meme<->link: January 2011

Monday, January 31, 2011

The LePage administration says it was only trying to help fellow Republicans, but a leaked memo from the communications director has left some GOP lawmakers a little uneasy and raised anxiety among state employees. Dan Demeritt, the governor's communications director, says he was encouraging greater coordination between Republican lawmakers and the governor's office in his memo. But when he claimed that LePage would put 11,000 state employees to work to re-elect Republicans, even GOP leaders say he went too far.

Read:
http://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/15001/Default.aspx

Cuts in Maine's Indigent Legal Fund Could be Restored

The head of the state commission charged with paying for the criminal defense of poor Mainers, says he's hopeful it will be able to avoid running out of money in the next four months. Ron Schneider, who chairs the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services, said earlier this week that it will run out of funds in May as things currently stand. But, after spending much of this afternoon meeting with representatives of Gov. Paul LePage's administration, he says he's encouraged.

Read:
http://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/15002/Default.aspx

Group Coupon Craze Spawns Maine Imitators

If you're on the Internet at all, it's hard to miss group coupons--those Web-only deals of the day on everything from meals to massages to ski tickets. The industry is dominated by a couple of online companies. But small start-ups in Maine are trying to get their slice of the pie.

Read:
http://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/15004/Default.aspx

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, Pt. 1

Genes & Society: Cloning

As Egypt's Protests Spread, All Eyes on Army's Allegiance, Next Moves

Shields and Brooks on Obama 'Recalibrating' Stance on Egypt, State of the Union

On China's stock frauds

The pomp and circumstance of Hu Jintao’s state visit last week was a testament to just how integrated the Chinese and American economies have become. China, it seems, has an inexhaustible capacity for making stuff, and Americans, even now, have an inexhaustible capacity for buying it: sneakers, TVs, pet food, and, more recently, investments. American investors keen to cash in on the China boom have poured money not just into well-established giants like China Telecom and C.N.O.O.C. but also into more speculative “small-cap” companies, hundreds of which now trade on U.S. stock exchanges. The problem is that, while some of these firms are indeed thriving enterprises, more than a few seem to be specialists in a less savory business: ripping off investors.

Take, for instance, two of the hottest Chinese stocks of 2009: RINO International, a maker of “environmental-protection equipment,” and the jewelry maker Fuqi. At one point in 2009, these companies were Nos. 1 and 2 on the Investor’s Business Daily 100. But last March Fuqi announced that it had overstated earnings for the first three quarters of 2009 and would have to re-state its earnings. Ten months later, the company hasn’t filed a single new earnings statement, so no one knows how much it has made (or lost) in the past two years. The stock is down more than eighty per cent from its peak. As for RINO, last November a short seller issued a report that blasted its accounting as fraudulent and effectively suggested that the entire company was a house of cards. After initially saying nothing, RINO admitted in an S.E.C. filing that two of its manufacturing contracts didn’t actually exist, and that its financial statements couldn’t be relied on. When the company failed to disclose more information, it was delisted from Nasdaq. Its stock has fallen ninety per cent from its all-time high.

A lack of transparency and a disregard for accounting regulations are all too common among U.S.-listed Chinese firms, and the S.E.C. is reportedly conducting, belatedly, an investigation into such stocks. Companies have been known to report one set of revenue numbers to the S.E.C. and another to Chinese authorities (perhaps to minimize tax bills). A company’s suppliers or partners often turn out to be owned or controlled by the company’s own managers, a practice that lends itself to “tunnelling”—using outside businesses to milk the corporation. Another problem is executives who treat their companies as personal A.T.M.s: RINO lent its C.E.O. and its chairwoman (a married couple) $3.5 million, and didn’t even ask for a signed loan document in exchange.

The U.S. has an entire regulatory apparatus designed to protect the interests of investors, but Chinese companies have been adept at exploiting its loopholes. Using a tactic known as a reverse merger, hundreds of Chinese companies have bought American shell companies, which have a stock-exchange listing but few actual assets. A quick name change, and, presto, the Chinese company is traded on Nasdaq or the Amex. This gives Chinese firms the credibility of being listed on a major exchange without any of the vetting from investors that companies get when they go public. And once you’re on an exchange it takes a lot to be kicked off. Even though Fuqi hasn’t filed financial statements for almost a year, a Nasdaq panel recently gave it until March to do so.

On Tunisia and the Arab world

On July 17, 2009, the American Ambassador in Tunisia, Robert F. Godec, dined at the beachfront mansion of Mohamed Sakher El Materi, a member of the country’s ruling family. The home displayed Roman columns, frescoes, and a stone lion’s head spouting water into an infinity pool. A live caged tiger on the grounds “consumes four chickens a day,” Godec noted, in a secret cable to Washington. His host’s pet reminded him “of Uday Hussein’s lion cage in Baghdad.”

WikiLeaks published Godec’s report early last December, alongside other acid accounts from the U.S. Embassy about the abuse of power in the court of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the leader of Tunisia for more than two decades. “Whether it’s cash, services, land, property, or yes, even your yacht, President Ben Ali’s family is rumored to covet it and reportedly gets what it wants,” Godec wrote. “Corruption . . . is the problem everyone knows about, but no one can publicly acknowledge.”

That ended on December 17th, when Mohamed Bouazizi, a twenty-six-year-old fruit seller, set himself on fire in the central town of Sidi Bouzid. He was protesting the demands for bribes and the abuse that he had endured at the hands of the police. Bouazizi lay in a hospital for more than two weeks, his face wrapped in thick bandages. Anger spread in the streets and online. Ben Ali made an awkward pilgrimage to his bedside, promising reform. On January 4th, Bouazizi died. On January 13th, the state security forces, after having killed dozens of unarmed civilians in the previous week, refused orders to keep shooting. The next day, Ben Ali and his wife fled fist-shaking mobs in the capital, Tunis, by hopping a private jet to Saudi Arabia.

“President of the Country,” a searing Arabic rap song, served as a soundtrack for the revolution. The week before Bouazizi’s death, Hamada Ben Amor, who is twenty-two and goes by the name El Général, used a handheld camera to tape himself singing the song, a baseball cap pulled over his eyes. “Mr. President,” he exclaimed, “your people are dead!” Al Jazeera and various social media picked up the video. The secret police arrested Ben Amor, inflaming his followers, and hastening Ben Ali’s exit.

Where I Got These Abs, by Bob Odenkirk

You are probably wondering where I got these amazing abs. They’re so ripply and rock hard, they’re difficult to fathom. If I were a character on a reality show about me and my middle-aged acquaintances, I might be nicknamed the Conundrum, in reference to these abs of mine. See, the abs don’t match the visage. My perturbed, puffy face sets you up for a blubbery gut. But then you see these abs, stacked like bricks, clearly delineated, and you have to ask, “Does he work out for two or three hours a day, or does he just work out all day?” Or perhaps you think I purchased them from a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. My secret is simple—dynamic tension! Constant dynamic tension. Tension that is tense, and dynamic, and never-ending—the best kind of tension there is! I have analyzed each ab and where it draws its tension from so that you, too, can get the abs you’ve always dreamed of!

The ab on the upper right is taut and sinewy thanks to middle school. Specifically, the effort of trying to get my two kids placed in a topnotch middle school. Filling out forms, attending open houses, prepping for interviews, taking the entrance exams—it’s a lot of work, and I am there every step of the way, standing behind them, leaning over their shoulders, looking down (that’s what tightens the ab), swallowing hard (also good for the ab), and clenching and unclenching my fists (good for the fists). Thanks, kids—Dad loves you and Dad loves the ab you’ve given him.

The middle right ab bulges handsomely thanks to talk radio. I simply tune in to conservative talkers when I am driving, and my screaming at the host tightens this ab for an extended, uninterrupted rep. Plus, disagreeing with someone on the radio gives me that powerless, overwhelmed feeling I’ve become addicted to. It’s better than a drug, because you get the abs!

The upper left ab pops out impressively from the effort of lugging five-gallon water jugs into our kitchen. Actually, the lugging does nothing for the ab; it’s the part where you have to tip the full jug and place its spout into the dispensing reservoir, without spilling, that strains and sculpts this beautiful ab. The short moment of dread focusses tension on this ab like a ray gun. Afterward, slipping on the spilled water can be great for a whole-body clench.

The middle ab on the left (not my left, your left, if you are looking at me) is called Terrence. It’s a dignified ab. It tenses each time I read an op-ed article about global warming. The article’s point of view is immaterial; simply being reminded that I can do nothing to stop the horrific future of floods and catastrophe gives this ab a taut yank that lingers, burning calories in my well-creased forehead at the same time. Best to do right before bed, as the accompanying nightmares keep those abs pumping into the early-morning hours!

The bottom right ab, the biggest of all the abs—and therefore the most impressive—is from not having sex. This ab is always quietly tensed. Has been for years now. Can you imagine the Dalai Lama’s lower right ab? Must be huge. I, however, did not take a vow of chastity, so it would be a sad situation, if it didn’t yield such an amazing ab.

The bottom ab on the left is harder to explain, but I believe that this ab is simply self-aware. It quivers with tension at all times, even more so when I am supposed to be relaxing, and I believe it is searching for a sense of purpose for itself and no answer is forthcoming. Nothing works this ab like a vacation. The aimless uncertainty, the absence of all deadlines, tightens and sculpts like nothing else. After ten days in Hawaii, this ab looks amazing.

Finally, you’ve got to appreciate my extra abs. That’s right, I have two abs more than most people. They are in my lower back, and, I’ll admit it, they were put there by my Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. I was told that they are the latest thing. God, I hope so. They hurt like hell. ♦

AMERICA’S TOP PARENT What’s behind the“Tiger Mother” craze?

“Call me garbage.”

The other day, I was having dinner with my family when the subject of Amy Chua’s new book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” (Penguin Press; $25.95), came up. My twelve-year-old twins had been read an excerpt from the book by their teacher, a well-known provocateur. He had been sent a link to the excerpt by another teacher, who had received it from her sister, who had been e-mailed it by a friend, and, well, you get the point. The excerpt, which had appeared in the Wall Street Journal under the headline “WHY CHINESE MOTHERS ARE SUPERIOR,” was, and still is, an Internet sensation—as one blogger put it, the “Andromeda Strain of viral memes.” Within days, more than five thousand comments had been posted, and “Tiger Mother” vaulted to No. 4 on Amazon’s list of best-sellers. Chua appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and on NBC’s “Nightly News” and “Today” show. Her book was the topic of two columns in last week’s Sunday Times, and, under the racially neutral headline “IS EXTREME PARENTING EFFECTIVE?,” the subject of a formal debate on the paper’s Web site.

Thanks to this media blitz, the basic outlines of “Tiger Mother”’s story are by now familiar. Chua, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, is a Yale Law School professor. She is married to another Yale law professor and has two daughters, whom she drives relentlessly. Chua’s rules for the girls include: no sleepovers, no playdates, no grade lower than an A on report cards, no choosing your own extracurricular activities, and no ranking lower than No. 1 in any subject. (An exception to this last directive is made for gym and drama.)

In Chua’s binary world, there are just two kinds of mother. There are “Chinese mothers,” who, she allows, do not necessarily have to be Chinese. “I’m using the term ‘Chinese mothers’ loosely,” she writes. Then, there are “Western” mothers. Western mothers think they are being strict when they insist that their children practice their instruments for half an hour a day. For Chinese mothers, “the first hour is the easy part.” Chua chooses the instruments that her daughters will play—piano for the older one, Sophia; violin for the younger, Lulu—and stands over them as they practice for three, four, sometimes five hours at a stretch. The least the girls are expected to do is make it to Carnegie Hall. Amazingly enough, Sophia does. Chua’s daughters are so successful—once, it’s true, Sophia came in second on a multiplication test (to a Korean boy), but Chua made sure this never happened again—that they confirm her thesis: Western mothers are losers. I’m using the term “losers” loosely.

Chua has said that one of the points of the book is “making fun of myself,” but plainly what she was hoping for was to outrage. Whole chapters of “Tiger Mother”—admittedly, many chapters are only four or five pages long—are given over to incidents like that of the rejected smiley face.

“I don’t want this,” she tells Lulu, throwing back at her a handmade birthday card. “I want a better one.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2011/01/31/110131crbo_books_kolbert

On Words and Tucson

On October 5, 1995, as the Knesset was meeting to ratify the second Oslo agreement, thirty thousand Greater Israel zealots, Likud Party supporters, militant West Bank settlers, and right-wing nationalists rallied in Jerusalem’s Zion Square. For months, certain ultra-Orthodox rabbis and scholars had been suggesting that, because Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was willing to consider territorial concessions in negotiations with the Palestinians, it would be permissible, even obligatory, to kill him. In Zion Square, protesters carried pictures of Rabin, doctored to show him in Nazi uniform or with crosshairs over his face. The crowd chanted “Rabin boged!”—“Rabin is a traitor!”—and, again and again, “Death to Rabin!” From a balcony, prominent opposition politicians, including Benjamin Netanyahu, looked on benevolently and uttered no rebukes. A month later, at another, larger rally, this one for peace, Rabin was assassinated.

In 1995 in Jerusalem, the connection between talk and action was direct and unmistakable. The killer, Yigal Amir, a student of Jewish law, was an activist of the organized religious right. He was neither delusional nor incoherent. “I did this to stop the peace process,” he explained at a court hearing. “We need to be coldhearted.” He acted with a clear political purpose, one that he shared with much of the mainstream religious and secular right. Within six months, Netanyahu was Prime Minister; Rabin’s widow, Leah, and many other Israelis never forgave him for what they saw as his cynical tolerance of the extremist stew that had nurtured the murderer.

In 2011 in Tucson, there was no such close, let alone causal, connection. The madman who fired a bullet through the brain of a vibrant young member of Congress as she was conducting an informal outdoor meeting with constituents—and who kept pulling the trigger until the high-capacity magazine of his semiautomatic pistol was empty and six people (a federal judge, a young aide, three retirees, and a nine-year-old girl) lay dead or mortally wounded—chose a political figure and a political event as the targets of his murderous rage. He has “political” views, but they are incoherent to the point of incomprehensibility. He is not discernibly a member or follower of any sect or movement; he had no discernible political goal or grievance. No one applauded or took satisfaction in what he did. In these and other ways, this was not like Jerusalem (and for that we can be grimly grateful). It was not like Oklahoma City. It was not like the murder of Benazir Bhutto or, two weeks ago, of Salmaan Taseer, the secularist governor of the Punjab province of Pakistan. The crime in Tucson, it appears, had more in common with one of those all too frequent schoolhouse or workplace killing sprees than with a purposeful act of political violence. “The truth,” President Obama said, four days after the shootings, “is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind.”

That is indeed the truth. But it is also the truth that, when the news broke of the Tucson shootings, no one’s first thought was that some unhinged leftist was responsible. From the outset, commentators of all persuasions assumed something like the opposite—assumed it openly if their instant impulse was accusatory, implicitly if it was defensive. And no wonder. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (who, miraculously, survived) is a Democrat. Last March, after she voted for the health-care law, someone shattered the plate-glass door of her Tucson office. Her Republican opponent in the November election, whose campaign poster showed him cradling an assault rifle, held a gun-themed fund-raiser. (“Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”) Giffords herself expressed concern about the political use of violent imagery. “For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list,” she told an interviewer. “But the thing is that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that action.”

Money Can Buy Happiness—As If by Woody Allen

With the economy in shambles, his job gone after Lehman Brothers folded, Litvinov was tortured by indecision over the choice before him. Should he risk everything and buy Marvin Gardens, or leave his money in tax-free bonds until he passed Go? The Dow had plummeted another hundred points that day, and a colleague of his had collapsed with a heart attack while on Free Parking. Word was that the man had picked a card that read “You Have Won Second Prize in a Beauty Contest—Collect Ten Dollars” but failed to declare it. Now the I.R.S. had discovered that the ten dollars was hidden in an offshore bank account and had begun investigating. Litvinov’s hands were shaking when he landed on the prime yellow property, and he called his friend Schnabel at Morgan Stanley, who advised him not to buy it. “No one knows where the market is going,” Schnabel said. “If I were you, I’d wait six months. Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner are meeting in Washington tomorrow and one of the topics they’re discussing is the yellows. We’ll know more after.”

Six months, thought Litvinov. By then Schwimmer could have all three yellows if I don’t prevent it. Schwimmer, Litvinov’s former partner, had recently passed Go and was liquid. He could build. Litvinov, for his part, held two gray properties, Vermont and Connecticut, but his ex-wife Jessica owned Oriental, and he knew she would never trade it to him. He’d offered his house in the Hamptons, more generous visitation hours with the children, and Water Works, but she was adamant. Litvinov had always had problems with women. His inability to throw doubles with the dice had led to a terrible fight with his current fiancée, Bea. He was sure she was having an affair with Paul Kindler, who’d somehow gotten Citigroup to finance a hotel for him on Boardwalk. Kindler had traded for Boardwalk, which gave him both blues, but after the economy tanked and travel fell off no one landed on his property. He tried renovating and planned for luxury hotels with a flat-screen TV in every room, but construction costs soared and he had trouble with the unions, who seemed to take forever just to put up a few houses. Kindler was this close to Chapter 11 when Breslau, of Goldman Sachs, coming home drunk from a Christmas party, landed on Park Place with three houses on it. Suddenly, Breslau needed eleven hundred dollars. He begged Kindler to wait, but Kindler had just drawn a card that read “Pay School Tax—One Hundred and Fifty Dollars,” and needed the money. Not wanting to mortgage any of his properties, Breslau borrowed from loan sharks. When he couldn’t pay on time, they threatened to break his kneecaps. He finally made a deal, offering them St. Charles Place in return for breaking only one kneecap.

Breslau’s wife, Rita, was sexy. They’d had what Hollywood screenwriters called a “cute meet.” He’d picked a card that read “Take a Ride on the Reading Railroad.” She picked that exact same card and they wound up sharing a compartment. At first they didn’t get along, but after a few drinks she removed her clothes and explained the concept of the risk-reward ratio to Breslau and he fell in love with her. Rita stood by him during a crisis when the pieces were being distributed and Breslau wanted the little silver top hat. When it went to Litvinov Breslau was bitterly disappointed. He was forced to take the thimble, which the doctors felt had brought on his depression and led to years of intense psychotherapy. In a listless stupor, he would fail to notice when someone landed on his property, and his demands for rent after the next person had thrown the dice led to complicated litigation (Parker Brothers v. Board of Education).

Lou Daimler was a different story. Growing up in poverty, he vowed that he would make something of himself, but when he came up with the idea of introducing puce and fuchsia properties everyone thought he was a visionary or a fool. He attended Harvard on a scholarship and fell in love with a Boston girl. Family owned the three greens. Hotels on all, of course. They believed Daimler was a fortune hunter, but when he picked “Bank Error in Your Favor—Collect Two Hundred Dollars,” he used the capital to start an Internet company, for which he was offered six billion dollars, although he refused to sell unless the buyer threw in at least one “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Then, there was Porchnick, at Quadrangle, who owned several minor properties and had filed for bankruptcy. Treasury agents learned that he had hidden several hundred thousand dollars in bright-yellow five-hundred-dollar bills under the board, planning to transfer them to Swiss accounts. Poor Porchnick had found himself jobless and broke at fifty-eight and took a bottle of sleeping pills. His note said it all: “To my beloved wife, Claire, I leave Mediterranean Ave. I hope the two-dollar rent enables you to live in the style to which you’ve become accustomed.”

The final tragedy was Milo Vorpich. When Merrill Lynch went under, Vorpich put everything he owned into his mattress. All deposits and withdrawals were made from his Sealy Posturepedic. Then the new Administration set aside two billion dollars of the stimulus package for people with money in their mattresses, and the Fed allotted it by size. Vorpich had a queen-size bed and received substantial help. He decided to marry his childhood sweetheart, but when he obeyed a card that said “Go Back Three Spaces” she refused to wait for him. He could never catch up with her again. If this weren’t sad enough, he landed on Go to Jail. He remained in jail for several years, and finally tunnelled out, emerging on Illinois Avenue, where he was met by a friend with a private Cessna and a Mexican passport. His plan was to fly over Park Place and Boardwalk, thus avoiding the high rents, and settle in Cuernavaca. Unfortunately, his plane ran out of fuel and he was forced to land on Pennsylvania Avenue, where he was slain in a shoot-out with federal agents. ♦

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/01/24/110124sh_shouts_allen

Death of a Planet

When astronomers debated the fate of Pluto, the stakes for author Mike Brown were personal.

AS AN ASTRONOMER, I have long had a professional aversion to waking up before dawn, preferring to see sunrise not as an early-morning treat, but as the signal that the end of a long night of work has come and it is finally time for overdue sleep. But in the predawn of August 25, 2006, I awoke early and was sneaking out the door, trying not to wake my wife, Diane, or our 1-year-old daughter, Lilah. I wasn’t quite quiet enough. As I was closing the front door behind me, Diane called out, “Good luck, sweetie!”

I made the short drive downhill through the dark empty streets of Pasadena to the Caltech campus, where I found myself at 4:30 a.m., freshly showered, partially awake, and uncharacteristically nicely dressed, unlocking my office building to let in news crews that had been waiting outside. All of the local news affiliates were there, as well as representatives of most of the national networks.

It was the last day of the International Astronomical Union meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, and the final item on the IAU agenda was a vote on what to do with Pluto. Everyone’s favorite ice ball was in imminent danger of being cast out of the pantheon of planets by the vote of astronomers half a world away; whatever happened would be big news around the globe.

For me the vote had less to do with the ninth planet than with the 10th. I cared a lot about that 10th planet, because 18 months earlier, I had discovered it—a ball of ice and rock slightly larger than Pluto circling the sun every 580 years. I had been scanning the skies night after night looking for such a thing for most of a decade, and then, one morning, there it was. At the time of the Pluto vote, my discovery was still officially called only by its license-plate number of 2003 UB313, but to many it was known by the tongue-in-cheek nickname of Xena, and to even more it was known simply as the 10th planet. Or maybe, after the vote in Prague, not the 10th planet. Xena had precipitated a year of intense arguments about Pluto, because Xena was Pluto-like in every way—yet larger. It was clear that Xena would share whatever fate was dealt to Pluto. If Pluto was to be a planet, then so too was Xena. If Pluto was to be kicked out, Xena would get the same boot. It was worth waking up early to find out the answer.

Read the rest: http://theweek.com/article/index/211543/the-last-word-death-of-a-planet

Your Immortal Cybersoul

The 'self you create online, says Rob Walker in The New York Times Magazine, won't die when you do.

Suppose that just after you finish reading this article, you keel over, dead. Perhaps you’re ready for such an eventuality, in that you have prepared a will or made some sort of arrangement for the fate of the worldly goods you leave behind: financial assets, personal effects, belongings likely to have sentimental value to others and artifacts of your life like photographs, journals, letters. Even if you haven’t made such arrangements, all of this will get sorted one way or another, maybe in line with what you would have wanted, and maybe not.

But many of us, in these worst of circumstances, would also leave behind things that exist outside of those familiar categories. Suppose you blogged or tweeted about this article, or dashed off a Facebook status update, or uploaded a few snapshots from your iPhone to Flickr, and then logged off this mortal coil. It’s now taken for granted that the things we do online are reflections of who we are or announcements of who we wish to be. So what happens to this version of you that you’ve built with bits? Who will have access to which parts of it, and for how long?

Not many people have given serious thought to these questions. Maybe that’s partly because what we do online still feels somehow novel and ephemeral, although it really shouldn’t anymore. Or maybe it’s because pondering mortality is simply a downer. (Only about a third of Americans even have a will.) By and large, the major companies that enable our Web-articulated selves have vague policies about the fate of our digital afterlives, or no policies at all. Estate law has only begun to consider the topic. Leading thinkers on technology and culture are understandably far more focused on exciting potential futures, not on the most grim of inevitabilities.

Nevertheless: people die. For most of us, the fate of tweets and status updates and the like may seem trivial (who cares — I’ll be dead!). But increasingly we’re not leaving a record of life by culling and stowing away physical journals or shoeboxes of letters and photographs for heirs or the future. Instead, we are, collectively, busy producing fresh masses of life-affirming digital stuff: five billion images and counting on Flickr; hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos uploaded every day; oceans of content from 20 million bloggers and 500 million Facebook members; two billion tweets a month. Sites and services warehouse our musical and visual creations, personal data, shared opinions and taste declarations in the form of reviews and lists and ratings, even virtual scrapbook pages. Avatars left behind in World of Warcraft or Second Life can have financial or intellectual-property holdings in those alternate realities. We pile up digital possessions and expressions, and we tend to leave them piled up, like virtual hoarders.

Read the rest: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/magazine/09Immortality-t.html

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Buy vs. Lease a Car? - Bloomberg: Your Money

TRADING SILENCE

Aerial photos taken before and after the flooding here in Brisbane, Australia

High-resolution aerial photos taken over Brisbane last week have revealed the scale of devastation across dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes and businesses.

The aerial photos of the Brisbane floods were taken in flyovers on January 13 and January 14.

Hover over each photo to view the devastation caused by flooding.

This is part one of an ABC News special presentation showing before and after photos of the floods.

Part 1:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm
Part 2:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter2.htm

Jake Shimabukuro plays "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Bruce Feiler: The council of dads

For New York Times, a Complex Relationship With Wikileaks, Government

The Friday Podcast: The Moral Of The Financial Crisis

Egypt: The youth perspective

Albania's escalating crisis

Friday, January 28, 2011

Liza Donnelly: Drawing upon humor for change

Thomas Goetz: It's time to redesign medical data

The Crisis Reports: A Literary Analysis

The Tuesday Podcast: How Much Is A Good Teacher Worth?

The Most Polluted Places in the World

Chemicals in Cigarette Smoke

Exclusive | Biden: Egypt's Mubarak an Ally, Not a Dictator, But People Have Right to Protest

Obama Road Tests Message on Economic Competitiveness in Wisconsin

Shields and Gerson Dissect President Obama's State of the Union

Watch President Obama Deliver Full 2011 State of the Union Address

Is Mubarak's rule threatened?

Flying into trouble

Why Are States and Cities Going Out of Business

Tom Keene Interviews Roubini, Lyons

New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini talks about the global economy and U.S. fiscal policy. Standard Chartered Chief Economist Gerard Lyons joins the discussion moderated by Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “The Pulse.” They speak from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The Future of Revenue

Which Companies Spend the Most on Advertising?

Raw Video: Egyptian Protests

Merle Hazard on Germany

Environmental Coalition Urges Legislature to Reject LePage Roll Back Proposals

A coalition of environmental groups, doctors and parents converged on the State House today to express their outrage at the proposed repeal of laws that protect children, families and businesses from toxic chemicals. This week the LePage administration recommended a list of environmental regulations that it would like to see rolled back or repealed, including the Kid Safe Products Act. The coalition is asking the current Legislature to reject the wish list.

Read at: http://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/14988/Default.aspx

LePage's Choice to Head Maine DEP Faced Tough Questions

Gov. Paul LePage's choice to head the Department of Environmental Protection faced some tough questioning during his confirmation hearing this afternoon. But there was limited opposition from environmental groups who are outraged about the LePage administration's proposals to eliminate, rollback and reform several dozen environmental rules. For his part, Darryl Brown said he did not have direct input about the list. And he's also trying to allay fears about a potential conflict of interest involving his land development company.

Read at: http://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/14958/Default.aspx

Billionaire Media Mogul to Buy Nearly a Million Acres of Maine Land

One of the largest private landowners in the nation is set to make a huge addition to his holdings in Maine. Billionaire John Malone, who runs Colorado-based Liberty Media, is planning to purchase nearly a million acres of working forestland.

Read at: http://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/14960/Default.aspx

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China

Ted Talks, Remixed

Alex Tabarrok VS Jimmy Smith by asenasen

Matt Ridley VS Wackies by asenasen

Dan Gilbert VS. SND by asenasen

How Severe Is Europe's Intertwined Debt Crisis?

MIT: Mathematics, Common Sense, and Good Luck: My Life and Careers

The American Energy Spectrum

Link here: http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1101/good-energy/interactive.html

Critics: LePage's Proposed Regulatory Reforms "Extreme"

The LePage administration has released a list of proposed regulations targeted for outright repeal, relaxation or reform and environmentalists are calling it "extreme" and "reckless." Some of the proposals will require legislative approval. Others could be done by administrative rule-making. In either case, alarms are being sounded on a variety of fronts. The governor's proposals include everything from requiring development in at least 30 percent of Maine's North Woods, possible elimination of Maine's first-in-the-nation electronic waste recycling program, relaxation of air pollution regulations and a rollback of any state regulation that is more strict than federal law.

Read at: http://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/14943/Default.aspx

LePage Taps Private Prison Warden to Head Maine DOC

Gov. Paul LePage looked inside--and outside--the state for people to run the Departments of Transportation and Corrections. To head the state DOT, the governor chose David Bernhardt, a career state engineer and program manager with 26 years experience at the agency. But in selecting a nominee to head the state Department of Corrections, LePage recruited Joseph Ponte, a warden with the private corrections firm, Corrections Corporation of America.

Read at:
http://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/14944/Default.aspx

Budget Gaps Forcing Tough Choices on Maine School Districts

Tonight, a school board in the western Maine community of Bethel will meet to address an unpleasant topic. The district, SAD 44, is facing a nearly $1 million budget shortfall and is considering closing two elementary schools. Districts of all shapes and sizes throughout Maine and across the nation are facing similar tough choices, as state money for education gets cut and federal stimulus dollars dry up.

Read at:
http://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/14945/Default.aspx

What will the West do?

Haiti's muddy political waters

Sunday, January 23, 2011

The State of Wikipedia

50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s “Ask Not” inaugural address

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

50th Anniversary of JFK's Inaugural Address

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>

Video Archive

Outsourcing Aircraft Maintenance to the Lowest Bidder

WikiLeaks: Why It Matters. Why It Doesn't?

Environmental Regulations on Maine Legislature's Front Burner

With all the focus in the Republican-dominated Legislature this year on environmental regulations and the possible rollback of those that are perceived to deter job growth, environmentalists and lawmakers are gearing up for a lively session. Dozens of environmental bills are up for consideration, including repeal of Maine's bottle bill, a moratorium on expedited wind permitting and relaxation of shoreland zoning and protection of vernal pools.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Cracking the Credit Card Code

Heather Knight: Silicon-based comedy

Anders Ynnerman: Visualizing the medical data explosion

Van Jones: The economic injustice of plastic

Maine Governor Abolishes Worker Misclassification Task Force

Gov. Paul LePage has signed an executive order that abolishes a joint task force charged with identifying worker misclassification among Maine's employers. Although LePage dismissed the task force's efforts as unnecessary, members of organized labor say the order is another example of the governor chipping away at the protections for working families.

http://www.mpbn.net/News/MPBNNews/tabid/1159/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3762/ItemId/14931/Default.aspx