Saturday, July 11, 2015

@10:30, 7/10/15

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1
World

North Korea: Pesticide Factory May Have Sinister Purpose, Report Says

A pesticide factory recently visited by the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may be used to produce biological weapons, like anthrax, according to an online report.

The factory is producing microbiological insecticide.
The one I know of it BT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis

Taxonomy and discovery

"B. thuringiensis was first discovered in 1901 by Japanese biologist Ishiwata Shigetane.[3][4] In 1911, B. thuringiensis was rediscovered in Germany by Ernst Berliner, who isolated it as the cause of a disease called Schlaffsucht in flour moth caterpillars. In 1976, Robert A. Zakharyan reported the presence of a plasmid in a strain of B. thuringiensis and suggested the plasmid's involvement in endospore and crystal formation.[5][6] B. thuringiensis is closely related to B.cereus, a soil bacterium, and B.anthracis, the cause of anthrax; the three organisms differ mainly in their plasmids.[7]:34–35 Like other members of the genus, all three are aerobes capable of producing endospores.[1]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_anthracis

If one can grow the one, one can grow the other.

The governors of South Korea desire an end to the conflict.

2
Opinion

Making Police Use of Chokeholds a Crime

A New York City Council member says he has proposed a bill on chokeholds because their use persists despite police policies banning them.

Silly. 
Killing people is criminal in most cases.


3
Fashion & Style

How Can I Get Crisp Fish Skin? Sam Sifton Answers This and Other Questions for the Home Cook

A meat-eating reader wonders what he can cook for his new vegan girlfriend and another reader asks about crispy fish skin. Sam Sifton has answers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duqqa
"Try my riff on an old David Tanis recipe: warm a couple of cans of drained chickpeas in a pot with a cup or two of fresh water, an onion cut in half, a bay leaf, a stick of cinnamon and a scattering of salt. Let that simmer for 30 minutes or so, then drain the broth, get rid of the onion and aromatics, and toss the beans with a couple of glugs of olive oil, a pinch of saffron or turmeric, and a big pile of chopped scallions, cilantro and mint. Eat with warmed pita bread and some hot sauce if you’re so inclined. Life’s good."

Cooking is fascinating when I can find the time (about an hour) to do it.

http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014786-outdoor-fish-fry

I have not been backpacking oil. 


4
N.Y. / Region

New York City to Allow Visits to Grave Sites on Hart Island


Abandoned bodies and the worms that ate them. 
There are no records there.
The convict labor does not find bodies or bones when they rework the trenches.

  1. Piercing the Mystery of Potter’s Field

    Since 1869, an estimated 850,000 of New York’s unclaimed, impoverished dead have been interred on Hart Island off the coast of the Bronx. They are the city’s ultimate nobodies, collected and ferried over to the
  2. City Introduces Online Database for Its Potter’s Field

    For more than a century, to be buried on Hart Island, off the coast of the Bronx, was to be essentially forgotten. A man run over by a train with no family to claim his body. A homeless woman who froze to death on a
  3. Honoring the Unnamed Dead of AIDS on Hart Island

    mentions an individual grave on Hart Island for the first child to die of AIDS in New York. In 1992, Joel Sternfeld and I photographed the marker for that plot. It is in a four-acre area on the southernmost tip of
  4. The Graves of Forgotten New Yorkers

    ON New York City maps, Hart Island drifts off the edge of the Bronx like an amputated leg. Among overgrown vegetation and ramshackle buildings spread out over 101 acres, about a million bodies are buried — the
  5. Tucked Into the City's Budget, Thousands of Body Bags

    for infant. They are also used to transfer bodies to funeral homes after autopsies. Burying impoverished New Yorkers on Hart Island comes from a separate Correction Department budget. The cost of uniformed guards
  6. New York City Seeks to Put Names to Unidentified Bodies

    to draw attention to the unidentified bodies that pass through city morgues and receive public burials in mass graves on Hart Island, off the coast of the Bronx. But on Saturday, city officials, for the first time
  7. On the Island of the Dead

    dusting the dirt next to hundreds of corpses in bare wooden caskets. Here on a grassy expanse toward the south end of Hart Island, off the Bronx, the trenches are 10 feet deep and as long as a football field. They

5
World

Guatemala: Ex-Dictator Is Found Unfit

Prosecutors say José Efraín Rios Montt is responsible for the deaths of 1,771 Mayan Indians killed by the army.

"Government-backed experts have said the former Guatemalan dictator  
José Efraín Rios Montt, 89, is mentally incompetent.
A three-judge panel must now decide if a trial set for July 23 will proceed despite the opinion, issued last week by the National Institute of Forensic Sciences. Prosecutors say Mr. Rios Montt is responsible for the deaths of 1,771 Mayan Indians killed by the army between 1982 and 1983. He was convicted in 2013, but the constitutional court overturned his 80-year sentence and ordered a new trial."

His is not the same mind.

6
U.S.

States Weigh Gay Marriage, Rights and Cake

With same-sex marriage now legal everywhere nationally, a case involving a Colorado baker is being closely watched as a test of the boundary between personal religious objections and legal discrimination.

“This case is simply not about cake,” said Ria Mar, a staff lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins. “Businesses open to the public must be open to all, on the same terms.”

The Supreme Court has not been willing to void the constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."

Apostolic Christianity is a religion.
Business with the general public is not a religion.

The bakers action is unlawful.

7
World

Setting a Deadline for Greece Proves Much Easier Than Sealing a Fate

European leaders and Greece have both sidestepped responsibility for the end game in the Greek debt crisis.

http://www.ianwelsh.net/if-syriza-blinks/

If Syriza Blinks

2015 July 9
"So, the EU wants Greece to sign an even worse deal than the “no” referendum already rejected.
If Syriza accepts such a deal, Greece will stay in depression and, likely, that depression will get worse.
Let me be explicit: This sort of thing will not stand. If the moderate left-wing (not center-left, moderate-left) won’t do the job, then someone else will.
That will mean either the hard-right, or the hard-left. People who can credibly say: “When we say we will end austerity, we mean we will do anything it takes. Anything.”
You have all been warned, repeatedly. French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said it, so it’s been said by a “real person”:
“Let’s not re-enact the Treaty of Versailles.”
The hard-right is salivating over what is being done to Greece. LePen in France, the hard-right in Britain, and so on. They know that rage, anger, and hate is building as people are smashed in the face over and over again by neoliberal politics. They are thrilled by Cameron’s smash-mouth budget in England. They love the way the refugee crisis is being bungled.
They know how to use the fear, desperation, and rage. And they will use it. People will become so fed-up with having lousy lives and no hope for the future that they will turn to anyone who looks hard-assed enough to fix it and to break with current power structures, who will get (and deserve) the blame.
This is not a game; this is not consequence free. We are fulfilling all the necessary conditions for an age of war, famine, and revolt. Greece is only one domino, but be clear, it is both a crime and a mistake. No matter what happens, the consequences of all these stupid and cruel decisions will be harsh. They will be harsher if the hard-right are the ones who make the break.
Europe has a chance here to negotiate with people who still believe in the European project and who are essentially moderates (Syriza is hardly left-wing at all in historical context, sorry).
There will come a day when they will meet people, from either the Left or the Right, who have no interest in negotiating. Given an electorate willing to follow me, I can tell you that, even in 2010, I would have had only very brief negotiations with the EU if I ran Greece.
Today, people like me who are willing to break things to make a new world are in the minority.
Today is passing.
Be afraid. Be very afraid."

The Greek government cannot deliver what Germany demands.

The Greek Banks will collapse if they open. 
The Greek economy has collapsed.
Greece is in catastrophic failure.
 It will look like revolution.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33491452
Germany will refuse debt relief. 
8
Opinion

The Good Jobs Strategy

Can companies offer both low prices and good jobs? Yes, a management professor finds.

The companies can offer such work.
They have little reason to do so now.

9
Sports

Florida State Drops Quarterback

De’Andre Johnson was released the same day prosecutors released a video showing him ounching a woman at a bar.

The players are professionals.
They must follow professional standards.

10
Opinion

Obesity Clinics and the Health Law

Various ways to address obesity, including weight-loss clinics.

It is mostly diet.
I must try exercise.

11
N.Y. / Region

Bronx Man Charged in Fatal Shooting at Housing Complex

Demetrius Washington, 19, was charged with murder after a dispute between rival crews in the Polo Grounds Towers in Manhattan, the authorities said.

Hand guns are not a good idea.

12
Science

Scientists Demonstrate Animal Mind-Melds

New studies say rats and monkeys whose brains are linked by electrodes can coordinate their brains to carry out tasks, often better than individuals do.

"Dancing droids"
So far it does not progress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon

13
U.S.

Illinois: Ex-Congressman Is No-Show at Arraignment

Former Representative Mel Reynolds failed to appear for his arraignment on federal tax charges Monday in Chicago.

Political infighting.
Some people are stupid. 

14
Opinion

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on Mercury in Vaccines

In response to a column by Frank Bruni criticizing him, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argues that steps need to be taken to improve vaccine safety.

I have not been watching.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal
" Major scientific and medical bodies such as the Institute of Medicine[30] and World Health Organization,[31] as well as governmental agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration[9] and the CDC[32] reject any role for thiomersal in autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal_controversy

"The committee concludes:
"Thus, based on this body of evidence, the committee concludes that the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism."[2] [bold in original]"
 The controversy is noise.
 
15
Business Day

Jobless Claims Jump to Highest Level Since February

The number of people filing applications for unemployment benefits rose by 15,000 to 297,000, probably as a result of temporary auto plant shutdowns.

We are regularly told to ignore bad news.

16
Your Money

Your Spending Choices Often Reflect Your Values

Our credit card statements show how we spend our money and our time. As a result, we obtain a clear picture of what we value versus what we say we value.

Spending follows the mind.

17
U.S.

Missouri: Governor Signs Curbs on Profits From Traffic Tickets

The legislation will limit the ability of cities to profit from traffic tickets, a move meant to address concerns raised after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown.

That will change life in fly-over.


18
N.Y. / Region

Settlement Over Anti-Semitic Bullying at Pine Bush Central Schools Is Approved

Two 17-year-old girls told a federal judge about repeated acts of harassment at the New York State district; he approved a $4.48 million payment to aid the victims.

Now on to East Ramapo.


19
World

Chinese Employee of German Weekly Is Freed After 9-Month Detention

Zhang Miao was detained in Beijing last year after helping to report on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. She was released Thursday without conditions, her lawyer said.

One less thing for the news to report.

20
The Upshot

When Algorithms Discriminate

Recent research has shown how some websites can produce results that perpetuate bias.

The early instruction from the founders to the Google sales force, "don't be evil", is as  much as management can do.


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