interesting things
A judge has ordered the release of Eliot Spitzer’s trove of missives from a private e-mail account that he used as New York attorney general to conduct official business in secret.
The undisclosed e-mails relate to his Wall Street crackdown in 2005, when he extracted hundreds of millions in…
via NY Post: Business http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/secret_spitzer_mails_to_be_public_jnOt8O2NYhtFYxsbUh6VSP?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Business
The new pastor at St. John United Church of Christ in the eastern Missouri town of St. Clair doesn’t play softball, but members of his church do. Or at least they did until their pastor’s sexuality prompted a boycott within their church league.
The feds may be conducting a criminal probe of the bad bet placed by Jamie Dimon’s bank. But the track record suggests he has no worries. By Peter J. Boyer and Peter Schweizer.
via The Daily Beast – Latest Articles http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/17/why-jpmorgan-chase-should-not-fear-fbi-probe.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29
Americans
have been wringing their hands about the problem of obesity for decades
(for some of us, while munching on snacks), but never before has the problem
been attacked from the perspective of … math!
In 2004, mathematician and physicist Carson Chow was tasked with figuring
out why more and more Americans are getting fatter. When he started, Carson
said that “[he] knew almost nothing of obesity. [He] didn’t even
know what a calorie was.”
But he could clearly see a trend: Since 1975, the average weight of Americans
jumped by about 20 pounds and the national obesity rate went from 20%
to 30%. So what gives?
Claudie Dreifus interviewed the math whiz for The New York Times:
Did you ever solve the question posed to you when you were
first hired — what caused the obesity epidemic?We think so. And it’s something very simple, very obvious,
something that few want to hear: The epidemic was caused by the overproduction
of food in the United States.Beginning in the 1970s, there was a change in national agricultural
policy. Instead of the government paying farmers not to engage in full
production, as was the practice, they were encouraged to grow as much
food as they could. At the same time, technological changes and the
“green revolution†made our farms much more productive.
The price of food plummeted, while the number of calories available
to the average American grew by about 1,000 a day.Well, what do people do when there is extra food around? They eat
it! This, of course, is a tremendously controversial idea. However,
the model shows that increase in food more than explains the increase
in weight.
Link
(Photo: Michael Temchine/NY Times)
Adam Serwer is filling in while Kevin is on vacation.
Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland, a former Navy fighter pilot, had his nomination to a state judgeship in Virginia rejected early Tuesday morning. Democrats say it’s because he’s gay; Republicans say it’s complicated:
“He holds himself out as being married,” said Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), who is running for U.S. Senate. Noting that gay marriage is not legal in Virginia, he said that Thorne-Begland’s “life is a contradiction to the requirement of submission to the constitution.”
[…]
Marshall, the Family Foundation of Virginia and others who raised concerns about Thorne-Begland’s nomination said they did not object to him because he is gay, but because of his outspokenness on the subject of gay rights.
Thorne-Begland also supported the repeal of the military’s discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. So it’s not, strictly speaking, correct to say Thorne-Begland was rejected because he was gay. He was rejected because he believes being gay entitles him to the same rights as people who aren’t. If Thorne-Begland had lived a life of closeted celibacy and talked like Tony Perkins, Marshall would have thought he was qualified to serve as a judge. This is coming from a guy who tried to install a state-level DADT policy for the Virginia National Guard because “If I needed a blood transfusion and the guy next to me had committed sodomy 14 times in the last month, I’d be worried.”Â
Virginia Republicans didn’t reject Thorne-Begland because he’s gay, but because he supports gay rights. The closet magically eliminates sexually transmitted diseases, which are never contracted by heterosexuals. Some voters in Virginia apparently find this kind of logic compelling enough to keep Marshall in office.
via Kevin Drum Feed | Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/05/virginia-gop-tries-explain-why-vote-against-gay-judge-wasnt-bigotry
The Jester, a vigilante hacker opposed to Anonymous and Wikileaks, was apparently exposed over the last few days. His blog, twitter account and other tracks were soon gone. Many, however, think he’s just acting out a scheme to ransom details of his ostensibly “real” identity. [Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica]
Now here’s the way to make your run of the mill Battleship junket interview way more interesting: Turn the tables on your talking-head interviewer by grilling him on Israel’s nuclear policy and why he didn’t serve his compulsory service in the military. Which is what Peter Berg did to one unsuspecting journalist for Israel’s Channel 10.
While sitting for an on-camera chat about his summer blockbuster, Berg went off on TV interviewer Jason Danino-Holt about issues that, he admits, are much more important than his movie about aliens adapted from a board game. Instead of talking up his pop starlet cast member or his excitement for the film (okay, he managed to squeeze that in, too — what a pro!), Berg launched into Israeli arms policy as Danino-Holt sat, seemingly befuddled.
By the time Berg asks, “Are you a draft dodger?” and shouts, “You’ve gotta join the army, motherfucker!” this has automatically become the stuff of legend.
Berg’s big shiny summer blockbuster has a heavy military element — it’s very much pro-servicemen and women, and big on international cooperation between nations that, granted, can unite against a common extraterrestrial enemy without dealing with the tricky human realities of real world politics. Does Battleship give Berg the moral ground to badger a perfect stranger for not joining the army? Well, no. Is this 100 times more interesting than hearing him talk about ships and aliens and Rihanna? Hell yes. Make your weekend movie plans accordingly.
via Movieline http://movieline.com/2012/05/16/battleship-director-peter-berg-israel-interview/
Meet the television star of the fledgling 2012 general election campaign: the sad sack.
Two handsome presidential candidates have been displaced by hard-knock folks with unkempt beards and furrowed foreheads. These surrogates wear hooded sweatshirts and baseball caps. They gaze mournfully at vacant lots, chain-link fences, and snowy graveyards. This is not “Morning in America;” this is reality TV at nightfall.
Advertising experts say voters should expect similar casting through November.
Busy traveling during the ill-conceived debt ceiling spectacle that consumed Congress during the summer of 2011? Craving an early start to an election year budget fight? Great news! On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner vowed to block another (supposedly routine) increase to the federal debt ceiling this year unless the increase is offset by larger spending cuts. But Boehner’s remarks before a fiscal summit meeting in Washington revealed the GOP’s other motive: To extend the Bush-era tax cuts before they expire at the end of this year as President Obama and Republican leaders had agreed upon in 2010.
Boeher said at the summit:
Our bill to stop the New Year’s Day tax increase will also establish an expedited process by which Congress would enact real tax reform in 2013 … The Ways and Means Committee will work out the details, but the bottom line is, if we do this right, we will never again have to deal with the uncertainty of expiring tax rates. We’ll have replaced the broken status quo with a tax code that maintains progressivity, taxes income once, and creates a fairer, simpler code.
Of course, Obama and Democratic leaders do want to extend the tax cuts — for the middle class, not the top earners. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said at the summit, “Our objective should be to replace that very large set of expiring tax provisions and broad-based, automatic, pretty crude spending cuts with a more responsible, balanced glide path to fiscal sustainability.” He continued, “This time without the drama and the pain and damage that caused the country last July.â€
But what Geithner sees as Congress’s obligation to pass a budget without drama, Boehner views an opportunity to force action. “We shouldn’t dread the debt limit,” Boeher said. “We should welcome it. It’s an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction.” The showdown is coming and, according to Boehner, we should welcome it.
Read more posts by Brett Smiley
Filed Under:
important ceilings
,debt ceiling
,death and taxes
,john boehner
via Daily Intel http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/05/debt-ceiling-showdown-part-congress.html
State Sen. Deb Fischer has won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Nebraska, making her the odds-on favorite to replace Ben Nelson. What you will hear: Sarah Palin endorsed a Mama Grizzly and pushed her over the top. The larger backstory: Fischer benefitted from a yearlong, bloody, stupid primary between state Attorney General Jon Bruning and Treasurer Don Stenberg. The former, working his way up the greasy pole for years, had spooked Chuck Hagel out of running for re-election in 2008, then gotten chased out of the primary by then-Agriculture Sec. Mike Johanns. The latter had lined up conservative support — Jim DeMint, Rick Santorum, Erick Erickson. The two of them tore chunks out of each other, leaving Fischer alone. So it goes with the three-way race.
via Slate Blogs http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/05/16/nebraska_prepare_yourself_for_stories_about_sarah_palin_kingmaker.html
