The skirmish earlier this year between Washington and the European Union over who can spy on whose bank data may lead to a new, formal system of eavesdropping that lets Europeans investigate bank transactions within the United States. Washington was eavesdropping on European bank transactions in 2006, secretly, when The New York Times and other newspapers uncovered a post-9/11 regime called the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program. Part of the TFTP involved issuing subpoenas to a Belgium-based company called SWIFT, which funnels trillions of dollars per day in bank-to-bank ... Read More
Watchdog 2.0
April 6, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Since yesterday morning, a disturbing and an unusual video has been making the rounds on YouTube. It shows gun camera footage of a strike by two U.S. Apache helicopters on a group of pedestrians in Baghdad, including two Reuters reporters, the soldiers mistook for insurgents. The footage is remarkably clear, and it's accompanied by audio transcript of the soldiers' comments during the attack and in its aftermath. The video, which is titled Collateral Murder, is particularly disturbing because the attack appears to be unprovoked, although it may have been preceded by gunfire on the ground ... Read More
Are Parents Too Involved With Their Children?
April 6, 2010 • By • 3 Comments
Despite media fondness for reports of hyper- and helicopter parenting, the short answer to this question is a resounding no. While some kinds of parental involvement with kids are better than others, say researchers, any kind of involvement is better than none at all. Psychologist William H. Jeynes’ found that — regardless of race or gender — the more parents were involved in their kids’ lives, the better their children’s grades and test scores. The California State University, Long Beach, professor analyzed more than 140 other studies of elementary and secondary school students, ... Read More
Professor Predicts Baseball’s Best Teams for 2010
April 5, 2010 • By • 2 Comments
The Yankees lost Sunday night’s season-opening game to the Red Sox, but Bronx baseball fans can nevertheless look forward to a very satisfying season. At least, that’s the projection of New Jersey Institute of Technology mathematician Bruce Bukiet, who has used his number-crunching abilities to predict MLB division winners for the past decade. Bukiet’s revised predictions for the 2010 season, posted on his Web site just before opening day, suggest the Yankees, winner of last season’s World Series, will again dominate the sport. According to his calculations (prepared with Kevin ... Read More
Wood and Civilization
April 5, 2010 • By • 1 Comment
The author of A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization, writes a series for Miller-McCune on the world’s first energy crisis: peak wood. Part I: The Tree That Changed the World Part II: Wood and Civilization Part III: Peak Wood and the Bronze Age Part IV: Peak Wood Brings on the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Fossil Fuels From the first cave society to the end of the 18th century, the world lived in the Biomass Age with wood as its primary building material and fuel. England was first to leave the Era of Wood, embracing the fossil fuel coal at the dawn of the ... Read More
Medicine Means Sometimes Having to Say You Are Sorry
April 2, 2010 • By • 4 Comments
Even before Barack Obama became president and nudged the Democrats to recognize the imperfections of the U.S. malpractice system, he had a plan. Along with Hillary Clinton, then-Sen. Obama introduced legislation in 2005 to encourage doctors and hospitals to "disclose and apologize" for errors — a departure from the typical malpractice stance of "defend and deny." In his first year as president, Obama established a $25 million federal grant program to help health systems set up early disclosure programs. In these models, hospitals and doctors share information about errors, apologize and ... Read More
The Salty Taste of Energy Independence
April 1, 2010 • By • 2 Comments
Barack Obama made good this week on his promise to Republicans to remain open-minded about offshore drilling. The United States, he announced, will end a moratorium on the practice, opening up stretches along the East Coast, in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Alaskan coast to oil and gas exploration. It was as much a political move as anything else — one designed to deflate the Republican rallying cry of "drill, baby, drill!" while also improving the chances of a bipartisan energy bill in the Senate this year. Offshore drilling will not, of course, solve the problem of energy ... Read More
There’s No Brewsky in the Food Pyramid
March 31, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Not-all-that-groundbreaking new research from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Department of Agriculture may have drinkers rethinking their diets. A study of more than 15,000 adults in the United States, published in the April issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, found that people who drink more also eat worse. More specifically, the more men and women drink, the less likely they are to eat fruit, and they consume more calories from alcohol and unhealthy foods. Among men, increased alcoholic beverage ... Read More
Maine Passes Landmark Product Stewardship Law
March 25, 2010 • By • 1 Comment
With a green light from local business, Gov. John Baldacci of Maine today signed a landmark product stewardship bill, paving the way for the state to shift more of the cost of recycling and trash disposal to the manufacturers of consumer goods. "As Maine goes, so goes the nation," they say in America's easternmost state. If true, Congress take note: The Maine Legislature has Democratic majorities, but this month's vote for the "Act to Provide Leadership Regarding the Responsible Recycling of Consumer Products" was unanimous and bipartisan. "I hope people take the message that it can be ... Read More
Extreme School Makeovers
March 16, 2010 • By • 1 Comment
Last fall, a teenager on the South Side of Chicago was beaten to death during an after-school melee caught on videotape and spread widely on the Internet. The violence was the indirect result of a so-called "turnaround" effort, the controversial practice of implementing radical changes to schools that have high dropout rates and low test scores. One neighborhood high school had been closed down, forcing students from two different areas to attend the same school. In the aftermath, the killing was cited as an example of the kind of disaster that can result. Former Chicago teachers' union ... Read More
