Overnight News Digest: "One More Time" Edition

Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, November 05, 2013.

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: One More Time by Daft Punk

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
If you think fracking is a free-market success story, think again By Ben Adler Last week I noted that a deregulated coal industry is not actually a free-market beacon, but rather a ward of the welfare state, since it is the government and society that bear the cost of CO2 emissions and other pollution from coal mining and burning. Well, coal is not the only subsidized fossil fuel. And in Pennsylvania, the subsidies for natural gas go way beyond society paying for the negative externalities from extraction and pollution. The Republican-controlled Pennsylvania state legislature has discovered one kind of government program it likes: corporate welfare for the dirty energy industry. . . The money goes to help build pipelines, buy or convert vehicles to run on compressed natural gas, and set up fueling stations. And the legislature has already approved $1 billion over 25 years to support construction of a refinery to convert natural gas liquids into ethylene for plastics and chemicals. Reasonable people can disagree about the environmental and economic merits of allowing fracking in the Marcellus Shale. But if natural gas makes economic sense, it should be able to stand on its own, without government subsidies. And it should be so economically efficient that it still makes sense after being taxed to cover the cost to neighbors of methane leaks and to society as a whole of greenhouse gas emissions. There’s nothing fiscally conservative about the approach that Republicans want to take with coal or natural gas. Intestinal Bacteria Linked to Rheumatoid Arthritis By (ScienceDaily) Researchers have linked a species of intestinal bacteria known as Prevotella copri to the onset of rheumatoid arthritis, the first demonstration in humans that the chronic inflammatory joint disease may be mediated in part by specific intestinal bacteria. The new findings by laboratory scientists and clinical researchers in rheumatology at NYU School of Medicine add to the growing evidence that the trillions of microbes in our body play an important role in regulating our health. Using sophisticated DNA analysis to compare gut bacteria from fecal samples of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and healthy individuals, the researchers found that P. copri was more abundant in patients newly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis than in healthy individuals or patients with chronic, treated rheumatoid arthritis. Moreover, the overgrowth of P. copri was associated with fewer beneficial gut bacteria belonging to the genera Bacteroides. . . . Why P. copri growth seems to take off in newly diagnosed patients with rheumatoid arthritis is also unclear, the researchers say. Both environmental influences, such as diet and genetic factors can shift bacterial populations within the gut, which may set off a systemic autoimmune attack. Adding to the mystery, P. copri extracted from stool samples of newly diagnosed patients appears genetically distinct from P. copri found in healthy individuals, the researchers found. . . . Rheumatoid arthritis is treated with an assortment of medications, including antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs like steroids, and immunosuppressive therapies that tame immune reactions. Little is understood about how these medications affect gut bacteria. This latest research offers an important clue, showing that treated patients with chronic rheumatoid arthritis carry smaller populations of P. copri. "It could be that certain treatments help stabilize the balance of bacteria in the gut," says Jose U. Scher, MD, director of the Microbiome Center for Rheumatology and Autoimmunity at NYU Langone Medical Center's Hospital for Joint Diseases, and an author on the new study. "Or it could be that certain gut bacteria favor inflammation." Financial crisis hits happiness levels By (BBC) . . . According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), levels of "life satisfaction" fell sharply between 2007 and 2012 in countries like Greece and Spain. . . . Countries less affected by the economic downturn saw less of an impact on happiness levels. In Germany, life satisfaction rose by 4% over same five-year period. But trust in governments has been eroded across the OECD as a whole, with just 40% of those surveyed saying they now trusted their governments - the lowest level since 2006. . . . "This report is a wake-up call to us all," said OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria. "It is a reminder that the central purpose of economic policies is to improve people's lives. We need to rethink how to place people's needs at the heart of policy-making." Israel says Separation Wall will be border By (Al Jazeera) Israeli negotiators have told their Palestinian counterparts that the Separation Wall that cuts through the occupied West Bank will serve as the border of a future Palestinian state, local media reports said. . . . Israel began work on its sprawling wall in 2002 at the height of the second intifada, and has defended its construction as a protective measure, pointing to a drop in attacks inside Israel as proof of its success. But Palestinians, who refer to its as the "apartheid wall", say it is a land grab. When complete, 85 percent of it will have been built inside the West Bank. . . . Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who oversaw the start of the barrier's construction, repeatedly insisted that the barrier was not a border for a future Palestinian state but only a measure to keep out attackers.

	International
Israel-Palestinian talks: Why fate of Jordan Valley is key By Yolande Knell . . . The Jordan Valley makes up the largest single segment of what is known as Area C - Israel's zone pending a final peace agreement, as defined under the 1993 Israel-Palestinian peace accords. . . . "Along the Jordan Valley you have immensely rich agricultural land. It's hard to see frankly how in the future you're going to have a Palestinian state that doesn't include that." . . . However Mr Netanyahu is now said to favour a much stronger presence even within the framework of a Palestinian state. . . . "The Israelis don't want us to live here. They want to kick us out and give the land to the settlers so that they can plant dates," she says gesticulating to the Massua settlement nearby. Blasts at China regional Communist Party office kill one By (BBC) A series of small blasts have killed at least one person outside a provincial office of the ruling Communist Party in northern China, state media report. . . . Steel balls were found scattered at the scene, suggesting they had been used in a homemade bomb, Xinhua reported. . . . Tensions are also high in the wake of last week's incident in Beijing. A car ploughed into a crowd in Tiananmen Square in what the authorities said was a terrorist attack by extremists from the western region of Xinjiang. Later this week, the Communist Party's top officials will meet in Beijing to start a major economic planning meeting. DR Congo M23 rebels 'end insurgency' By (BBC) The M23 rebel group in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo says it is ending its insurgency, hours after the government claimed military victory. . . . Although the statement came after an apparently heavy military defeat, it also followed an agreement by African leaders on Monday night that the M23 should make "a public declaration renouncing rebellion" to allow a peace accord to be signed with the Congolese government. . . . The M23, made up mainly of ethnic Tutsis, had now been replaced as "top of the list" by the Rwandan Hutu FDLR militia, he said. "We are going to get on with disarming them."

	USA Politics, Economy, Major Events
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder opposes arming TSA agents By (UPI) U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday Transportation Security Administration agents should not be armed and mass shootings "can't be the new normal." In an interview with CNN, Holder criticized Congress for failing to pass stricter background checks for firearms purchases following massacres in Newtown, Conn., and elsewhere. . . . Four days after TSA agent Gerardo Hernandez, 39, was killed and several others were wounded in a shooting at Los Angeles International Airport, Holder said he is concerned about the possibility for more so-called lone wolf attacks by "individuals who get radicalized in a variety of ways, sometimes self-radicalized." Salmonella, crippled workers, tortured chickens, and toxic chemicals: Surely USDA is now ready to ditch its plan to “modernize” poultry inspection By Celeste Monforton The Obama Administration’s USDA continues to insist that their proposed rule to “modernize” poultry slaughter inspections will improve food safety. Just last week, Secretary Vilsack’s office said it is sticking with their plan, saying: . . . For the last 18 months, however, the USDA Secretary has heard loud and clear that his agency’s proposal is certain to do much more harm than good. Advocates for and experts on food safety, workers safety, consumers, animal rights, and even USDA’s own inspectors, have provided evidence of this during the agency’s public comment period. They’ve also follow-up with letters and petitions reiterating why the proposal should be scrapped. It’s fallen on Vilsack’s and his staff’s deaf ears. . . . In September, Kindy reported on USDA’s failure to control contaminated meat produced at plants that are using the agency’s “modernized” inspection system from reaching consumers. In exchange for adopting the new system, poultry and meat producers can substantially increase lines speeds, use employees to inspect the product throughout the process (which means fewer USDA inspectors) and come up with their own scheme to identify contaminated meat and poultry. The system has been adopted by some oversees producers whose meat is imported to the U.S. . . . As far as I can tell, the “experts who are agreeing” are two individuals on whom the USDA relies. One is Professor Billy Hargis from the University of Arkansas. He is the Sustainable Poultry Health Chair, and endowed position, funded in part, by the Tyson Family (Tyson, as in the mammoth poultry company.)  The other expert is Douglas Fulnechek, DVM, a manager and veterinarian at USDA. Personally, I don’t consider either unbaised experts.  In contrast, many public health experts, who have no financial or professional stake in the outcome, submitted scads of evidence to USDA on the likelihood of grave harm should its proposal be adopted. Obamacare: US will reach out to discouraged insurer seekers By (BBC) . . . On Tuesday, Ms Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions that the website was able to process nearly 17,000 registrants per hour with almost no errors. But the day before, healthcare.gov went down for 90 minutes. . . . "Our goal is to stabilise the website this month and then we do have a targeted plan that includes not only young people but the large populations of the uninsured," Ms Tavenner said. . . . Ms Tavenner said she could not take a position on the bill because she had not read it, but said her office was looking into ways to guide those with cancelled or changed plans toward the most affordable alternatives, including plans offered by the exchanges. Democrats argue those affected have not been given a full picture of how to best change their insurance, including by taking advantage of government subsidies to aid in the purchase of new insurance.

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:

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Over the past decade, Daft Punk's influence has grown gargantuan – it's hard to name another act with its fingerprints on as many bands, sounds and trends. You can hear them in the reference-dizzy dance punk of LCD Soundsystem, who made their admiration explicit on "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House"; in the ­Auto-Tuned bleat pop of T-Pain and his imitators (Daft Punk got to the effect before anyone but Cher thought it was cool); in the hazy loops of chillwave acts like Toro y Moi and Washed Out; in the rehabilitated easy-­listening cheese of Phoenix and Chromeo; in the brash new meld of hip-hop and electronic music that Kanye West staged when he turned de Homem-Christo's vocoder-bent voice into a chart-topping hook on "Stronger." In 2011, backstage at Madison Square Garden after a Watch the Throne show, Jay-Z told de Homem-Christo that Daft Punk's pyramid had been "a huge influence" on the tour. Even Disco Stu wore Bang­alter's chrome robot helmet on The Simpsons. But when Bang­alter invokes the sterility of computer music with a scowl, he has in mind Daft Punk's most direct musical descendants: the heroes of the mainstream dance takeover, all of whom are bananas for Daft Punk. David Guetta spins their tracks in Ibiza and called their debut, 1997's Homework, "a revolution." Avicii has described his earliest entree to electronic music as "listening to a lot of Daft Punk, way before I knew what house music was." Deadmau5 owes them his helmets. Skrillex has commented that seeing Daft Punk's pyramid "changed my life." Swedish House Mafia proclaim that "Daft Punk are our heroes in all ways possible."

. . .

No musical act strikes the same balance between gravitas and goofiness as Daft Punk. On one hand, they speak loftily about artistic evolution and music being "an invitation to a sonic journey"; on the other, they wear kitschy helmets straight off the covers of Eighties-era Isaac Asimov paperbacks. Bang­alter describes the robot look as both a high-concept philosophical gambit – "We're interested in the line between fiction and reality, creating these fictional personas that exist in real life" – and a way to enfold Daft Punk's music within a tradition of flamboyant pop theatricality that includes "Kraftwerk and Ziggy Stardust and Kiss; people thought the helmets were marketing or something, but for us it was sci-fi glam."

. . .

Daft Punk's division of labor has always been murky to outsiders, and the pair prefer it this way. Bangalter says that he's more "hands-on" when it comes to "technology" but that he and de Homem-­Christo typically feel like they have a special connection, "like Siamese twins." Gondry says, "To me, Guy-Manuel is a little bit like Meg in the White Stripes – she was quiet, but she anchored Jack White." Dauxerre remembers being stunned by de Homem-Christo's facility with melody: "He'd hear something, say, 'That's great, just change one chord,' and it was obviously better." House-music hero Todd Edwards, who's collaborated with Daft Punk numerous times, says, "Thomas is more the frontman, the one setting everything up, taking the lead on all the executive decisions – so the work is getting done, then Guy-Man comes and puts his input in, which is crucial." For the new Daft Punk album, Giorgio Moroder, the disco godfather, delivered a spoken-word performance into three microphones from three different decades. "Thomas has superears," Moroder says. "I asked the engineer, 'Who will ever hear the difference between these microphones?' He told me, 'Nobody. But the boys will.'"

. . .

Much dance music withers when it leaves the floor, but Daft Punk's imagination exceeded raves nearly from the jump. "Music was a vector that we wanted to build a universe around," says Bangalter. Like the other flagship Nineties electronica artists, Daft Punk presented more like a band than DJs: touring behind an album of proper songs, placing singles on alt-rock radio, commissioning inventive videos with then-fledgling directors like Gondry and Spike Jonze. "Dance music is not cool," says DJ A-Trak, who's known the duo since 2007, and who introduced Kanye West to their music. "It has the worst fonts, the worst artwork – let's not forget what a rave flier looks like. And then here come Daft Punk with these crazy videos, beautiful album art. They have a flash and an elegance that other dance acts envied."

Back to what's happening:

	Environment and Greening
Atlanta aquarium in court fight over importing Beluga whales By (UPI) The Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta says it's suing to get a ruling by federal authorities denying it permission to import 18 Russian Beluga whales overturned. . . . The federal fisheries agency cited concerns five of the animals may have been still nursing when captured in Russia's Sea of Okhotsk between 2006 and 2011, and said granting the aquarium's request could negatively impact the local whale population. . . . "We could walk away. But we're not prepared to do that, because we all believe so deeply and we're so committed to this project," Scott Higley, a spokesman for the aquarium, told the Environment & Energy Publishing website. Obama's 5 Biggest Sellouts to the Meat Industry By Tom Philpott . . . Unfortunately, Big Meat continues to enjoy a rather friendly regulatory environment nearly a half-decade into Obama's presidency, the report shows. Drawn (mostly) from CLF''s update, here are five ways the Obama Administration has kowtowed to the meat industry. . . . 1. Factory farms don't have to register with the EPA. . .   2) Factory farms are exempt from the most important pollution laws. . . 3) Big Meat has only gotten bigger, unchecked by antitrust action. . . 4) CAFOs continue to generate antibiotic-resistant pathogens. . . 5) Obama's USDA is pushing to speed up poultry slaughterhouses, workers be damned. More corn grown in U.S. this year than ever before. Thanks, biofuels. By John Upton . . . With the fall corn harvest three-quarters done, traders are anticipating a yield of about 14 billion bushels, Bloomberg reports. That exceeds forecasts and is 30 percent greater than last year. Growers are thanking agreeable weather for this year’s early and bountiful harvest, a notable shift after last year’s drought woes. The amount of land used to cultivate corn has been growing during the past 25 years, displacing grasslands and other crops. Meanwhile, the amount of corn grown per acre has tripled since the 1950s due largely to new varieties and heavy doses of herbicides and fertilizers, which have been polluting waterways and fueling algae blooms. But the most dramatic change in recent years has been the skyrocketing demand for corn to brew ethanol. That’s not due to a resurgent national appetite for white lightning moonshine. Rather, it’s due to the EPA’s renewable-fuel mandate, a controversial regulation requiring biofuels be blended into gasoline. The mandate was created under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, substantially expanded in 2010, and it continues to be expanded. The spike in demand for corn to fuel vehicles threatens natural areas and human food supplies, leading many environmentalists to oppose the biofuels mandate.

	Science and Health
How the Brain Gets Addicted to Gambling By Ferris Jabr . . . In the past, the psychiatric community generally regarded pathological gambling as more of a compulsion than an addiction—a behavior primarily motivated by the need to relieve anxiety rather than a craving for intense pleasure. In the 1980s, while updating the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the American Psychiatric Association (APA) officially classified pathological gambling as an impulse-control disorder—a fuzzy label for a group of somewhat related illnesses that, at the time, included kleptomania, pyromania and trichotillomania (hairpulling). In what has come to be regarded as a landmark decision, the association moved pathological gambling to the addictions chapter in the manual's latest edition, the DSM-5, published this past May. The decision, which followed 15 years of deliberation, reflects a new understanding of the biology underlying addiction and has already changed the way psychiatrists help people who cannot stop gambling. . . .  The APA based its decision on numerous recent studies in psychology, neuroscience and genetics demonstrating that gambling and drug addiction are far more similar than previously realized. Research in the past two decades has dramatically improved neuroscientists' working model of how the brain changes as an addiction develops. In the middle of our cranium, a series of circuits known as the reward system links various scattered brain regions involved in memory, movement, pleasure and motivation. When we engage in an activity that keeps us alive or helps us pass on our genes, neurons in the reward system squirt out a chemical messenger called dopamine, giving us a little wave of satisfaction and encouraging us to make a habit of enjoying hearty meals and romps in the sack. When stimulated by amphetamine, cocaine or other addictive drugs, the reward system disperses up to 10 times more dopamine than usual. . . .  A new understanding of compulsive gambling has also helped scientists redefine addiction itself. Whereas experts used to think of addiction as dependency on a chemical, they now define it as repeatedly pursuing a rewarding experience despite serious repercussions. That experience could be the high of cocaine or heroin or the thrill of doubling one's money at the casino. “The past idea was that you need to ingest a drug that changes neurochemistry in the brain to get addicted, but we now know that just about anything we do alters the brain,” says Timothy Fong, a psychiatrist and addiction expert at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It makes sense that some highly rewarding behaviors, like gambling, can cause dramatic [physical] changes, too.” Nationwide Seismic-Monitor Array Nears Completion By Alexandra Witze and Nature magazin . . . Since 2004, the set of 400 seismometers, loaded on trucks, has marched gradually eastwards across the continent, from the Pacific coast across the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains to reach the eastern seaboard. At each spot, technicians dig holes to bury the instruments in plastic tanks underground. The process has drawn the best picture yet of the North American part of Earth’s mantle, reaching hundreds of kilometers beneath the surface. The array has illuminated how slow-motion earthquakes shimmy along the coast of the Pacific Northwest, and how molten rock rises in the hot spot deep beneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. . . .  Now, the Transportable Array’s operators are looking to the far north, in what may be its toughest challenge yet. Having almost finished the job in the lower 48 states, the seismometers will start to be relocated next spring to Alaska — by far the most seismically active US state, and not thoroughly monitored yet. The project’s seasoned engineers will have to fly many of the instruments to remote locations by helicopter, then drill into frozen ground and install the seismometers with battery packs to keep them working through the long northern winter. (A few additional stations will be installed across the Canadian border, in the Yukon Territory.) . . .  The Transportable Array, along with other permanent and temporary seismic stations, is one of three cornerstones making up the larger EarthScope initiative. EarthScope was conceived as a way to combine different geophysical views of the deep Earth to provide data on a grand scale for researchers working across North America on all aspects of geoscience. EarthScope’s second component comes in the form of Global Positioning System instruments that detect tiny changes in ground movement, such as those that occur along geological faults. The initiative’s third component was a 3.2-kilometer-deep hole drilled into California’s San Andreas fault, although the effort was marred when instruments lowered down the hole stopped working after just days 50 Years After the Community Mental Health Act, the Best Reporting on Mental Health Care Today By Christie Thompson Fifty years ago last week, President John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Act. The law signaled a shift in thinking about how we care for the mentally ill: instead of confining them into institutions, the act was supposed to create community mental health centers to provide support. But studies on the prevalence of mental illness among inmates and the homeless show many patients are ending up on the street or in jail, instead of served by the treatment centers envisioned in the law. The homes that do exist are often subject to loose laws and regulations, leaving already fragile patients vulnerable to further abuse and neglect. . . . Nevada buses hundreds of mentally ill patients to cities around country, Sacramento Bee, April 2013 Psychiatric patient James Flavy Coy Brown got off a bus in Sacramento with no money, no medication, and no idea why he was there. He’d been sent to the California capital from a hospital in Las Vegas, who had regularly been discharging patients and busing them across the country. Patients are only supposed to be sent to other states when there’s a clear plan for their care. But stories like Brown’s show how many patients fall through the cracks. Playing Super Mario 64 Makes Your Brain Bigger By Adam Clark Estes You know how your mom used to yell that playing video games would turn your brain into mush? Turns out she was exactly wrong. A new study shows that playing Super Mario 64 for half an hour a day over the course of two months causes a "significant" increase in brain size. What makes this study compelling is that causation bit. "While previous studies have shown differences in brain structure of video gamers, the present study can demonstrate the direct causal link between video gaming and a volumetric brain increase," says study leader Simon Kühn. "This proves that specific brain regions can be trained by means of video games." And that's a really good thing when it comes to stuff like helping soldiers recover from PTSD.

	Technology
Apple creates 2,000 jobs shifting production back to US By Juliette Garside Nearly a decade after the closure of its last US factory, Apple is to create 2,000 manufacturing, engineering and construction jobs at a new plant in Arizona. The California technology titan is beginning to shift production back to its home market, with the creation of its second US plant in under a year. It is understood the renewable energy powered facility in Mesa, Arizona, will produce laboratory grown sapphire crystals of the kind used in the iPhone 5S fingerprint scanner. . . . Next month, the first Macintosh computer made in America since 2004 will go on sale. The Mac Pro, whose internal parts are contained in an unusual cylindrical shell, has been produced from a purpose-built plant in Austin, Texas, in a joint venture with contract manufacturer Flextronics which has created 1,700 jobs. Apple closed its last American computer assembly plant in Elk Grove, California, in June 2004, having by then shifted much of its production to contract manufacturers in Asia. By then, the company had given up making its own products and outsourced the work to sub-contractors such as Foxconn. Study: Problems with Surgical Robots Going Unreported to the FDA By Tiffany Kaiser A new study shows that some problems and even deaths caused by surgical robots were not accurately reported (or in some cases, not reported at all) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). . . .  This is a pretty big deal, considering hospitals are required to report the incident to the manufacturer if a device malfunctions in any way, and then the manufacturer reports it to the agency. From there, the FDA creates a report for its Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience database. . . .  One such case was a patient's injury and death in 2009, but the incident couldn't be found in the FDA's database for that year. The study's authors found a "very late" report matching the patient's case in 2010. The FDA received the report two weeks after The Wall Street Journal ran a story about it. . . .  It also raises another important question: if problems occur during robotic surgery, is the doctor, the hospital or the manufacturer responsible? According to PBS, this introduces the potential issue of product liability.

	Cultural
Report Shows Extent to Which Social Background Matters for Academic Success By (ScienceDaily) Children of similar intelligence have very different levels of educational attainment depending on their social backgrounds, says a large-scale study led by Oxford University researchers. The research team studied cohorts of children born in Britain and Sweden from the 1940s to the 1970s. They found that bright children from advantaged social backgrounds were twice as likely to achieve A-levels as similarly able children from the least advantaged social backgrounds. . . . The researchers point to two major implications of their findings. First, even if variation in intelligence is taken to be largely genetically determined -- which they argue is increasingly disputable -- it still remains the case that children's family environments and resources are major factors in how well they do academically at school. Second, the fact that children of high ability but from disadvantaged social backgrounds are unable to fully realise their academic potential indicates a substantial wastage of human resources, the study concludes. Lead author Dr Erzsébet Bukodi said: 'Whether a child's parents were educated to a higher level appears to be the strongest determinant for how that child performs at school in later years. This appears to have a bigger effect than the parent's class or status, or indeed whether that child is academically bright as measured in cognitive ability tests. We see that in both the British and Swedish educational systems, even the very brightest children are hampered if they come from a disadvantaged background. It is possible of course that clever individuals choose other ways of getting on in the world than through education, but the fact remains that many children in British and Swedish schools do not appear to fulfil their academic potential. Former Gay Propagandist SpongeBob SquarePants Is Now a Conservative Darling By Asawin Suebsaeng On Monday, Nov. 11—almost two weeks after the nation's food-stamps program was slashed by $5 billion—Nickelodeon is set to air "SpongeBob, You're Fired!" in the US. (The episode aired in Greece in July.) After the beloved sea sponge loses his job at the Krusty Krab in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob slips into a slovenly depression. His friend Patrick, a starfish, tries to teach him the benefits of "glorious unemployment"—as in free time and free food. "Unemployment may be fun for you, but I need to get a job," the determined and eager SpongeBob tells Patrick. And with this, conservatives found themselves a new star. "'SpongeBob' Critiques Welfare State, Embraces Self-Sufficiency," the Breitbart headline reads. "Lest he sit around idly, mooching off the social services of Bikini Bottom, a depressed SpongeBob sets out to return to gainful employment wherever he can find it," Andrea Morabito wrote at the New York Post last week. "No spoilers—but it's safe to say that our hero doesn't end up on food stamps, as his patty-making skills turn out to be in high demand." . . . . . But conservatives' newfound love for the food-stamp-refusing SpongeBob conveniently glosses over the his green, liberal, and notoriously gay past. Fox News has previously attacked SpongeBob for brainwashing children on the issue of global warming. Christian-right groups have targeted the giddy sponge over his alleged gay proselytizing. Ukraine's National Expert Commission for the Protection of Public Morals announced a special session in 2012 to review a report by a right-wing religious organization that refers to the cartoon's "promotion of homosexuality." Furthermore, the series has enthusiastically supported workers' rights, has been harshly critical of corporate takeover, and is generally pro-environment. But SpongeBob likes to work! Which is exclusively a conservative value in the eyes of some. In Colombia, no sex till the road’s fixed By John Otis . . . To ensure that friends and neighbors could commute along a crumbling highway in a timely manner, a group of women in a remote Colombian town decided to cross their legs. . . . Wives and partners have refused sex to force politicians to form a coalition government in Belgium, to bring down a dictator in Togo and to end factional fighting in the Philippines. In Kenya, protesters even offered to compensate prostitutes for not working during a 2009 sex strike called to force an end to political infighting. . . . Silva, the protest spokeswoman, recalled the case of a woman with a complicated pregnancy who was evacuated from Barbacoas bound for the hospital in Pasto. But the journey took so long that the woman went into labor and both she and her baby died in the back of the ambulance. Such cases prompted Silva and about 300 other Barbacoas women to start their crossed-legs protest. Many participating women slept in the town’s sports coliseum, then returned home in the morning. . . . “When men are denied intimacy, they try to get it back,” she said. “So lots of men began to take the protest seriously and to say: ‘We better help find a solution.’” Ireland to hold referendum on gay marriage By Henry McDonald Ireland is to hold a referendum in mid-2015 on whether to allow same-sex marriage, the Republic's government has said. . . . The minister for public expenditure and reform, Brendan Howlin, said that view was shared by the majority in cabinet, adding: "The Irish people in opinion polls had indicated their support for this issue and should be given the opportunity when practicable to express their views." Two Fine Gael ministers back the referendum. Alan Shatter, the justice minister, brought a memo to cabinet on civil marriage for same-sex couples, while Michael Noonan, the finance minister, said he had no personal objection to legalising gay marriage. But there is concern within Fine Gael that its backbenchers from rural, Catholic constituencies might oppose such moves. The taoiseach, Enda Kenny, has yet to state publicly whether he would back the yes vote. The Catholic church has not announced whether it intends to run a campaign for a no vote. The church hierarchy's temporal power in Ireland has been dramatically diluted during the past decade owing to a series of paedophile priest scandals.

Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already.