Former part owner of Red Sox considering Maine governor bid (CBSSports.com, 6/29/09)
Les Otten, a former part owner of the Boston Red Sox, says he is considering a Republican bid for Maine governor in 2010.Otten has formed an exploratory committee and plans to spend the next two to four months on the road. He says he'll listen to Mainers' concerns while gauging support and raising money.
REVIEW: of The Pure Society: From Darwin to Hitler by André Pichot: Benjamin Noys discovers the modern mutations of eugenics (Nenjamin Noys, The New Humanist)
What do the Catholic Church, Anglo-Saxon liberalism and Russian Lysenkoism (the doctrine of acquired characteristics) have in common? The correct answer, one might hope, is that they have all been intellectually discredited. Unfortunately, as André Pichot's book makes clear, the answer is also that they were the only significant sources of opposition to eugenics in the period of its heyday between 1907 and 1945. [...]Pichot controversially suggests that the taboo on recognising the widespread belief in eugenics has served to minimise and disguise the links between contemporary biology and eugenic and racist themes. Biology has a recurrent tendency to make such incursions into social policy. Darwin's own models of struggle, selection and cooperation, borrowed heavily from the existing sociological models of his time - notably Malthus, Adam Smith and Hobbes - and once these models had been biologised by Darwin they were easily exported back into the social sciences. Pichot suggests that whenever genetics runs into scientific problems it becomes more strident concerning its sociological and political claims.
In a bracing passage Pichot singles out Richard Dawkins and his thesis of the "selfish gene" - in which human beings are reduced to being mere carriers of a genetic inheritance. He argues that this "genetic mysticism" echoes the promotion by Nazi biological thinking of the priority of the racial community over the individual. Although suggestive, and useful in indicating the dubious political implications of Dawkins's genetic reductionism, the argument comes close to guilt by association, and more teasing out of this claimed continuity is necessary to make the charges stick.
In light of the current celebration of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species, Pichot's work is a salutary warning. As he notes, the malignant ideologies of eugenics have not disappeared, but are now privatised with the pressure of the market, the media and medicine encouraging us to breed our own "perfect" offspring. The key question The Pure Society poses is how we can defend human beings against being reduced to mere raw material, or animals fit for breeding, without relying on the usual religious models of the sacred inviolability of human life.
Five things we've learned from the Confederations Cup: Although dismissed by many, the tournament offered a few clues ahead of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (Jonathan Wilson Monday 29 June 2009, Guardian Sports Blog)
4. Brazil are better than we thoughtOK, their central defence struggles to deal with the crossed ball, and Gilberto Silva and Felipe Melo are susceptible when players run at them, but Dunga's Brazil are far better than the carping nostalgists who hark back to the glory days of 1970 might suggest. Late winners against Egypt and South Africa and the comeback against the US in the final suggest great spirit and self-belief; Luis Fabiano has proved himself not merely a superb taker of chances, but a highly effective leader of the line; there is a developing balance to the midfield, even if Gilberto lacks bite.
But most importantly, they seem to have a second option. Where Spain huffed and puffed against the US, trying to pass a way through a packed midfield, Brazil changed tack at half-time and spread the ball wide, using Maicon and Andre Santos (then Dani Alves) to hit the spaces left by the US's narrow midfield. They may not yet be better than Spain, but they are evolving and improving.
As significant as our failure to adjust to Brazil's play defensively though is our failure to ape it offensively. Our current formation--basically a 4-2-2-2--lacks width. Spector occasionally plays a cross in from the wings but isn't deft at it yet and it isn't something we're looking to do regularly. He, Bornstein, and Marvell Wynne should work on nothing else the rest of the Summer. With Onyewu, Demerit, Clark, and Bradley so firm up the middle defensively we can afford to have the other guys in back make those runs and feed balls to the middle.
Rudy weighing N.Y. governor run (ANDY BARR, 6/29/09, Politico)
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Monday that he is considering running for governor in 2010. [...]According to a June Quinnipiac University poll, Giuliani holds a 52 percent to 34 percent advantage over the unpopular Democratic Gov. David Paterson in a potential general election match up.
Sadrists Deny Negotiating with US (Rahmat al-Salaam, 6/29/09, Asharq Alawasat)
The Sadrist trend that is led by the Islamic cleric Moqtada al-Sadr denied that the Iraqi government played any part in the release of former Sadrist national spokesman Abdul Hadi al-Darraji who was released by US forces on Friday night.Salman al-Fraji, head of the Sadr office in Baghdad informed Asharq Al-Awsat that "the occupying forces [US forces] are the ones that released him and that he was handed over to a government official by the Americans."
Iraqi MP Sami al-Askari of the Untied Iraqi Alliance party informed Asharq Al-Awsat that al-Darraji's release was part of a deal to release kidnapped British hostages captured in Iraq in 2007 by Asaib Ahl al-Haq [League of the People of Righteousness] a splinter group of the Mahdi army. However last week the British government confirmed that it had received the bodies of two of these hostages.
White firefighters win Supreme Court appeal (MARK SHERMAN, 6/29/09, Associated Press)
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge. [...]Coincidentally, the court may have given a boost to calls for quick action on her nomination.
The court said it will return Sept. 9 to hear a second round of arguments in a campaign finance case, and with Justice David Souter retiring there would be only eight justices unless Sotomayor has been confirmed by then.
Priced to Sell: Is free the future? (Malcolm Gladwell, July 6, 2009, The New Yorker)
At a hearing on Capitol Hill in May, James Moroney, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, told Congress about negotiations he’d just had with the online retailer Amazon. The idea was to license his newspaper’s content to the Kindle, Amazon’s new electronic reader. “They want seventy per cent of the subscription revenue,” Moroney testified. “I get thirty per cent, they get seventy per cent. On top of that, they have said we get the right to republish your intellectual property to any portable device.” The idea was that if a Kindle subscription to the Dallas Morning News cost ten dollars a month, seven dollars of that belonged to Amazon, the provider of the gadget on which the news was read, and just three dollars belonged to the newspaper, the provider of an expensive and ever-changing variety of editorial content. The people at Amazon valued the newspaper’s contribution so little, in fact, that they felt they ought then to be able to license it to anyone else they wanted. Another witness at the hearing, Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post, said that she thought the Kindle could provide a business model to save the beleaguered newspaper industry. Moroney disagreed. “I get thirty per cent and they get the right to license my content to any portable device—not just ones made by Amazon?” He was incredulous. “That, to me, is not a model.”Had James Moroney read Chris Anderson’s new book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” (Hyperion; $26.99), Amazon’s offer might not have seemed quite so surprising. Anderson is the editor of Wired and the author of the 2006 best-seller “The Long Tail,” and “Free” is essentially an extended elaboration of Stewart Brand’s famous declaration that “information wants to be free.” The digital age, Anderson argues, is exerting an inexorable downward pressure on the prices of all things “made of ideas.” Anderson does not consider this a passing trend. Rather, he seems to think of it as an iron law: “In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.”
Time for Iron Man (E.J. Dionne Jr., June 29, 2009, Washington Post)
Every general studies the mistakes of the last war, and President Obama's style has been much influenced by the difficulties of Bill Clinton's presidency.In particular, Obama has shied away from handing Congress his own plans on "stone tablets," a phrase much loved by senior adviser David Axelrod, and instead allowed it room to legislate.
The president has won a lot, including a decent stimulus bill and laws on children's health coverage, tobacco regulation and employment discrimination that, in less exciting times, would have been seen as landmarks. But the stimulus bill was neither as good nor as large as it might have been, and Obama is still dealing with the problems created by the legislative train wreck over his Guantanamo policies.
And then there's his centerpiece campaign to reform the health-care system.
Obama's initial approach of laying out principles and giving Congress latitude was the right response to Clinton's mistake of offering a detailed proposal, only to see it mocked and rejected.
Betraying the Planet (PAUL KRUGMAN, 6/29/09, NY Times)
[A]s I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research. [...]
[W]e’re facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself. How can anyone justify failing to act?
Obama champions energy bill but not its tariffs: The president calls the measure 'an extraordinary first step' toward a halt to global warming but sounds a cautionary note about its provision to penalize countries that don't similarly crack down (Jim Tankersley, June 29, 2009, LA Times)
Obama sounded optimistic about its prospects in the Senate, where the House version will be the blueprint, he said. The proposal must navigate concerns from more than a dozen Democratic senators who represent oil, coal or manufacturing-heavy states.Asked if he supported a provision, inserted late in the House debate, that seeks to penalize imports from nations that fail to cut their emissions in step with the United States, Obama said:
"At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we've seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals."
He noted that the bill contained other provisions to defend U.S. manufacturers and their employees from lower-cost foreign competition -- including free emissions permits for energy-intensive industries vulnerable to foreign trade, such as steel and aluminum.
"I am very mindful of wanting to make sure there is a level playing field internationally," he said. "I think there may be other ways to do it than with a tariff approach."
Clone Wars: Jacoby Ellsbury and Juan Pierre (Troy Patterson, 6/29/09, Hardball Times)
Jacoby Ellsbury had a huge 33 games in a 2007 call up and even made a great showing in the 2007 playoffs, but has yet to match those numbers since. He has been given many comparisons to other players, including Fred Lynn, Johnny Damon and Ichiro Suzuki. So far though he has fallen short in different ways, like batting eye or power. This leaves him in a dangerous position and looking dangerously more like Juan Pierre.
Khamenei's son: Iran experts say he plays key role in protest crackdown: Experts say he's key in crackdown, may be successor (Jeffrey Fleishman, June 25, 2009, Chicago Tribune)
And at the center, or at least very close to it, is Mojtaba Khamenei, an ultraconservative cleric who, analysts say, is being positioned to succeed his father.The younger Khamenei, who is believed to be in his 40s or early 50s, has emerged as a force in a bureaucracy gradually created by his father to consolidate the supreme leader's power over the nation's military, intelligence operations and foreign policy. That accumulation of control was used to outflank reformists such as Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hossein Ali Montazeri, revered figures of the Islamic Revolution who years ago had questioned the senior Khamenei's qualifications as supreme leader.
The violence that has erupted over the last week -- state media have reported that 10 to 19 people have died -- were in part the result of a crackdown by forces close to Mojtaba Khamenei, who backs Ahmadinejad and shares his Islamic fervor.
"This coup taking place is a political liquidation against the old guard by reckless people like Motjaba and Ahmadinejad," said Mehdi Khalaji, an expert on Iran with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "But I don't think they will win. Power that relies only on the military and doesn't care about social or religious institutions cannot last long."
Mojtaba Khamenei is a secretive man who doesn't want to "be on people's tongues," said Mohsen Sazegara, an Iranian journalist and former government official. "Nobody knows much about him."
Khalaji said the supreme leader immersed himself in literature, novels and music, was friends with intellectuals and spent time in jail with Marxists when he was younger, but the son "grew up in a very different atmosphere, a postrevolutionary generation."
Analysts say Mojtaba Khamenei lacks the religious and political stature to overcome the opposition he would face in the Assembly of Experts, the body charged with selecting the supreme leader. His father, 69, is believed to have influence over about half of the assembly's 86 seats, but the board is headed by Rafsanjani and includes other reformists who would likely block an attempt for the younger Khamenei to succeed his father.
"Neither Ayatollah Ali Khamenei nor Ahmadinejad are popular in Qom," Ali Ansari, the head of Iranian studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland, wrote in The Observer, referring to the Shiite holy city where Iran's top clerics teach. "The clerics may bide their time, but their intervention, which may come sooner rather than later -- especially if violence spreads -- could be decisive."
The Key to Fixing Health Care and Energy: Use Less (Michael Grunwald, Jun. 29, 2009, TIME)
[O]ur biggest problem in both health care and energy is essentially the same simple problem: we use too much. And in both cases, there's a simple explanation for much of the problem: our providers get paid more when we use more.Undoing these waste-promoting incentives — the "fee-for-service" payment system that awards more fees to doctors and hospitals for providing more services, and the regulated electricity rates that reward utilities for selling more power and building more plants — would not solve all our health-care and energy problems. But it would be a major step in the right direction. President Obama has pledged to pass massive overhauls of both sectors this year, but if Congress lacks the stomach for comprehensive reforms — and these days it's looking like Kate Moss in the stomach department — a more modest effort to realign perverse incentives could take a serious bite out of both crises. [...]
[N]ot everyone realizes that we use too much health care; most of us assume that more treatment is better, that the best doctors are the ones who do the most to us, that our health costs are the world's highest because our health care is the world's most thorough. But a slew of research by the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice has found that as much as 30% of our annual $2 trillion–plus medical bill may be wasted on unnecessary care, mostly run-of-the-mill diagnostic tests, office visits, hospital stays, minor procedures and prescriptions for brand-name wonder drugs advertised on TV. Our soaring health spending is on course to bankrupt the Treasury — along with state and local governments, big and small businesses, and millions of families — so again, it would be nice to cut out the usage that doesn't make us healthier, and can even make us sicker. [...]
Health care usually costs us money, too, and even when co-payments are low, visiting the doctor is time-consuming and inconvenient, and staying in the hospital can be downright dangerous. Still, Dartmouth has documented enormous regional variations in medical care that produce virtually no variation in medical outcomes, a testament to our tolerance for overtreatment.
So don't expect government intervention on the demand side — through education campaigns, tax incentives or targeted subsidies — to rein in our cravings. But in the energy arena, several states have already proven that rationalizing incentives on the supply side can transform the landscape. In most of the country, per capita electricity use has increased about 50% over the past three decades — despite conservation programs, efficiency incentives and the general rise of green. But in California and the Pacific Northwest, where state legislatures decoupled utility profits from sales volumes, electricity use has been flat. Instead of an incentive to sell more power and build more generating plants, the utilities had an incentive to help their customers save electricity and avoid the need for new generating plants. So that's what they did. Energy providers were much better than the government at influencing the behaviors of energy consumers. "That's what we need in health care," says Dr. Elliott Fisher of the Dartmouth Institute. "When providers get rewarded for volume, they provide volume. That's got to change."
In medicine, the idea would be to reward quality rather than quantity, to give providers incentives to keep us healthy and reduce unnecessary treatments, to encourage doctors and hospitals to promote a culture of low-cost, high-quality care.
Rising sea level to submerge New Orleans coastline by 2100, study warns (Suzanne Goldenberg, 6/29/09, guardian.co.uk)
Between 10,000 and 13,500 square kilometres of coastal lands will drown due to rising sea levels and subsidence by 2100, a far greater loss than previous estimates.For New Orleans, and other low-lying areas of Louisiana whose vulnerability was exposed by hurricane Katrina, the findings could bring some hard choices about how to defend the coast against the future sea level rises that will be produced by climate change.
They also revive the debate about the long-term sustainability of New Orleans and other low-lying areas.
The Obamas Find a Church Home — Away from Home (Amy Sullivan, 6/29/09, TIME)
[I]n an unexpected move, Obama has told White House aides that instead of joining a congregation in Washington, D.C., he will follow in George W. Bush's footsteps and make his primary place of worship Evergreen Chapel, the nondenominational church at Camp David.