s and ‘80s, give or take a decade, depending on where you’re at. For instance, the popularity of Mad Men has driven a massive amount of interest in all things mid-century modern, bringing the 50’s and 60’s decor and design aesthetics that just seemed plain and old when I was a child back into vogue - but somewhat more in urban than suburban taste zeitgeists.  

This means that those goldenrod refrigerators and wallpapers with marigold, orange and avocado floral patterns are decidedly passe. Similarly, gold bathroom and lighting fixtures, popular in the 80s and 90s are seen as dated by buyers, who much prefer sleeker, matte-er stainless, brushed chrome and even bronze or white finishes where metal finishes are necessary.  Is this just another trend? Yes.  But replacing gold bathroom finishes and recessed lighting can covers is relatively inexpensive to do; touch base with your stager or agent regarding whether they think these micro-home improvements will make much of a difference with buyers in your area and your home’s price range.

5.  Elaborate gardens and/or vast landscaping.  A huge backyard seems like it’d be a big draw.  So do the flower and botanical gardens that the seller obviously spent hour upon hour designing and tending to. But they also seem like a lot of work to today’s time-strapped and cash-conscious buyers. Not long ago, a buyer I know actually de-prioritized a home they otherwise loved, because it was surrounded by an enormous Japanese garden, bonsais and all, that the buyer admired, but knew they could and would never be able to care for.  Same can go for elaborate, high-maintenance food gardens or even super-large front and backyards: some buyers simply know they don’t or won’t put the time, money and water into their care, so would rather not take them on.

Nothing about this should stop you from creating such an outdoor space if that is part and parcel of the lifestyle you want to live in your home. But it should be a factor you consider if you are concerned about reselling your home in the near future, and it might impact how you market your home if it has any of these sorts of features. If you have a miniature botanical garden at your home, why not find out if the local botanical garden or garden society has a newsletter you can place an ad in? If you have bees and chickens in the middle of Chicago or the heart of L.A., is there an urban farming club or blog that reaches that audience?  

Work with your agent to research where local buyers who would love your home’s unique or high-maintenance features, then market your home to them via publications, websites or organizations in which they already participate.  Once you understand that the average buyer might find these features to be less-than-desirable, it’s time to get creative about finding the buyer who will find them to be just what they’ve always wanted.

Words That Used To Mean Something Totally Different

Did you know that the word awful, which now means very unpleasant, once meant inspiring wonder? Or that the original meaning of the word guy was a person of grotesque appearance? And that the original meaning of sophisticated was unnatural or contaminated?

27 Words That Used To Mean Something Totally Different.

Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge wreck reveals secrets of the real Pirate of the Caribbean

Divers exploring the wreck of Blackbeard’s flagship Queen Anne's Revenge are bringing to the surface new evidence of the terrifying tactics used by the pirate.

by Jasper Copping

He was a real-life pirate of the Caribbean, who carefully cultivated a bloodthirsty reputation that struck fear through seafarers.

Now, almost 300 years after Blackbeard's death, marine archaeologists have discovered a huge anchor and an arsenal of "improvised" ammunition from the wreck of his flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge.

New evidence about the terrifying and deadly tactics employed by Blackbeard is emerging from the diving expedition on the vessel’s presumed remains. The divers have discovered that weapons used by the pirate were not only intended to kill but were designed to strike terror into survivors and force them into a swift surrender.

The shipwreck lies in about 25ft of water just off the coast of  North Carolina and the expedition to recover artifacts is being led by the state’s Department of Cultural Resources.

During the two-week exploration, the team aimed to recover a 1.4 ton (3,000lb) anchor from the ship, which they have now successfully raised.

They are also searching for three large “artifact conglomerates” – or “clusters” of metallic objects – which, as they have deteriorated, have stuck together. Once on the surface, the items can be separated up into their constituent parts and identified.
The “conglomerates” – which cover areas of up to a meter and a half by a meter square of the sea bed – are thought to contain an unusual assortment of “improvised” missiles and weaponry used by the pirate to inflict both terror and casualties on enemy ships.
On earlier dives, the researchers have found evidence of a range of “makeshift” devices, such as canvas bags filled with a lethal mass of lead shot, nails, spikes and glass and then fired from the cannon, pouring a deadly hail of projectiles onto opponents. This type of bundled ammunition was known as “langrage” and was not used by Royal Navy ships, according to 18th-century documents.
The ship’s unusual arsenal already identified also includes nine-inch bolts, which were pushed down in the barrels of cannons and would by fired out by a cannonball loaded behind them, as well as “double-headed” cannonballs – where two are linked together by a bar or chain – and which produced a spinning effect when fired from cannon and were effective at bringing down rigging.
The researchers’ bid to bring the ordnance to the surface comes as Blackbeard himself is resurrected in the new film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which was released earlier this month. His ship is also depicted in the new film, in which the pirate is portrayed by British actor Ian McShane, while his fictional daughter, Angelica, is played by Penelope Cruz.
The leader of the expedition and deputy state archaeologist, Dr Mark Wilde-Ramsing, said: “This vessel is heavily armed but the crew are not using that many cannonballs. Mostly, they seem to have used these improvised missiles that can be used to take out the crew or disarm the other ship’s sails.
“These weapons would terrorize the enemy. It is all part of Blackbeard’s terror tactics. These are the sorts of things we hope we can find in these conglomerates. I think we will see more contrivances like that which will shed light on the kind of person he was.”
Angus Konstam, author of Piracy: The Complete History, said: “The improvised charges show a lot of ingenuity on the part of the pirates. These would have been anti-personal charges. They wouldn’t do much damage to a ship but would do a lot of damage to people in it. Their aim was to capture a ship by intimidation and leave it in pristine condition. They didn’t want to damage the ship or its cargo.”
During the expedition, which ends this week, the team are also fixing experimental zinc anodes to any large metal items they are not yet able to recover, including cannons.
The devices will conserve the artifacts before they can be brought to the surface by slowing, and possibly even reversing, the process of corrosion.
The wreck was first discovered in 1997 and the state government is now behind a scheme, similar in scale to the Mary Rose project, to excavate and recover items from the ship, before it is lost, as sand around the vessel is eroded away by storms.
A further recovery expedition is planned for the autumn.
Blackbeard is believed to have been born Edward Teach, or Edward Thatch, in Bristol, in 1680. He fought as a privateer for the British, attacking Spanish and French ships in the War of the Spanish Succession, before turning to piracy. His troop captured a French slave ship called La Concorde near the Caribbean island of St Vincent in November 1717 and renamed it Queen Anne’s Revenge. It became his flagship, sailing alongside three smaller sloops.
The ship ran aground on a sandbank about a mile from shore on June 10 1718, as Blackbeard’s flotilla of four vessels was heading for Beaufort Inlet, in the then British colony of North Carolina.
Blackbeard’s striking appearance and character has inspired many subsequent depictions of pirates. He is said to have had 14 wives, and would tie burning fuses into his long beard before battle to give himself a demonic appearance. His flag depicted a skeleton spearing a heart while toasting the devil.
It has been claimed that he deliberately cultivated a fearsome reputation so enemy sailors would not put up a fight, allowing him to seize vessels without the need for violence.
After the loss of his flagship, Blackbeard sought and was granted a pardon. But he continued to seize ships, and the Royal Navy were sent to track him down. He was killed in a battle in November 1718, after which his head was cut off and his body tossed overboard.
According to legend, his headless corpse swam around his ship five times before he finally died. His head was attached to the bowsprit of a Navy ship and his skull was later used as a punch bowl.

Farming carbon

Farming carbon: Study reveals potent carbon-storage potential of manmade wetlands

After being drained by the millions of acres to make way for agriculture, wetlands are staging a small comeback these days on farms. Some farmers restore or construct wetlands alongside their fields to trap nitrogen [...]

Fairy Rings

Have you ever gone walking in the woods and found a "fairy ring" of mushrooms? What causes the toadstools to grow in this circular pattern?

The fungi you can see is actually the outer ring of a mycelium that's growing underground. A spore lands, germinates and grows outwards in every direction. You'll also often see that the grass around the mushrooms grows better, because the mycelium is breaking down the organic matter in the soil, making it more accessible for both the mycelium and the surrounding plants. These rings can grow up to 10m in diameter.

Fruits and Vegetables Are Alive

Okay, we knew on one level that fruits and vegetables are still "alive," because we can grow a new plant from just a piece of celery, carrot, or potato from the produce market. But a new study throws a different light on the concept of "life," as far as plants are concerned.

A study published online today in the journal Current Biology found that store-bought cabbage, lettuce, spinach, zucchini, sweet potatoes, carrots, and blueberries respond to light-dark cycles up to about a week after harvest.

And when the produce was kept on the same light-dark cycle as a predator—cabbage looper moth caterpillars (Trichoplusia ni)—it was better able to resist attacks.

Circadian clocks tell plants when the seasons change due to variations in day length, said Janet Braam, a plant biologist at Rice University in Houston, Texas. But the clock is also critical in plant defenses against insects.

"[Plants] know when the insects eat," said Braam, who is a co-author on the recent study, "so they can prepare a defense in advance."

Thinking about this led me to wonder if scientists can take individual cells from fruit and determine whether they are still alive. And when do they really die? Two weeks in the refrigerator? When we cut them? Or when we cook or eat them? Thinking along these lines can lead to nightmares. Read more about the study at NatGeo News.