@11:50, 1/30/15

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1

Science

Left Means Less, Even for Chickens

By ERICA GOODE | Jan 29th 2015

Scientists found that newborn chicks, like people, seem to map numbers spatially, associating smaller amounts with the left and larger ones with the right.

Numbers; Chickens; Research 

Point not proven. 

The experimenter's assumptions can easily enter the training.of the chicks.

2

U.S.

Obama to Unveil Research Initiative to Develop Tailored Medical Treatments

By ROBERT PEAR | Jan 30th 2015

Plans include collecting genetic data on one million Americans so that scientists can suit drugs and treatments to patients’ specific traits, officials said.

Genetics and Heredity; Medicine and Health; Research 

Now that the insurance companies are less powerful the proposed program is less risky.

3

N.Y. / Region

Dog Missing for Months Is Rescued Amid Snowstorm

By J. DAVID GOODMAN | Jan 27th 2015

Burt, a gray whippet who disappeared from his Harlem home, was discovered months later and miles away by a resourceful Fire Department lieutenant.

Dogs; Fires and Firefighters 

A sweet story.

4

N.Y. / Region

More Special-Needs Students Remain at Charter Schools, Report Finds

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS | Jan 29th 2015

New York City’s Independent Budget Office found that 53 percent of charter school kindergartners with disabilities were still in the same schools four years later, compared with 49 percent in traditional schools.

Education (K-12); Special Education; Charter Schools; Disabilities 

Eight percent of the students attend charter schools.

About half the students with disabilities are retained in all schools.

Selection makes about a four percent difference.

5

U.S.

Arizona: Suspect Awaited Deportation

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Jan 27th 2015

A man awaiting a deportation hearing was out on bond when he killed a Phoenix-area convenience store clerk over a pack of cigarettes, federal authorities said.

Murders, Attempted Murders and Homicides; Deportation; Immigration and Emigration

Apolinar Altamirano could not stay out of trouble

6.

Travel

Video: 36 Hours in Belfast

Fritzie Andrade, Max Cantor, Chris Carmichael and Will Lloyd | Jan 28th 2015

Belfast has been coming into its own in the last few years, developing a vibrant restaurant scene, award-winning architecture and a new cosmopolitanism.

Travel and Vacations; Bars and Nightclubs

I know nothing of that group of my relatives.
Cities work better when.people are not shooting random individuals.

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N.Y. / Region

Motorcyclist Pleads Guilty to Assault in 2013 Attack on S.U.V. Driver in Manhattan

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. | Jan 28th 2015

Christopher Cruz, 29, will serve four months in jail for his role in a confrontation along the Henry Hudson Parkway that ended with the beating of a motorist.

Assaults; Sentences (Criminal)

An s.u.v. offers no immunity.

8

Science

In the Way Cancer Cells Work Together, a Possible Tool for Their Demise

By CARL ZIMMER | Jan 29th 2015

Research on the cooperation that goes on in a cancerous tumor could point to a new strategy for fighting the disease.

Tumors; Cancer

A report of a phenomenon.
There is no more than that as yet.

9

Science

Video: Counting by Chickens

Jan 29th 2015

Researchers demonstrated that chickens naturally order numbers left to right. When the number five is in the middle, chickens naturally go left for lower numbers and to the right for higher numbers.

Case: not proven.

10

U.S.

Keystone XL Pipeline Bill Advances to Final Vote in Senate

By CORAL DAVENPORT | Jan 29th 2015

The Senate voted to end debate on the bill with a final passage of the bill allowing construction of the oil pipeline expected later on Thursday.

Keystone Pipeline System; Law and Legislation; United States Economy; Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline

There will be a veto.

11

Opinion

Can Students Have Too Much Tech?

By SUSAN PINKER | Jan 30th 2015

The wired classroom may actually widen the learning gap.

Education (K-12); Computers and the Internet; Research 

Susan Pinker is of the opinion that students can have too much tech.
I disagree.
Let the children's curiosity drive them.  They will learn.
It will look like fun and games but each game requires skill.
All learners are self taught
and self motivated.

12

Business Day

Showtime Plans a Global Push, Starting With a Canadian Deal

By EMILY STEEL | Jan 29th 2015

It will be the first time Showtime’s programming will be distributed and marketed under the Showtime umbrella outside the United States.

Television

Just ugly.
Television is mostly unwatchable now.

13

The Upshot

A ‘Rich’ Person Is Someone Who Makes 50 Percent More Than You

By JOSH BARRO | Jan 29th 2015

To grasp why President Obama’s plan to end tax benefits for college savings plans died a quick death, take a closer look at the “merely affluent.”

Income Tax; Tax Credits, Deductions and Exemptions; Colleges and Universities; Tuition

Loss of a benefit will evoke screams.

14

U.S.

Pennsylvania: Man Accused of Killing a State Trooper Pleads Not Guilty

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Jan 29th 2015

Eric Frein, 31, was charged with first-degree murder, terrorism and other offenses in the Sept. 12 ambush that killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson and severely wounded Trooper Alex Douglass.

Attacks on Police; Murders, Attempted Murders and Homicides

ok

15

N.Y. / Region

New York City Is Spared the Worst Effects of Snowstorm

By MARC SANTORA and EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS | Jan 27th 2015

The National Weather Service said the blizzard warning for the city had been canceled, as the dire warnings that it could be one of the worst storms in the city’s history failed to materialize.

Snow and Snowstorms; Weather; Delays (Transportation)

Proper action.
Storm tracks are hard to predict with precision.

16

The Upshot

Why Spending Is Back in Season in Washington

By JOHN HARWOOD | Jan 28th 2015

The deficit is down, for now, and the sense of budgetary crisis has vanished as bipartisan pressure is rising to increase spending.

Federal Budget (US); United States Politics and Government; Taxation; United States Economy; Social Security (US)

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/i-see-very-serious-dead-people/

"In the long run, of course, when we’re all dead.

I’m scrambling on last-minute course prep, so not much blogging today. But yesterday’s Steve Rattner article, misuse of labor cost data aside, had me thinking about an issue that has had me annoyed ever since this crisis began: the constant efforts on the part of Very Serious People to turn discussions away from monetary and fiscal policy, recessions and sluggish recoveries, to the supposedly more fundamental issues of structural reform and long-term growth. Rattner dismisses the austerity/stimulus debate as “simplistic”; Jeff Sachs calls Keynesian concerns “crude”; many, many people (I’d guess an especially large fraction of those at Davos) are eager to get away from all this deflation stuff and talk about how what they imagine to be, or wish were, the really important issues like Big Data and a world that’s even flatter.

There were people like that during the Great Depression too — dismissing as naive any notion that you could put the unemployed back to work just by spending more, and surely technological unemployment was the real story, and anyway we should be looking at the broad sweep of history and institutions, right?

So, a few points.

First, we’re now in year eight of a massive setback to economic growth, to living standards; US per capita GDP has barely surpassed 2007 levels, while median income is still far below, and Europe is doing much worse. Technology hasn’t retrogressed; institutions haven’t suddenly gotten far worse. This is about the business cycle, and about business cycle policy. If you want to ignore all that, because in the long run it’s the fundamentals that matter, you’re exactly the kind of person Keynes was mocking:

But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.

Second, more or less Keynesian macroeconomics — the macroeconomics of short-run fluctuations driven by aggregate demand — has worked very well in this long slump. While people were very seriously intoning that it was simplistic and crude to think that those little models could be of any use in a changing world yada yada, macroeconomists were making remarkable, counterintuitive predictions — about inflation (or the lack thereof), about interest rates, about the effects of austerity — that came true and were, if you think about it, an intellectual triumph. Yes, good macro tends to be simple, at least conceptually; but simple and simplistic aren’t the same thing, and by and large people who solemnly declared that things are more complicated than that ended up with lots of egg on their faces.

Third, what’s really striking about all the talk about how long-run structural issues are the real thing is how fuzzy the thinking is. In a world that is short of demand, how, exactly, is structural reform that enhances the supply side (if it does) supposed to solve the problem? If Europe’s problem is lack of competitiveness, why doesn’t a weaker euro solve it — and for that matter, why is Europe as a whole, and Germany in particular in trade surplus? For people who are supposedly so serious, the Very Serious seem remarkably casual about thinking things through.

Finally, I know that people who airily dismiss the austerity debate and all that and demand that we focus on the long run think they’re taking a brave stand; but you know, they aren’t. In fact, they’re ducking the truly hard issues — because let’s face it, stimulus and austerity, QE or not, are politically charged issues where taking any kind of stand will get you attacked. And since they are also important issues, pretending that they aren’t is a form of moral cowardice."

N.Y. / Region

System That Powers City Is Shut Down by Threat of Snow

By JIM DWYER | Jan 27th 2015

In the 110-year history of the New York City subway system, it had never been shut down over an impending snowstorm. Despite the precaution, the storm delivered little in the city.

Snow and Snowstorms; Subways

For Republicans Democrats can do nothing right.

18

Science

Snowstorm’s Forecast Was Mostly Right, Even if It Felt Wrong in New York

By HENRY FOUNTAIN | Jan 27th 2015

Meteorologists said their computer models correctly predicted a major snowfall in the Northeast, but it intensified 50 to 100 miles farther east than expected, mostly sparing New York City.

Snow and Snowstorms

Yes.

19

U.S.

Budget Office Slashes Estimated Cost of Health Coverage

By ROBERT PEAR | Jan 26th 2015

Changes to the predicted price tag for coverage under the Affordable Care Act resulted from many factors, including a general “slowdown in the growth of health care costs.”

Health Insurance and Managed Care; Federal Budget (US); Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010)

Yes.

20

U.S.

Utah Court Strips Criminal of Right to Counsel, and Some Lawyers Object

By JACK HEALY | Jan 28th 2015

The Utah Supreme Court recently ruled that it was justified in cutting off a white supremacist’s access to public defenders after he had behaved so badly with so many of them.

Legal Profession; Public Defenders and Court-Appointed Lawyers (Criminal)

I agree with the lawyer.
The judge has overstepped in this case.

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