Accidental Blogger

Pretty fly (prasad)

Visual computations tend to be generically hard and resource intensive. For example, our state-of-the-art algorithm for yaw detection in flight apparently needs Moore's Law engorged Intel Cores to do anything useful. And yet mere flies seem to manage the number-crunching just fine...The trick at least in this instance seems to be that flies aren't using our stupid state-of-the-art algorithm. Theirs is vastly nicer:

By turning the brain cell activity underlying fly eyesight into mathematical equations, researchers have found an ultra-efficient method for pulling motion patterns from raw visual data.[...]

“We can build a system that works perfectly well, inspired by biology, without having a complete understanding of how the components interact. It’s a non-linear system,” said David O’Carroll, a computational neuroscientist who studies insect vision at Australia’s University of Adelaide. “The number of computations involved is quite small. We can get an answer using tens of thousands of times less floating-point computations than in traditional ways.”[...]

The researchers’ algorithm is composed of a series of five equations through which data from cameras can be run. Each equation represents tricks used by fly circuits to handle changing levels of brightness, contrast and motion, and their parameters constantly shift in response to input. Unlike Lucas-Kanade, the algorithm doesn’t return a frame-by-frame comparison of every last pixel, but emphasizes large-scale patterns of change. In this sense, it works a bit like video-compression systems that ignore like-colored, unshifting areas.

There's probably some generic lesson here - the set of efficient solutions to any problem could well be vastly larger than the subset which makes use of well-separated, clear, extensible cases, modular reasoning, simple and readily debugged steps and the like, which subset in turn is probably larger than that of solutions people tend to come up with. Nature, with no particular need for comprehensibility or ease of maintenance, can happily brute-force out methods that work rather well while making no sense.

I'm sure that's overstated - eyes work in quite sensible ways - while R&D and further inquiry will doubtless clarify what now seems inexplicable because of novelty. Still, I shouldn't be surprised if many mind-tricks turned out to be like this - no human smart enough to do the amazing thing would have the cheek to do it this maddening, meaningless, hideous way.

Happy Thanksgiving...or Not (Sujatha)

It's good to be thankful on Thanksgiving, or not, per PZ Myers of Pharyngula.

"This whole notion that one should have vague and aimless feelings of gratitude for the nature of one's existence is just too weird, and the bow-your-head-at-the-table and radiate-blessings-at-the-cosmos tradition is pointless and silly. Don't get me wrong: I can be appropriately and happily grateful to people who have gone out of their way to do good for me — Mom will get a phone call, and my wife will get a hug, and they really are appreciated — but for the most part, our existence is not the product of selfless altruism, and there is nothing out there that can be aware of just how glad you are to be alive, no matter how fawning and fulsome you may be."

But I swear, I did see a bunch of thankful turkeys. Here they are. For those little moments of happiness, I am truly thankful.

The wonder peptide hormone (Joe)

Oxytocin: it's behind all prosocial behavior, and Wall Street wouldn't exist without it.  I'm not quite sure capitalism was the point of the study, but still, that's what I'm choosing to to take out of it.  Interesting article.

Kerr, originalism, and the right to counsel (Joe)

Orin has a post up at Volokh Conspiracy posing a thought experiment (or something) to originalists.  Essentially, it's been good constitutional law for a long time that the sixth amendment right to counsel means that the state must provide an attorney for a criminal defendant (in a sufficiently serious case).  Under stare decisis principles, this shouldn't be changed.  But if you're an originalist, meaning that you believe either the original public meaning or the original intended/expected application should govern constitutional interpretation, should you favor overruling all those cases?  At the time the U.S. Constitution was drafted, in England the right to counsel meant that you could get the assistance of counsel if you could afford a lawyer, which was itself a break from the older tradition in which defendants didn't get lawyers, period.  Or so the theory goes.  So, arguendo, the originalist reading of the sixth amendment is that it guarantees you the right to be represented by an attorney if you can afford to hire an attorney.  You're an originalist.  What do you do?

This is supposed to get at what the proper role of stare decisis (adherence to legal precedents) is to an originalist.  I get that.  But unless I'm just missing something, this seems like a lousy example.  Even if we agree that the original meaning of the sixth amendment right to assistance of counsel means the government doesn't have to pay for lawyers for indigent defendants, the fifth and fourteenth amendments guarantee "due process of law."  As far as I know, even among wacko conservatives (ahem, Justice Thomas), it is undisputed that this guarantees procedural due process, i.e., a procedurally fair trial.  And I feel fairly confident in saying that there's absolutely no way that, under our current legal system, a felony defendant can get a procedurally fair trial if he doesn't have an attorney.  Thus, the due process clauses of other amendments have to independently guarantee the right to an appointed attorney.  Which means that that the originalist who doesn't believe in stare decisis only gets to say "well, you should hold that it's guaranteed by the fifth and fourteenth amendments instead of the sixth."  Or really, the originalist justice will at most say "it's guaranteed by the fifth and fourteenth amendments, and we therefore do not reach the question of whether it's guaranteed by the sixth." 

3 QD Prize in Politics

One of my favorite blogs, 3 Quarks Daily has announced the third of its slated competitions in best writing on blogs. This round is for the three best political blog posts published anywhere in the blogosphere during the last 12 months. Please see the contest rules and deadlines and submit a post that you consider worthy of a prize. Remember it does not have to be just American politics. Keep an eye on the contest even if you don't submit a post.

Chasing the Paliban (Sujatha)

Sarah Palin made it to my corner of the woods, this Saturday afternoon. "Thousands" lined up to meet her, per the gushing report from the Washington PA Observer-Reporter

(Note, the website page had been read 297 times by the time I saw it. Are there thousands of people in Washington PA, or was the true number of gawkers and admirers just barely over 2000, which would have qualified for the use of the plural?)

"Thousands of people stood in a queue outside Sam’s Club at Trinity Point Saturday morning, many standing in line overnight, for a chance to see Sarah Palin and have her autograph a copy of her new book.

...

Sharon Jacobs of Greer, S.C., along with her sister, Amy Gerwing of Venetia, got into line about 8:30 p.m. Friday outside the store. For Gerwing, it was not only an opportunity to have her books signed but to thank Palin for the note she sent to the Peters Township woman when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Palin sent her a note offering words of encouragement from herself and her husband, Todd Palin. Gerwing said a friend of hers sent Palin an e-mail about her diagnosis. Palin sent the note a few weeks later.

Jacobs said while her sister is a big Palin supporter, she was ambivalent about the former Republican vice presidential nominee who may be pointing for her own run to the White House.

“I am trying to educate myself and learn more about her,” Jacobs said. 

-----------

Why didn't the folksy note translate into unquestioning adoration for Palin, I wonder. Maybe Palin's early departure leaving 400-odd unsigned books at Noblesville, Indiana yesterday had them wondering about the wisdom of relying on Palin.

Also, some camped there overnight in their enthusiasm - at least 40 people were in line at 8:30 pm on Friday, as they formed new friendships over mutual admiration of Palin. "He said Palin is likable because she is a down-to-earth conservative woman. "She hunts," he added."

For this area,  like many others, is Hunter's Paradise, the land of the brave, the free, the 'bitter who cling to their guns and religion'.

To Mammo or Not Mammo (Sujatha)

A few days ago, the headlines blared that a federally appointed Task Force of doctors and scientists recommended that the age for using mammography as a screening tool to detect breast cancer be increased from the current 40-49 years to 50-59 years, be dispensed with for those older than 75 and be biannual for those in the suggested age range for screening, rather than annual, also that breast self-exam teaching to women was essentially useless and generated more anxiety than results.

A furore erupted. The American Cancer Society and almost all major medical bodies  vehemently attacked these recommendations as being unwarranted, given that the screening for women aged 40-49 has saved many lives. The emotional/familial cost benefit of a life saved vs. a thousand more women subjected to 'anxiety from needless tests' was vastly more than the corresponding economic cost benefit.

These recommendations are what happen when the cold realities of models and benefits of screenings vs. lives saved are weighed as the major factor in deciding public policy.

Among the studies quoted by the task force:

JAMA- "Rethinking screening for Breast and Prostate Cancer"

"After 20 years of screening for breast and prostate cancer, several observations can be made. First, the incidence of these cancers increased after the introduction of screening but has never returned to prescreening levels. Second, the increase in the relative fraction of early stage cancers has increased. Third, the incidence of regional cancers has not decreased at a commensurate rate. One possible explanation is that screening may be increasing the burden of low-risk cancers without significantly reducing the burden of more aggressively growing cancers and therefore not resulting in the anticipated reduction in cancer mortality. To reduce morbidity and mortality from prostate cancer and breast cancer, new approaches for screening, early detection, and prevention for both diseases should be considered."

SEER Stat Fact Sheets:

"SEER Incidence

From 2002-2006, the median age at diagnosis for cancer of the breast was 61 years of age³X Close
Table I-11 (http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/ 1975_2006/results_single/ sect_01_table.11_2pgs.pdf). Approximately 0.0% were diagnosed under age 20; 1.9% between 20 and 34; 10.5% between 35 and 44; 22.5% between 45 and 54; 23.7% between 55 and 64; 19.6% between 65 and 74; 16.2% between 75 and 84; and 5.5% 85+ years of age."

Compared with say, lung cancer, the number of women per 100,000 who die of lung cancer is approximately 40, as opposed to 24 in 100,000 due to breast cancer, from the SEER website. So breast cancer is not the number-one killer cancer of women, though with all the pink ribbons, we might think that it is the most deadly cancer for women in the US.

So, the good doctors assembled and came to the conclusion that pushing for early screenings for a cancer that is deadlier in an older age group is nonsensical, and that it causes unnecessary scaremongering for younger women who aren't quite as likely to die of breast cancer. Hence the recommendations.

But here's when the intersection occurs of  'One life saved is worth it' and emotional appeals from 100,000 women freshly diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ at the age of 40 or thereabouts, followed by chemotherapy regimens designed to kill those and label all of them as breast cancer survivors who proudly wear pink ribbons to announce their status, even as they muster courage to fight on, while death is held at bay through expensive medication to prevent recurrence. The argument moves from the numbers and public health policy decisions to that of emotional appeals.

As for me, maybe I'll take the middle way out, given that  I live in a much more xenoestrogenic environment in the US, as opposed to where I was born and brought up. I'll mammo after another 4-5 years, rather than immediately.

As for Pap smears, there appears to be no hue and cry over the new recommendations by the physicians' body for OB-Gynes, so I'll take their word for it and postpone those uncomfortable tests to match their new suggested schedule.

"Dr. Iglesia said the argument for changing Pap screening was more compelling than that for cutting back on mammography — which the obstetricians’ group has staunchly opposed — because there is more potential for harm from the overuse of Pap tests. The reason is that young women are especially prone to develop abnormalities in the cervix that appear to be precancerous, but that will go away if left alone. But when Pap tests find the growths, doctors often remove them, with procedures that can injure the cervix and lead to problems later when a woman becomes pregnant, including premature birth and an increased risk of needing a Caesarean."

Visualizing Empires Decline

An attractive visual time line of the disappearance of world empires.  (via 3 Quarks Daily)

Bow Wow!

For some people nothing President Obama does can pass leadership muster. To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, "If Barack Obama walks on water, some will criticize him for not knowing how to swim."  
 
Okay, okay, so Obama bowed  a bit too deeply before the emperor of Japan.  May be he wasn't coached properly by the White House protocol office. Or perhaps, he is just too polite. Whatever. At least he didn't hold hands and do a silly dance with the Saudi royals. And since when is Dick "shoot your friend in the face" Cheney the model of courteous behavior? 

 


 

The Recession As Racial Equalizer (Dean)

What's going on here? It's a bittersweet human interest tale with some facts and figures mixed in, not too cloying.

Blacks and whites have encountered one another in increasing numbers recently in the crowded waiting rooms of the welfare office and at the food pantry, where many of both races have ventured for the first time. Struggling black-owned businesses are attracting the attention of white patrons. Neighbors are commiserating across racial lines.

[...]

Across the country, there have been many reports about the recession’s racial divide, as blacks have lost their jobs and houses at far higher rates than whites. But Henry County, about a 30-minute drive south of downtown Atlanta, has a very different profile from the rest of the nation. In Henry, the median income of black families, $56,715 in 2008, approaches that of whites, $69,728 (nationally, the average income gap was $20,000). Blacks in Henry County, many of whom are retirees from the North or professionals who work in Atlanta, are more likely than whites to have a college degree.

That does not mean that Henry County is a perfect laboratory of equality. Blacks made up a disproportionately high number of those seeking government assistance both before and after the slowdown. Since 2006, the number of blacks on Medicaid has more than tripled, outpacing the increase among whites.

But it seems as if a point is being missed when a black man's preemptive apology—"I’m not racist, but it’s harder for black men."—goes unremarked, indeed, is used to convey a facile notion of equality, one for which racism is little more than a personal preference. I have a hard time swallowing the notion that the leveling phenomenon of Henry County is a silver lining of the economic cloud. If a bridge is spanning a racial divide, it's more likely due to a shared oppression than to a sudden recognition of common needs and ambitions. Wealth and power can be wholesomely color-blind when targeting subjects to exploit.

The Fort Hood Massacre

Two views on why it happened:

Charles Krauthammer's "call it like it is" excoriation of political correctness.

What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre playing down Nidal Hasan's religious beliefs. ...

....Was anything done about this potential danger? Of course not. Who wants to be accused of Islamophobia and prejudice against a colleague's religion?

One must not speak of such things. Not even now. Not even after we know that Hasan was in communication with a notorious Yemen-based jihad propagandist. As late as Tuesday, The New York Times was running a story on how returning soldiers at Fort Hood had a high level of violence.

What does such violence have to do with Hasan? He was not a returning soldier. And the soldiers who returned home and shot their wives or fellow soldiers didn't cry "Allahu Akbar" as they squeezed the trigger.

The delicacy about the religion in question -- condescending, politically correct and deadly -- is nothing new. A week after the first (1993) World Trade Center attack, the same New York Times ran the following front-page headline about the arrest of one Mohammed Salameh: "Jersey City Man Is Charged in Bombing of Trade Center."

Ah yes, those Jersey men -- so resentful of New York, so prone to violence.

Frank Rich's more nuanced and actually, more scary analysis of the danger that lurks in places from Killeen to Kabul. (Read the whole article)

Sunday Cyber-Sermon (Sujatha)

Here are the suggestions of Sujatha, the humble not-so-uber-geeky blogger, on C&Ping from webpages when composing blog posts:

1. Focus on Tested Websites, not obscurities. (Psalm 345:1-3)

Notice how Sujatha extols Google first. Then, in comparison to Google, she has no need of alternate search engines.

"The Google is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?"

"The Google is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

Undoubtedly one of the greatest hurdles to overcome in blogging is fear, the fear of PC Viruses, Trojans and Malware.

Sujatha did not let fear take the blog out of her life.
Blogger Ruchira shares the story of a person who had a very bad day.

"Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen."

It began when Mike was suspected based on his internet charges by his employers of excessive internet usage. An investigation turned up pornographic pictures on his computer, which cost him his job and thousands of dollars in money spent to clear himself of the charges, which were found to have been the result of PC viruses downloading porn on his computer when he wasn't even at work.

Have you ever felt like that? One minute you’re whistling through life, blogging away happily and the next you’re caught up in a whirlwind of stress, as unwanted ads pop up on your blog's webpage.  Life sucks you up into its vortex and just when you think you’ve recovered from one trouble another wind of adversity blows in your direction.

Don’t be like Mike. Don’t let the blog go out of your life.

But how is this possible? It becomes possible when we focus on who the Devil WebAdsman is. In the case of Ruchira and her blog, it was the material cut and pasted from the Smithsonian website, that had the horrendous hidden code, which showed up C&Ping to Notepad. It quoth "Read more:http://smithsonian.blah.blah.blah.com" and stealthily, like the verily serpent that is Satan, downloaded Ads for cars and other monuments to human greed to tempt us faithful bloggers from the path of righteousness.

He is our light. He is our salvation. We are no longer living in the darkness of sin. We will diligently check for hidden code when we cut and paste from internet sources. No enemy can take the Internet’s salvation from us! No enemy can impose Satanic Ads on our blog posts!

--With apologies to The original sermon creator and a tip of the hat to Margaret Atwood and her marvellous alternate theology of The God's Gardeners in her latest book "The Year of the Flood"

Oba Mao

The Chinese enthusiastically await President Obama. He is by far the most popular foreign leader in China.  To commemorate the visit artists have created the likeness of Obama in Chinese Red Guard uniform on t-shirts and other paraphernalia (not for sale) and a flaming Obama statue (because he is so hot).

 

A man, a bird and a million dollar automobile

Actually, this is all about the automobile. Normally, given the same circumstances - on an interstate feeder road near a hurricane levee between Houston and Galveston, a car veers off into 3 feet of water and no one is hurt, the news would have only made it to the police blotter or perhaps garnered a few lines in the local news section of the city paper. Instead it was plastered on the front pages of Texas newspapers and has appeared in several news outlets and blogs all over the country. By curious coincidence, on last Wednesday, the day the accident took place, the brown pelican was deemed safely out of the endangered list by the Texas Audubon Society and the US Department of the Interior. See the full man-bird-car story here.

(A Bugatti Veyron EB and a brown pelican in flight)

 

Hiroshima - Nagasaki: Places to Avoid

No sitting US president has ever visited the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only major urban centers on earth that bear testimony to the effects of nuclear warfare. President Jimmy Carter went to Hiroshima as an ex-president. Nancy Pelosi is the highest ranking US official to have paid a visit to Hiroshima while in office. 

President Obama will visit Japan during his Asian trip. Obama is hugely popular there and his winning the Nobel Peace Prize had raised the hopes of Japanese citizens that he might become the first US president to set foot in one of the two cities that the Japanese consider the strongest case against future nuclear proliferation and for banning nuclear weapons altogether. But Obama's tight schedule includes only a brief stop in Tokyo with no time left to go to either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Obama did assure the Japanese press in an interview that he will one day visit both places during his presidency. Incidentally, no sitting Japanese prime minister has ever visited Pearl Harbor.

Two reports here and here.

The Light Bulb Factory in Hiroshima - Ground Zero on August 6, 1945

Uneasy Alliances

Since Ronald Reagan first began flirting with the religious right, the ultra conservative base of the Republican Party has become steadily more empowered. Although for both Reagan and Bush Sr. lip service to the far right wing was political expediency, nearly three decades later, the one time fringe players have become the king makers of the GOP. Paul Krugman chronicles the transformation of the wing nuts from the role of the exploited to that of whip crackers.  Conservatism is no longer defined merely by its opposition to taxes and social services. Anyone seeking leadership in the Republican Party must also prove their Christian credentials. Rather unsurprisingly, the party's politicians are caught in a trap of their own making. As Pakistan is finding out, you cannot cynically pander to religious fundamentalism for political gain and hope not to play by its rules. Newt Gingrich is the latest GOP hot shot to realize that to succeed in his own party, he must bear the cross.

In another part of the world, where the west is fighting an ill defined war, it is hard to tell between friend and foe. Sometimes therefore, friends end up paying a steep price. (Link: my sister, Mandira)

The AMA questions US government policies towards gays

The American Medical Association (AMA) has just concluded its bi-annual policy conference in Houston during which the organization addressed public health policies including the cost and management of medical care in America. This year the AMA has come out in favor of health care and insurance reform. Also, it has weighed in on gay marriage and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of the US military. The AMA favors the former and opposes the latter. According to the largest physicians' group in the US, denying marriage (or legal partnership) rights to gay Americans and requring them to conceal their sexual orientation while serving in the armed forces, jeopardize their health. 

Weighing in on two contentious gay-rights issues, the nation's largest group of doctors sent the message Tuesday that government policy is hazardous to homosexuals' health.

The policy-making arm of the American Medical Association, wrapping up its four-day biannual meeting in Houston, adopted one resolution saying that bans on same-sex marriage contribute to health care disparities, and another calling for a repeal of the military's “don't ask, don't tell” policy because the AMA says it's detrimental to the health of gay and lesbian individuals in the service.

“The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force thanks the AMA for taking these positions today,” Rea Carey, executive director of the Washington-based advocacy organization, said in a statement. “The AMA is making it clear that these discriminatory policies pose significant, real-life threats to the health and well-being of thousands of people across the country.”

Jenny Tyree of the Christian advocacy group Focus on the Family responded that the same-sex marriage resolution seemed based on information drawn from gay rights groups and reflected that “political agenda.” She said such disparities are a health insurance problem, not a marriage problem, and added that the insurance problem “should be fixed rather than mess with marriage.”

The AMA took no position on whether gay marriage should be legal.

(cartoon by Tom Toles)

All Sujatha wants for Christmas is a book by Malcom Gladwell

Here is why.

Maddy wants patient choice!

Babies and cute animals sell products. Congressman John Shadegg of Arizona set out to take that marketing ploy a bit too far, in fact nauseatingly so.  During last Saturday's debate on health care reform, he used an infant like a ventriloquist's dummy to make his case against publicly funded medical insurance. Even by the low standards of honesty and decency set by the Republicans, Rep Shadegg's exploitative grandstanding was cringeworthy. 

Meanwhile, the number of uninsured Arizonans is depressingly high and rising. 

 

 

Who Is a Jew in England? (Joe)

Potentially misleading subject adapted from the headline of this NYT article.  An Orthodox Jewish high school in London is refusing to admit a Jewish student who is not, by Orthodox standards, Jewish, because he is not Jewish.  Predictably, there's a court challenge.  By my definition, the kid is obviously Jewish: his father is Jewish, his mother converted to Judaism in a progressive synagogue, he was raised and identifies as Jewish.  By the orthodox church's definition, he isn't because his mother converted in a progressive synagogue.

I was surprised, when reading the article, to see that the appellate court ruled that the school's decision was was based on race, rather than religion, and therefore constitutes unlawful discrimination.  An appeal from that to the high court follows, so we'll see what winds up happening.  Without doing any actual research on the specific issue, I'm pretty sure that in the U.S. a court would or could not decide that question based on the first amendment's religion clauses, and I'm nearly certain that a court would refuse to do so based on the internal-affairs doctrine.  Under the internal-affairs doctrine, courts (at least federal courts) do not exercise jurisdiction over the internal affairs of religious organizations, and will not define religion or decide internal religious affairs if they can avoid it. 

You can see the problem: a court tells a Jewish organization or entity how it must define its Jewish membership.  First amendment principles, which I find normatively attractive, do not favor government dictating religious issues.  This is apparently a contentious issue within the Jewish community.  Government deciding religious matters threatens secularism and pluralism.  Yes, the school's decision is offensive, and yes, a court order can remedy this student's problem.  But at the same time, it can't settle the debate in the community, and is likely to only exacerbate tensions.  This demonstrates the limits of law in settling important cultural matters.

A further complication is that Britain has publicly financed religious schools that are allowed to give preference to applicants within their own faiths, which I assume would be unconstitutional in the U.S.  Once the government starts getting involved, where does/can it draw the involvement-uninvolvement line?  If it's not secular, I don't see how this can work.

Health Care Reform -the Cliffs Notes Edition (Sujatha)

The bill passed yesterday that Pres.Obama was ecstatic enough to personally email me about it at 1:03 am. And here I thought that only Hillary Clinton got 3 am calls.
Here is the  section by section summary link  of the HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care For America Act

All's  well and good,even with a restrictive clause on abortion funding in order to get the conservative Blue Dog Democrats to not derail the bill. But little things niggle.
Such as errors in the statement of intent to ensure that insurance companies will be required to pay out at least 85% of the plan money towards treatment of the enrollee.

"Sec. 102. Ensuring value and lower premiums. Amends the Public Health Service Act to require health
insurance issuers in the small and large group market to meet a medical loss ratio of not less than 85%, effective for plan years beginning January 1, 2010. Directs the Secretary to require that plans in the individual market also meet a medical loss ratio of not less than 85% so long as it does not destabilize the existing individual market. If plans exceed that limit, rebates to enrollees are required. In determining the methodology for the medical loss ratio, the Secretary is to design it to ensure adequate participation by issuers, competition in the market, and value for consumers."

A better summary  would have said "If plans do not meet the minimum medical loss ratio, rebates to enrollees are required." This is a section summary, so one would have to read the actual bill for the specific language, which I haven't.

But there is a whole box of goodies, most of which take effect on Jan 1, 2010. No more pre-existing condition based denials, no more rescission, no lifetime caps, immediate provision for a large group of high-risk uninsured till the proposed Health Insurance Exchange (aka Public Option, if I'm not mistaken) comes into existence, etc., etc.

In the spirit of not lettling the perfect be the enemy of the good, we have a bill, warts and all, passed in the House of Representatives. The next milestone will be the Senate Health Care bill and debate- the next blockbuster thriller.
Stay tuned for the epic battle 'Duel in the Sun', starring  Harry Reid, Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, Evan Bayh et al.
(Teaser: Will Bayh block debate, even though he said he wouldn't? Will the GOP and Joe Liarman succeed in thwarting the efforts of Harry Reid  to get the bill out the door? Will it Snowe or won't it?)

Other Links:

Generate a side-by-side comparison of all the different flavors of Health Care Reform proposals.

Ezra Klein's summary of How the Big Bad Insurance Companies work.

Wendell Potter, ex-CIGNA executive's testimony to Congress regarding health insurance company practices.

Ansel Adams in Color

During our childhood, for many years and even more hours, my sister and I used to pore over a book of photography that our father had brought home when I was probably six or seven years old and my sister two or three. The collection consisted of black and white pictures from all over the world. We were entranced by The Family of Man whose content took us to remote corners of the world inhabited by landscapes and people we never expected to see in real life. What we did not know at the time because we  paid scant attention to the names of the photographers, that it was our first exposure to the famous Ansel Adams, many of whose photos were included in the collection. The fact that black and white images of deserts, stark mountains, rivers and canyons in far away America (none of Adams' photos in the book featured anything live other than trees) fascinated two very young children at an age when color pictures of people and animals usually appear more interesting, says something about the hypnotic quality of his photography. That copy of The Family of Man of our childhood became tattered due to our love for it.  About fifteen years ago, my sister and I each obtained a new edition of the book in order to preserve our fond nostalgia. (This exceptional book of photography has been continuously in print since 1955.)

Photographs like those that my sister and I admired, have made Black & White the signature colors of Adams' photographic legacy. But Adams also took color pictures, many in fact, mostly as remunerative commissions for commercial outfits. He had planned to put together a book of his color photos a few years before his death but never got around to finishing the project. In 1993 a book was published showcasing that other half of his work, Ansel Adams in Color, which has now been reprinted in 2009. A review of the book appears in this month's Smithsonian Magazine. (See photo gallery here) The color photos in the hands of the consummate shutterbug are terrific also. But many viewers (and the photographer himself) insist that Adams' artististic brilliance is far more spectacular in the works where he utilized his beloved palette of just two shades - black and white.

"I can get - for me - a far greater sense of 'color' through a well planned and executed black-and-white image than I have ever achieved with color photography," he [Adams] wrote in 1967. For Adams, who could translate sunlight's blinding spectrum into binary code perhaps more accurately than anyone before or since, there was "an infinite scale of values" in monochrome. Color was mere reality, the lumpy world given for everyone to look at, before artists began the difficult and honorable job of trying to perfect it in shades of gray. 

Two similar photos by Ansel Adams, one in color and the other black & white.

Label? Diagnosis? Ill-Defined Something? (Joe)

Interesting NYT article about the movement for the 2012 DSM-V to get rid of "Asperger's syndrome," as well as "pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified," and make everything fall within the autism spectrum.  Link.

A puzzle on gay marriage (prasad)

1. Roughly equal parts of the country want gay marriage, civil unions without marriage, and no legal recognition whatsoever. I'm assuming the second category is what 'swings' in marriage votes as in California or Maine.
2. Ad campaigns that cleverly use the words 'gay' and 'children' in the same sentence seem, at least for now, to be effective against marriage equality
3. The number of people who're fine with gay adoption and fertility treatments is rather larger than the number who want marriage.

Now point 2. suggests to me people who're willing to suffer consenting adults doing as they please, but who draw the line at imposing externalities upon children, perhaps until there is conclusive research. This has been seen in Europe; Belgium for instance made same sex marriage legal before gay adoption.

Point 3 instead suggests those who don't think teh ghey destroys childhoods or seduces and corrupts youth, but who want to feel superior to gay folk, people whose psychologies are well described by John Holbo:

What makes these arguments so weird is the mildness of the underlying opposition to homosexuals and homosexuality – the implicit inclination to be basically tolerant. ‘C’mon, gays, you know you’re ok, and we know you’re ok, and you even know that we know you’re ok, but we don’t like it, so can’t there be some way that we can insist on us being a little better than you? It can be a small thing. Symbolic, but slightly inconvenient for you, so people know it’s also serious?’

I'd like to know what the relative fraction of these sub-populations is! Going by the data-points given,it seems like at least ten percent of America is comfortable with gays adopting, but not with gays marrying. That would suggest 3. (not 2.), but I don't understand why *this* population would have unusual difficulty with gay marriage being "taught in public schools", whatever that means.

What is going on here? What are these people thinking? Might there be low-hanging fruit with outreach efforts aiming to bring marriage and adoption views into harmony? Obviously some people will decide to disapprove of both gay marriage and adoption, but it's plausible to me they'd be outnumbered by those who'd move the opposite way. Even if not, gay adoption isn't a particularly hot or touchy issue, so taking that hit for a boost on gay marriage might be worthwhile. In any case, the constitutional hurdles involved in restricting a sub-population from adopting or seeking reproductive treatments are rather higher...

[Actually, never mind. It might just be a significant Rove-effect, though the media hasn't emphasized one; did evangelicals turn out in disproportionate numbers in Maine? In any case, it seems like targeting the bizarro anti-marriage pro-adoption ten percent might be useful]

"I am them!"

Sounds like something straight out of ancient Hindu philosophy. Well, you realize you are drunk, you are driving and not very well; naturally, it's time to lapse into metaphysics or at the very least, some commendable drunken clarity.

Proving allegiance in hostile times - saving the Lost Battalion

A poignant war story, more than six decades old, describes the desperation and anxiety of Japanese Americans during World War II.  Citizens of the US, they had to prove their loyalty to their country in those uncertain times of suspicion and hostility. Sometimes that involved acts of conspicuous courage and valor.

Even 65 years later, Astro Tortolano thinks almost daily of his struggle to survive in the Vosges Mountains of northern France in October 1944.

Surrounded by German soldiers after stumbling into a trap, Tortolano and about 280 men in the 1st Battalion of the Texas 141st Infantry Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division rationed food and bullets. They fended off Nazi assaults. They thought all hope of surviving was lost.

Six days into the crisis, different soldiers — members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team — broke through enemy lines and led Tortolano and the surviving 211 members of the 1st battalion to safety.

“I'll be forever thankful,” the now 88-year-old said. “I've never forgotten how they saved us.”

Tortolano and 39 members of the 442nd and 141st reunited at Houston's Hyatt Regency Hotel Sunday for a special dinner hosted by the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation to honor them.

The aging veterans, many in their late 80s and 90s, flew in from all over the country this weekend for a possible last meeting between the “Lost Battalion” and their saviors — men in the now legendary 442nd, made up of Asian-Americans, mostly of Japanese descent.

When they met each other, they embraced and swapped stories of old times. And on Sunday, together possibly one last time, they remembered all that they had been through in 1944.

The majority of soldiers in the 442nd were known as Nisei, sons of Japanese immigrants in the United States.

Even with relatives being forced into relocation camps around the U.S., roughly 4,000 men initially agreed to fill the 442nd's ranks in 1943. The 442nd was united by a common bond: At a time of deep discrimination against Japanese-Americans, its members wanted to prove that they were Americans through and through.

“We were proud to do this,” said George Sakato, 88, a California native who joined the military when he was 20. “We wanted to serve our country.”

Shipped overseas after a few weeks of training, the 442nd saw some of the war's fiercest fighting. Members were sent to North Africa and saw intense battles in Italy. There, they developed their fearsome reputation as a respected fighting force.

Before long they were ordered to France. Having absorbed other Nisei from a sister battalion, that is where the 442nd encountered the Lost Battalion.

• •••

The rest of the story here.

The real reason why Pakistan is fragile

Staying on the topic of Pakistan for one more day - this time I bring you a book review by Indian journalist Manoj Joshi. Written by Pakistani born author Farzana Shaikh, the book examines the underlying causes of Pakistan's political and existential turmoil. According to the author, turning its back on the country's multicultural south Asian past and a deliberate (and sometimes conflicted) attempt to redefine itself as a militant (and military) Arabized Muslim nation may have played a role in precipitating an identity crisis in Pakistan. Created more than sixty years ago by the partition of British India, during the Cold War of the last century, Pakistan was used by the United States as its client state in South Asia as a buffer against both the former Soviet Union's influence in the region as well as India's socialist leaning "non-aligned" international stance. Should Pakistan once more reclaim its softer south Asian roots to counter the artificially imposed Arabic influence? Does making peace (even an uneasy one) with India offer Pakistan an option to settle the upheaval at home? Who knows? In politics things don't always work out the way common sense dictates.

In this context I will share with A.B. readers something very odd that I heard nearly a decade ago. In September, 2000 my husband and I were on a vacation in the beautiful state of Goa on the western Indian coast. One morning I woke up at an unholy early hour due to jet lag. With nothing else to do and the hotel's dining room not yet open for breakfast, I sat listening to an early morning TV interview with an Indian engineer who was also an amateur astrologer. The man made various predictions about world affairs. Two of them have stuck in my memory.  He said that in the upcoming US elections the following November (remember this was the year 2000), Al Gore would be the winner but there might be some "problems" with the results. The other prediction he made was that in 2013, India and Pakistan will form a loose federation with a common currency and that most hostilities between the two countries will cease. I don't believe in either homeopathy or astrology but stranger things have happened. Now on to Manoj's review.

Farzana Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan (New Delhi/London, Foundation/Hurst, 2009)

Review by Manoj Joshi (Mail Today - November 1, 2009)

The uncertain national identity and contested relationship to Islam lie behind Pakistan’s social and political upheavals, says Farzana Shaikh.

INDIA HAS had difficult relations with Pakistan since inception, but that is understandable given our history. But today there is a widespread sense of exasperation in relation to that country across the world, as well as a sense of alarm. Just what is this country of 160 million people, some of great talent and industry, all about ? Farzana Shaikh’s book title provides perhaps the most comprehensive and well argued answer.

Shaikh, an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs ( Chatham House) in London concludes that the country’s uncertain national identity and contested relationship to Islam lie behind its social and political upheavals and its uncertainty as a nation. As she perceptively notes, the problem is not with Islam itself, but with “ the uncertainty about its influence over Pakistan’s identity as well as with the lack of consensus over the very terms of Islam.” She goes on to add, that it is the arguments and the fights over the “ multiple meanings of Islam” that result in the “ doubts about the meaning of Pakistan and the significance of being Pakistani.” India, of course, looms large in the Pakistani consciousness. As Shaikh has noted, “ much of the uncertainty over Pakistan’s identity stems from the nagging question of whether its identity is fundamentally dependent on India.” Fear of Indian hegemony, political, economic and cultural, has kept Pakistan in a campaign mode against India. To maintain effective parity against its much larger neighbour, Pakistan has sought external alliances, spent an unconscionably great amount of money on defence, made nuclear weapons and finally unleashed a covert war with the help of Islamist jihadis. In fact Shaikh sees Islamabad’s Afghan policy as yet another attempt to shore up its fragile identity by seeking parity with India in the form of assuming the role of a regional hegemon.

In some ways the book takes off where her first book, Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India 1860- 1947 , ended. In answering the question "Why Pakistan?” she has argued that two rival discourses of Islam — the communitarian and the Islamist — have struggled “for ascendancy in defining Pakistan’s national identity.” The first was the discourse visible in the secularist politicians like Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the Muslim middle- class of central India who played such a key role in the founding of the state. The second is the Islamist discourse “grounded in a religious and at times radical reading of Islam.” The tension between the two yield many ambiguities, but there are also uncertainties associated with the fact that Partition was the consequence of an endgame gone awry, for which the principal political actors of the time — Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and others are responsible.

The problems in defining Pakistan spills over naturally into the other question “Who is a Pakistani?” Shaikh points out, that the definition of ‘the Pakistani’ is still “deeply contested.” It is not just the microscopic Hindu and Sikh minority, the Ahmediya community or even the mohajir whose "Pakistaniness” is questioned, Shia Muslims who comprise anywhere up to 20 per cent of the country’s population are looked on with suspicion. Today, with the radicalisation of the Deobandis, even the Ahle Sunnat or Barelwis are feeling the heat. This of course, does not take into account the alienation of the Pashtuns, the Baloch, Sindhis and the residents of the Northern Areas of occupied Kashmir.

A Shifting of Battlefronts? (Sujatha)

Something rather strange was evident from the reports of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit last week to Pakistan. The articles suggest that her visit was not met with garlands and roses, but howls of protest and bitterness. What happened to the much-vaunted bonhomie of 'Amerika-Pakistan Bhai- Bhai"?

In a nutshell, reality struck and realpolitik happened. As President Obama mulls over the request for 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to fight what is increasingly turning out to be an unwinnable counter-insurgency and guerrilla war, recent press articles have been highlighting the strain that this has placed on the US-Pak relationship, with  barely any pious lip-service to the usual  'Indo-Pak rivalry' pablum.

Now is the time for plain-speaking. Mrs.Clinton was never one to mince words:

"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that Pakistan squandered opportunities over the years to kill or capture leaders of the al-Qaida terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
While U.S. officials have said they believe Osama bin Laden and senior lieutenants have been hiding in the rugged terrain along the border with Afghanistan, Clinton's unusually blunt comments went further as she suggested that Pakistan's government has done too little to act against al-Qaida's top echelon."
...
""With the country reeling from Wednesday's devastating bombing that killed at least 105 people in Peshawar, Clinton also engaged in an intense give-and-take with students at the Government College of Lahore. She insisted that inaction by the government would have ceded ground to terrorists.
"If you want to see your territory shrink, that's your choice," she said, adding that she believed it would be a bad choice.
Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, told reporters that Clinton planned to meet late Thursday with the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to get an update on the offensive that began Oct. 17 against Taliban forces in a portion of the tribal areas near the Afghan border."

The shrinkage of effective control of the Pak-Afghan border has been a problem dating back farther in time than any of the controlling interests in the area care to remember. Nobody rules those zones, no country can claim complete sovereign control over them, just the warring tribal factions that have made their homes there for the last few centuries.

The Pakistani military has been happy to play along with the tribes when it suits, or encourage the decimation of inconvenient leaders and 'collateral damages' indirectly through the numerous drone airstrikes run by the US. It increases the hatred of the US, in that approximately a third of those killed are civilians, per some reports. The Taliban and AlQaeda inflate the numbers of the innnocents, the better to encourage fresh recruits. A fairly detailed analysis of how Pakistan pulls the punches is available here on a post by Manoj Joshi (Ruchira's brother-in-law, and a journalist)

Further credence to just how deep the wound runs in those areas is evident in this interview with reporter David Rohde, who recently managed to escape after being held hostage by one of the tribal warlords of the Haqqani faction. 

So, it's no surprise that Clinton's attempts to charm the Pakistani women fell flat:

“Frankly, it was a waste of my time,” said one assistant professor from the Fatima Jinnah Women’s University (FJWU) in Rawalpindi, who asked not to be named. “[Clinton] wasn’t interested in hearing the about the layman’s problems or the reality of our daily lives.”

That caused many, such as Shazia Marri, the information minister of the Sindh province, to leave the meeting frustrated that their concerns were not heard.

“Emancipated women in Pakistan have a clear point of view that did not come across,” she said."
...
"Many women, including Zainab Azmat, a resident of the South Waziristan tribal agency, currently lecturing at Peshawar’s Institute of Management Sciences (IMS), complained that Clinton’s answers were too “reserved.” Ms. Azmat added that the intention of the meeting was unclear. “Why were we here? What did they want us to ask? What did they want to convey to us?” she asked."

Was it a waste of the women's time? Or a clear message to Pakistani powers-that-be that old equations no longer hold?

The Secretary of State of the United States didn't need to indulge in face time that could have been handled by lesser diplomats. This may very well have been her sole respite from realpolitik, a vestige of holding on to personal relationships built during her days as First Lady, a sort of pre-emptive mea-culpa for what is going to happen to the comfortable world of these women.

"You had one 9/11, we are facing 9/11's everyday", to paraphrase one of the indignant 'townhallers' who came to meet her.

The "war on terror' (pardon the usage of a now-obsolete term) is now expanding in fronts, moving like a not-so-stealthy cancer from the hills of Waziristan into the once-safer cities and urban areas of Pakistan. Who knows where it is headed next?

Grave Concerns & Paw Prints (a Halloween Post)

To the English, a grave is like their second home (or castle). Dead Londoners do not want to share graves with the previously dead, even though London is running out of space for the dead. (Why has cremation not caught on as a perfectly private and hygienic option in the thoroughly modern British capital?)

LONDON | The city's largest cemetery is having a tough time convincing Londoners to share a grave with a stranger.

"A lot of people say, 'I'm not putting my dad in a secondhand grave,' " said Gary Burks, superintendent and registrar of the City of London Cemetery, final resting place of close to 1 million Londoners. "You have to deal with that mind-set."

The problem is a very British one. Many other European countries regularly reuse old graves after a couple of decades. Britain does not, as a result of Victorian hygiene obsession, piecemeal regulation and national tradition. For many, an Englishman's tomb, like his home, is his castle.

That view is also common in the United States, which like Britain tends to regard graves as eternal and not to be disturbed - although the United States has a lot more space, so the burial crisis is less acute.

In much of Britain, reusing old graves remains illegal, but the City of London cemetery is exploiting a legal loophole that allows graves in the capital with remaining space in them to be reclaimed after 75 years.

Mr. Burks points to a handsome marble obelisk carrying the details of the recently departed man buried underneath. The name of a Victorian Londoner interred in the same plot is inscribed on the other side. The monument has simply been turned around for its new user - whose family, Mr. Burks says, got a fancy stone monument for much less than the market price by agreeing to share.

On to animals. Not the scary vampires and spiders of Halloween but the cute cuddly ones frolicking in and around our homes. A report in the New Scientist rates household pets for the relative size of their carbon foot prints. Owning a mid to large size dog is apparently as eco-unfriendly as owning an SUV. Not surprisingly, the smaller and self cleaning average cat leaves a paw print that is slightly smaller than that of a Volkswagen Golf. Both are hazardous to wild life and can spread infections.

SHOULD owning a great dane make you as much of an eco-outcast as an SUV driver? Yes it should, say Robert and Brenda Vale, two architects who specialise in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. In their new book, Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living, they compare the ecological footprints of a menagerie of popular pets with those of various other lifestyle choices - and the critters do not fare well.

As well as guzzling resources, cats and dogs devastate wildlife populations, spread disease and add to pollution. It is time to take eco-stock of our pets.

To measure the ecological paw, claw and fin-prints of the family pet, the Vales analysed the ingredients of common brands of pet food. They calculated, for example, that a medium-sized dog would consume 90 grams of meat and 156 grams of cereals daily in its recommended 300-gram portion of dried dog food. At its pre-dried weight, that equates to 450 grams of fresh meat and 260 grams of cereal. That means that over the course of a year, Fido wolfs down about 164 kilograms of meat and 95 kilograms of cereals.

It takes 43.3 square metres of land to generate 1 kilogram of chicken per year - far more for beef and lamb - and 13.4 square metres to generate a kilogram of cereals. So that gives him a footprint of 0.84 hectares. For a big dog such as a German shepherd, the figure is 1.1 hectares.

Meanwhile, an SUV - the Vales used a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser in their comparison - driven a modest 10,000 kilometres a year, uses 55.1 gigajoules, which includes the energy required both to fuel and to build it. One hectare of land can produce approximately 135 gigajoules of energy per year, so the Land Cruiser's eco-footprint is about 0.41 hectares - less than half that of a medium-sized dog.

The Vales are not alone in reaching this conclusion. When New Scientistasked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, UK, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data, his figures tallied almost exactly. "Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," he says.

Then there are all the other animals we own. Doing similar calculations for a variety of pets and their foods, the Vales found that cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares (slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf), hamsters come in at 0.014 hectares apiece (buy two, and you might as well have bought a plasma TV) and canaries half that. Even a goldfish requires 0.00034 hectares (3.4 square metres) of land to sustain it, giving it an ecological fin-print equal to two cellphones.

This kind of analysis appeals to David Mackay, a physicist at the University of Cambridge and the UK government's new energy adviser. He believes we should put as much thought into choosing a pet as we do into buying a car. "If a lifestyle choice uses more than 1 per cent of your energy footprint, then it is worthwhile reflecting on that choice and seeing what you can do about it," he says. "Pets definitely deserve attention: by my estimates, the energy footprint of a cat is about 2 per cent of the average British person's energy footprint - and it's bigger for most dogs."

 

Mad Men in 60 Seconds (prasad)