Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, January 08, 2012.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: How Do I Know by Here We Go Magic
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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Chart of the Day: Deficit Reduction So Far = $2.4 Trillion
By Kevin Drum
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Michael Linden and Michael Ettlinger provide us today with a handy chart of all the deficit reduction we've implemented over the past couple of years. . .
. . . If you're wondering why President Obama thinks the sequestration negotiations should include a balance of both spending reductions and tax increases, now you know.
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U.S. coal continues its slow fade to black
By David Roberts
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As I’ve been writing about with some frequency, the U.S. coal industry is on the decline. The reasons are familiar by now: the low price of natural gas, new EPA regulations, the relentless grassroots anti-coal movement, the rising costs of production, flat or falling electricity demand, the recession, and, this past year, an unseasonably warm winter.
The result is unfolding before us: U.S. coal production is down 9 percent from 2011, according to preliminary numbers from the EIA. And coal folks are not particularly optimistic about next year either . . .
The only thing that can save U.S. coal is ramping up its overseas exports. As this year’s drop in production shows, that’s not happening fast enough to offset U.S. coal’s inexorable decline.
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Cancer-linked chemicals found worldwide
By (UPI)
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Chemicals linked to cancer have been detected at locations around the globe, including some of the Earth's most remote locations, U.S. researchers say.
Brominated and chlorinated flame retardants, linked to cancer and neurological damage, have been found in remote sites in Indonesia, Nepal and Tasmania, Indiana University scientists reported Tuesday.
. . .
"These findings illustrate further that flame retardants are ubiquitous pollutants and are found all around the world, not only in biota and humans but also in plants," researcher Amina Salamova said.
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Google Makes NYC Neighborhood First with Free WiFi Internet Access
By Tiffany Kaiser
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. . .
Google is providing free Internet access to southwest Chelsea in New York, making this area the first free WiFi enabled neighborhood in Manhattan.
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This network will mainly spread across outdoor areas, like the Fulton Houses (property owned and managed by the New York City Housing Authority) and many local public schools.
. . .
The main idea behind providing free Internet access is to use it as a tool for teaching children, keep parents connected to the schools, and attract new businesses to the area.
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UN unable to feed 1 million hungry Syrians
By (Al Jazeera)
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About one million people inside Syria are going hungry due to the difficulty of getting supplies into conflict zones, the UN has said.
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) is handing out rations to about 1.5 million people in Syria each month, still
short of the 2.5 million deemed to be in need, Elisabeth Byrs, WFP spokeswoman, said on Wednesday.
. . .
"Our main partner, the (Syrian Arab) Red Crescent, is overstretched and has no more capacity to expand further," Byrs told a news briefing in Geneva.
Long queues for bread are now normal in many parts of Syria and there are shortages of wheat flour in most parts of the country due to damage to mills, most of which are located in the embattled Aleppo area, she said.
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International |
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Afghan 'zero option' raised as Karzai set for Obama
By (BBC)
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The White House has said for the first time it is possible that no US troops will remain in Afghanistan past 2014, as President Hamid Karzai arrived in Washington for talks with Barack Obama.
Ben Rhodes, a top US security official, told reporters the administration was still considering a range of options.
Mr Karzai's three-day trip will include crucial talks with Mr Obama and other officials, but no final decision.
The Afghan president wants US troops out of Afghan towns and villages.
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Ex-Abu Ghraib inmates get $5m settlement from US firm
By (BBC)
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A defence contractor whose subsidiary was accused of conspiring to torture Abu Ghraib prisoners has settled with former inmates for $5m (£3m).
US firm Engility Holdings paid 71 people held at Abu Ghraib, Baghdad, and other US-run prisons, on behalf of L-3 Services, according to a legal filing found by the Associated Press.
. . .
Another contractor which provided interrogators to the US military, CACI, is expected to go to trial over similar allegations.
The US government is immune from lawsuits stemming from combat actions by the military in time of war, but courts are still establishing whether independent firms operating in war zones should have the same legal immunity.
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US Benghazi consulate attack: Sole suspect 'freed'
By (BBC)
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The only suspect to be held over the attack on the US embassy in the Libyan city of Benghazi has been released due to lack of evidence, his lawyer says.
Ali Harzi, who was being held by authorities in Tunisia, was conditionally released on Monday night, the lawyer said.
The attack on 11 September killed the US envoy to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other American officials.
The case has created political shockwaves in the US.
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Indian medicines for Iran's patients
By Vijay Prashad
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Between December 17 and 19, 2012, a business delegation from the Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil) went from Delhi to Tehran. The spur for the visit came from the Ministry of Commerce of the Government of India, which responded to a plea from Iran. The UN Security Council sanctions and the further embargo by the United States and European Union on Iran have created a major shortage of pharmaceutical goods in Iran.
. . .
If Indian pharma supplies the medicines on the list turned over by the Iranians to the Indian government on December 26, this would be the largest export of Indian drugs to date.
. . .
Political pressure from the US to isolate Iran has worked on the Indian government, but it has not been able to thwart the regional advantages entirely. That India's Sinha and Iran's Jalili both see the sanctions regime as a regional advantage and that they say so openly says a great deal about the limits to US authority in this region.
One should not make too much of this of course. At the same time, the Indian government has promised to further reduce its oil imports from Iran and to accept the US offer of Saudi oil, despite the fact that Iranian oil is both sweeter (easier to process) and cheaper (lower transport costs). India is placed between the government's desire to please Washington and the realistic business needs of its growing economy.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Supreme Court weighs case of disabled child and medical malpractice award
By Michael Doyle
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. . .
As her mother, Sandra; sister, Kelsey; and father, William, a prison guard, watched in the courtroom, the justices seemed genuinely split over when and how states can take a share of medical malpractice payments awarded Medicaid beneficiaries like Emily.
. . .
The court’s eventual answer, expected in June, will shape how North Carolina and other states reclaim at least some of the Medicaid funds spent on a patient’s care. North Carolina’s current law allows the state to claim one-third of a medical malpractice settlement or judgment awarded a Medicaid patient.
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The Armstrongs sued the obstetrician, the medical center and others, and initially pegged total damages at more than $42 million. The obstetrician, who had a history of drug abuse, voluntarily surrendered his North Carolina medical license.
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In a 2006 lawsuit settlement, the Armstrongs received $2.8 million. North Carolina officials asserted a lien on $933,333.33, one-third of the total. The state law permits North Carolina to take the lesser of either the total Medicaid spending on the patient or one-third of the court-ordered malpractice payment.
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The federal Medicaid law prohibits state governments from imposing liens on Medicaid patients’ property. However, a prior Supreme Court ruling specified that the ban on Medicaid liens applies only to the portion of a settlement that doesn’t cover medical care, such as payments for pain and suffering.
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NRA to attend White House meetings on gun violence
By (globalpost.com)
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Pro-gun groups – including the National Rifle Association – will attend meetings at the White House this week as part of Vice President Joe Biden’s gun violence task force.
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President Barack Obama asked Biden to lead the task force following the Sandy Hook shootings in Newtown, Conn.
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The task force will also listen to victims’ groups, the entertainment industry, anti-gun campaigners and other pro-gun lobbyists, AFP reported.
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
In a recent interview, legendary oddball filmmaker and writer John Waters (Hairspray, Pink Flamingos) said, "I still do hitchhike-- it's a great way to meet people, and to have sex." And it's a nice way to become acquainted with indie rock bands, apparently.
Brooklyn act Here We Go Magic recently randomly picked up Waters in Western Pennsylvania, during a hitchhiking trip from Baltimore to... who knows where.
Guitarist Michael Bloch explained:
. . . Getting back on the highway this morning, there was a man at the side of the on-ramp with a sign that read "to the end of Rte 70." Jen [Turner, bassist] wanted to pick him up, but we drove past him. As we passed by, our sound guy said "John Waters." Luke said, "Yep, definitely John Waters." We got off at the next exit and circled back. He was still there. We pulled up, opened the door and asked where he was coming from. "Baltimore," he said. And we said "Get in, sir."
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Engineered algae seen as fuel source
By (UPI)
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Engineered bacteria could make fuel from sunlight as a step toward replacing fossil fuels as raw materials for the chemical industry, U.S. researchers say.
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The challenge is to get cyanobacteria to create significant amounts of chemicals that can be readily converted to chemical feed stocks, and in the UC Davis experiments cyanobacteria after three weeks of growth yielded 2.4 grams of 2,3 butanediol per liter of growth medium, the highest productivity yet achieved for chemicals grown by cyanobacteria.
That represents a potential for commercial development, Atsumi said, noting the U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal of obtaining a quarter of industrial chemicals from biological processes by 2025.
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Coral fights back against warming seas
By Tim McDonnell
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In 2000, ecologist Dan Barshis was with a research group in American Samoa, wading through tide pools, when he noticed that coral in some pools seemed healthy, despite being bathed in water much warmer than corals can normally survive, and despite the fact that individuals of the very same species were on their deathbeds in pools just down the beach. Corals get stressed when water temperatures rise, especially when it happens quickly; under enough stress, they’ll boot out the symbiotic algae that photosynthesize sunlight for the coral’s food and give the coral its signature color palette, leaving the coral pale — hence the term “bleaching” — and starving.
But the coral Barshis saw looked inexplicably happy, and over the next several years he found that the reason why is all about training. Barshis compared the genes of the heat-resistant corals and their more fragile brethren under a range of water temperatures. He found that, in both groups, heat changed the way hundreds of genes were expressed. But in the heat-resistant group, 60 of these genes were flipped on all the time, and helping to crank out heat-resilient proteins and antioxidants. Using records of the pools’ temperatures, Barshis found that the strongest corals came from pools that were consistently but briefly exposed to high temperatures during low tides over time. He thinks the repeated exposure helped condition the corals to build up their tolerance, like an athlete building endurance through weight training, only on the level of DNA.
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Scientists have known that heat conditioning can boost some organisms’ tolerance for high temperatures — in the lab, yeast have shown similar behavior to what Barshis and his colleagues found in the coral. But their research is the first to pinpoint the genetic basis of heat tolerance in coral, and it offers a rare spot of hope for this embattled sea critter: Scientists could use genetic engineering or selective breeding to help spread heat tolerance throughout more of the world’s coral; or, Barshis suggests genetic profiling could help locate the most resilient populations and prioritize them for conservation.
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Science and Health |
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First Oral Drug for Spinal Cord Injury Improves Movement in Mice
By (ScienceDaily)
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An experimental oral drug given to mice after a spinal cord injury was effective at improving limb movement after the injury, a new study shows.
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The injury in the animals caused a loss of about 75 percent of myelinated axons in the lesion area in the placebo group. This loss was reduced so that myelinated axons reached more than half of the normal levels with LM11A-31 at 100 mg/kg. That was correlated with about a 50 percent increase in surviving oligodendrotcytes compared to those in the placebo group, Yoon said.
. . .
"The cellular analysis of the myelin profile detects small changes. Behavior is more complex, and we don't think functional behavior necessarily improves in a linear fashion," she said. "Still, these results clearly show that this is the first oral drug in spinal cord injury that works alone to improve function."
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Being Bored at Work Can Make Us More Creative
By (ScienceDaily)
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Most of us think of being bored at work as a negative experience, but a new study suggests it can have positive results including an increase in creativity because it gives us time to daydream.
. . .
Dr Mann and Ms Cadman conducted two studies. In the first 40 people were asked to carry out a boring task (copying numbers out of a telephone directory) for 15 minutes, and were then asked to complete another task (coming up with different uses for a pair of polystyrene cups) that gave them a chance to display their creativity.
. . .
Again the researchers found that the people in the control group were least creative, but the people who had just read the names were more creative than those who had to write them out. This suggests that more passive boring activities, like reading or perhaps attending meetings, can lead to more creativity -- whereas writing, by reducing the scope for daydreaming, reduces the creativity-enhancing effects of boredom.
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Radon causes more deaths than drunken driving
By (UPI)
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Radon -- a tasteless, odorless, invisible radioactive gas -- kills more Americans every year than drunken driving, U.S. researchers say.
University of Georgia Cooperative Extension home safety and public health educators are urging homeowners to reduce their risk of exposure to the silent killer. Radon is the most common cause of lung cancer among non-smokers and causes about 21,000 U.S. deaths a year.
Radon, a naturally occurring gas that seeps from the ground as uranium deposits decay, is always in the ambient air, usually about 0.4 picocuries per liter, or pCi/L. At that level, radon is not harmful, but over time the radioactive gas can become concentrated in the air inside homes.
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If There Are 17 Billion Earth-Sized Worlds In Our Galaxy, the Universe Is Bubbling With Life
By Jesus Diaz
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Astronomers have a mind-blowing new theory: that there are 17 billion Earth-sized planets in our galaxy. They don't yet know how many of these worlds are in habitable zones, but the implications of this discovery are amazing. So much that some claim the "quest for a twin Earth is heating up."
Simply put: If there are 17 billion Earth-sized worlds In our galaxy, it's clear that the Universe is bubbling with life.
. . .
Now, if that's not amazing to you, look at the number of galaxies in the Universe. The most recent computer simulation puts that number at 500 billion. Of course, not all galaxies have the same numbers of stars, but since some are bigger than ours and some are smaller that ours, let's just assume that it all evens out. Wait. Let's be galactic jerks here and take 100 billion galaxies out of the total number. 400 billion galaxies, each of them with about 170 civilized worlds.
. . .
Of course, the Universe is an awfully big place. So big that we may never encounter another civilization. But that's a minor point. The fact is that, even being conservative, even if we further cut that number drastically, even if we assume much lower percentages, even if we think that some civilizations may have been destroyed by asteroids or wars or some other kind of disaster—even if we just assume that, out of those 79,900 civilizations, only one percent have actually survived and thrived, that leaves us with 799 billion civilizations in the Universe.
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Science puts wrinkled fingers to the test
By Jonathan Amos
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Science may be getting closer to explaining those prune-like fingers and toes we all get when we sit in a hot bath too long.
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The team found there was no advantage from ridged fingers when moving dry objects. This suggests that the wrinkles serve the specific function of improving our grip on objects under water or when dealing with wet surfaces in general.
For a long time, it was assumed that the wrinkles were simply the result of the skin swelling in water, but recent investigations have actually shown the furrows to be caused by the blood vessels constricting in reaction to the water, which in turn is a response controlled by the body's sympathetic nervous system.
. . .
What the Newcastle team has now done is confirm that prune-like fingers are indeed better at gripping wet objects.
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Diet drinks' 'link to depression' questioned
By (BBC)
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Experts are questioning whether diet drinks could raise depression risk, after a large study has found a link.
The US research in more than 250,000 people found depression was more common among frequent consumers of artificially sweetened beverages.
. . . those who drank four cans or glasses of diet fizzy drinks or artificially sweetened juice a day increased their risk of depression by about a third.
Lead researcher Dr Honglei Chen, of the National Institutes of Health in North Carolina, said: "Our research suggests that cutting out or down on sweetened diet drinks or replacing them with unsweetened coffee may naturally help lower your depression risk."
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Technology |
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Samsung fires first shot in TV set battle
By Juliette Garside
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Samsung has unveiled intelligent television sets controlled by voice and gesture commands as it prepares to do battle with Apple in the living room.
With the iPhone maker known to be developing a television set of its own, companies from Sony to chip maker Intel are rushing to reinvent the small screen before Apple enters the market.
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The sets it unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas can be updated with new software like a phone or a laptop, and feature a redesigned interface that Samsung hopes will replace clunky menus used by pay-TV companies.
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Making television sets is an unprofitable business, but that could change if Apple intervenes as successfully as it did in the music and mobile industries.
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Microsoft Silicon Valley offices raided with only iPads stolen
By Josh Halliday
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Microsoft's reputation as the "less cool" rival to Apple appears to have been reinforced, after thieves raided its Silicon Valley offices – but only stole a collection of iPads.
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Microsoft's flagship collection of smartphones and tablet computers remained untouched in the raid, according to Mountain View police who spoke to The Register.
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The iPads were said to have been taken from an office where Microsoft develops new software for Apple products. No word yet on whether the thieves were only after the unreleased Microsoft apps.
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Cultural |
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Hidden casualties of Afghan war: nomadic farmers adopt more settled life
By Emma Graham-Harrison
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Mohammad is a Kuchi, one of about 4 million Afghans whose tribes over centuries pursued a migratory, but often highly lucrative, life, herding caravans of sheep, goats and camels around the country, from warmer lowlands in winter to mountain pastures in summer.
Their black tents, colourful clothes and flocks sometimes hundreds of animals strong have become a classic symbol of Afghanistan. They also make a critical contribution to the country's economy and lifestyle, producing most of the raw materials for its much loved kebabs and famous carpets.
Yet the nomadic way of life has been rudely interrupted by war. Three decades of conflict have spared few in Afghanistan from upheaval, but Kuchis have been particularly vulnerable. They cannot claim protection from local commanders when the country fragments, because they move between areas.
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Hundreds of thousands have now settled down, or are petitioning the government for land so they can join a more mainstream way of life. A handful of people, such as Ashraf Ghani, a former presidential candidate, have become powerful businessmen and politicians.
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"Around 70% of the sheep and goats you see in the major livestock markets of Afghanistan comes from the Kuchi, and they only make up about 5% or 6% of the Afghan population. So it doesn't take a maths whiz to work out that maybe we should find a way to let the people who really want to raise their livestock this way, do that."
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Positive externalities thrive online
By Cory Doctorow
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. . .
That's the crux of this irrational fear of positive externalities: "If something I do has value, I deserve a cut." It's one thing to say that someone who hires you to do a job, or purchases your product, should pay you money. But positive externalities are the waste-product of something we were already going to do. They're things that you have thrown away, that you have thrown off, that you have generated in the process of enjoying yourself and living your life.
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Worse still: the infectious idea of internalising externalities turns its victims into grasping, would-be rentiers. You translate a document because you need it in two languages. I come along and use those translations to teach a computer something about context. You tell me I owe you a slice of all the revenue my software generates. That's just crazy. It's like saying that someone who figures out how to recycle the rubbish you set out at the kerb should give you a piece of their earnings. Harvesting positive externalities involves collecting billions of minute shreds of residual value – snippets of discarded string –and balling them up into something big and useful.
If every shred needs to be accounted for and paid for, then the harvest won't happen. Paying for every link you make, or every link you count, or every document you analyse is a losing game. Forget payment: the process of figuring out who to pay and how much is owed would totally swamp the expected return from whatever it is you're planning on making out of all those unloved scraps.
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How the Steubenville case exposes the cruelty faced by rape survivors
By Megan Carpentier
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The fact is that, if the way sexual assaults are investigated and prosecuted – as in Steubenville, Ohio – represents the justice that society wants for victims and survivors of sexual assault, there's little question why 54% of sexual assaults in America go unreported to the police.
It's because, of the 46% of assaults that are reported, only about 25% of those lead to an arrest. One quarter of those arrested will never be prosecuted. Only about half of those prosecuted will receive a felony conviction. And only about half of those who receive a felony conviction will serve even one day in jail.
. . .
Occasionally, outcries against the justice system, like the one going on in Steubenville, gives survivors an indication that the poor quality of justice we receive for the assaults committed against us isn't exactly the justice the rest of society wants for itself. But in the 149 days since the Steubenville survivor was assaulted, statistics indicate that nearly another 85,000 sexual assaults have been committed in the United States. And for these, there are no protests, no Anonymous group turning up videos or digging into the backgrounds of the police and prosecutors, no spotlight on anything but, in all likelihood, the background and personality of the victim.
When one is sexually assaulted – assuming the police investigate at all and the prosecutors intend to do any sort of prosecution – they don't just look into the background of the perpetrator or his (or her) actions during the assault. Police and prosecutors examine the background of the victim, which, under the American system, means that anything that could prove "exculpatory" for the defense must be turned over to them (such as, occasionally, one's own sexual history). . .
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |