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Every day until the election, Slate will offer up one reason to be optimistic for your candidate.
Today?s Good News for Obama: Seven in 10 Americans assume the Affordable Care Act will go into effect?whether they like it or not. Considering Romney promises to repeal all or most of the law on his first day in office, these numbers indicate that Americans?and many conservatives?are slowly resigning themselves to the real possibility that a Romney presidency will never happen. Only 12 percent of those polled believe Obamacare will be repealed in its entirety, even though a mere 32 percent of Americans actually support the law. In spite of its divisiveness, the health care issue has taken a back seat on the campaign trail, and it?s looking like an increasingly settled issue. To Obama, this might also look like an increasingly settled election.
I'm multitasking as I sit here typing this review of Brendan Sodikoff's Bavette's Bar & Boeuf. To my left a half-dozen bulging takeaway containers from the previous night's dinner at the River North "European steak house" are competing for my attention. The creamed spinach I was served, already fortified by blue cheese, has been given structure by a hardened overcoat of brown, blistered Chihuahua, and I'm stuffing it into my face cold with one hand as I struggle to communicate how powerless I am to stop eating it.
Before that I polished off the rest of the stroganoff, chubby batons of compressed short rib and caramelized cremini mushrooms tossed among wide, handmade pappardelle. This mass glued itself together in the fridge overnight as the creamy horseradish sauce congealed, and I had to cut it into pieces with a knife. Then there were the thick, supercrispy, amorphous masses of hash brown with a latkelike consistency and a surprising shelf life for something ideally eaten hot from the fryer.
There was leftover steak too. A lot of it.
Thing is, I don't normally do this. I almost always take leftovers away from restaurants, but I tend to pass them on to the more needful?the homeless, the family, the cat. Sometimes I just stare at them and thank God I survived the night.
But on these rare occasions when the meals haunt the mornings and I'm powerless to resist their call, it's always instructive to see how restaurant food changes in the daylight. When it takes on a wholly different but equally irresistible character, you know you have something special on your hands.
Bavette, incidentally, isn't the name of some comely, salty-tongued mademoiselle Sodikoff encountered in Intro to French Lit, but the word for flank steak en francais. Still, the restaurant replicates to some degree the belle epoque vibe of Sodikoff's Maude's Liquor Bar, with similarities to Au Cheval and Gilt Bar too. Traces of Au Cheval's absurd and wonderful excesses are particularly apparent. Take the "meatball and pasta": long tendrils of toothy rectangular noodles nesting a softball-size pork meatball?it's a consummate Au Cheval-ball. In a city lately crowded with chefs making their own pasta, this dish stands out despite the immovable boulder of ground meat that occupies all sight lines and will quickly have you regretting any red meat you might be partaking of later.
As at Gilt and Maude's previously, Sodikoff's kitchen is led by Jeff Pikus, the Alinea vet who has long since joined the ranks of chefs who can do little wrong in this town. Many of his appetizers, salads, entrees, and sides are such well-executed improvements of typical steak-house archetypes it seems a waste to give away any digestive real estate to relatively mundane slabs of beef.
This is first evident with the complimentary bread service. Lots of restaurants have been upping the ante for bread in recent times?and charging for their efforts?but I can't think of any that's better than the thick slices of hearty sourdough batards that Bavette's is serving up gratis. With a mantle that shatters over a chewy crust and a pillowy crumb, they're something I'd wait in line and pay for if they were sold from Sodikoff's Doughnut Vault.
The seafood towers and the short selection of oysters that became the signature at Maude's are here too, and while those are fine vehicles with which to get started, I found myself much more interested in exploring Pikus's other offerings. The foie gras torchon he served at Maude's was devastatingly good, and I wanted to know if his cognac-spiked foie gras terrine matched up. Jacketed in ivory fat and sprinkled with flakes of sea salt, it is every bit as good, served with blackberry jam and more of that sourdough, this time grilled. Besides that, the appetizers are mostly surf-related: salt cod brandade, shrimp de jonghe, shrimp cocktail, and a fat and fluffy baked lump crab cake, not as dense as its size might indicate yet devoid of filler.
Massive salads provide an early indication that a representative sampling of this menu will require endurance and strength. A creamy, almost too cheesy Caesar with smoked whitefish has a superb textural surprise of hidden crispy potato chips, and tender, buttery Bibb lettuce is served with a fatty avocado half stuffed with a formidable scoop of sweet crabmeat. These could stand on their own for delicate eaters, but certainly won't provide much in the way of vegetal respite if one plans to branch out.
A wide-ranging array of entrees apart from the steaks seems designed to distract from trophy meat too. There's a burger and a shaved prime beef sandwich, fried chicken and meat loaf, and a huge slab of beef tongue so tender it falls apart if you wink at it. This is served along with braised carrot and celery sticks bathed in a slick demi-glace that competes with the finest pot roast I've ever encountered. Just try to eat some steak after that.
It's almost as if the steak is provided for the pickiest, most conservative eater who might wander into a Sodikoff restaurant. The signature 24-ounce prime dry-aged rib eye is certainly a respectable piece of meat, but there's nothing about it that rises above the desirability of that meatball or the tongue. So too with the most modestly priced steak on the menu, a lean, chewy, ten-ounce flatiron, with frites. Then again, if these are too pedestrian there's always the option of adding on Roquefort or roasted garlic, or a dino-size trench of bone marrow.
As at most of Sodikoff's spots there's a better than perfunctory cocktail list, this one based on the classics?a balanced daiquiri (Bavette's Punch); an old-fashioned with the option of rye, cognac, or bourbon; and a Sazerac featuring cognac commingled with the standard rye, as well as a half-dozen sparkling cocktails, none more pleasing than a simple glass of bubbly with a sugar cube and Angostura bitters. Dessert are a bit more pro forma: cheesecake, lemon meringue and chocolate cream pies, and a Gold Brick sundae on which chocolate sauce solidifies on contact with the ice cream.
This is all served in an environment that hints at the Melman-esque, particularly the books on the walls that no one will ever read and the painted mirrors touting "baked crab cake" and "fine brown spirit." This isn't surprising given the time Sodikoff spent at Lettuce Entertain You earlier in his career, but with the subterranean lounge and its big red-leather booths, Oriental rugs, and cool-jazz soundtrack, Bavette's has the effortlessly enjoyable atmosphere Paris Club only aspires to.
That's the thing about Bavette's. It resides in the part of town whose arteries are clogged with goofy unserious places like that, and high-end, expense-account steak houses, few of which manage to distinguish themselves. But to those who would say we don't need another steak house?and often I'm one of them?it breaks the mold and excels in practically every aspect. Except steak.
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Michael J has Robinson to see a sharp wish people why he wears these self-help articles on full credit restored.
"Seven Psychopaths," the latest film from Irish playwright-turned-director Martin McDonagh, teaches a valuable lesson to any of the would-be dognappers out there: If you're going to go around stealing pets from people, make sure the Shih Tzu doesn't belong to a crime boss. In this exclusive clip from "Seven Psychopaths," which won the People's Choice [...]
Published by The Online Citizen on September 27, 2012
By Howard Lee -
You know it is a slow news day when the Facebook posting of a Minister makes it to the news.
But given that the comments made by Lawrence Wong, Senior Minister of State for Information, Communication and the Arts (should we be worried?), referred to the National Conversations, in particular lending support to the legitimacy of the initiative, and Mediacorp which hosted the first two forums, perhaps a degree of self-interest was at play, too.
In truth, Wong's comments about how online vitriol has been 'politicised' would have done little to change the situation. It might have created a few new dirty words to hurl at the online community, but there is really very little logic to his argument.
For a start, conflating comments about Queenstown and partisanship at the National Conversation forums is inaccurate, demonstrated a lack in critical thinking, and just plain myopic. Or am I expecting a little too much from a Minister?
To be clear, the comments on the 'wayang' at Queenstown set up for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was less about the People's Action Party, and more a fun jab at the Singapore public service's odd practice for excessive demonstrations to showcase something that is not natural to begin with.
I need not say any more about how the criticisms were levelled at the organisers and not the volunteers ? other writers, alluding to Vivian Balakrishnan's mistake during YOG, have done enough.
Yes, there were the usual comments that it was symbolic of the PAP putting up a show to present a picture-perfect scenario, but that hardly demonstrates partisanship. To focus on that is to miss the forest for the trees in all the comments made.
Within the jokes is a more serious message about how the public service needs to better understanding the realities of Singapore everyday life, and then try to align activities, even those of the demonstrative kind, closer to these realities, rather than pull out all the stops just to make an event look good. It would not have been the first or last of such views ? previous comments have been made when Singapore hosted other international events. But Wong has to be the one who calls such comments 'politicised'.
Our political leaders, beginning with Wong, need to understand that in any and every conversation, there are nuggets of wisdom that need to be paid attention to, instead of brooming them out together with those that they deem, or are wont to label, irrelevant.?
On the other hand, comments about the partisanship of the National Conversations need to be viewed in an entirely different light. Wong dismissed such comments as politicised vitriol, but the truth is that we have seen a history of how the PAP has, deliberately or not, excluded opposition party members, civil society and the more critical voices from public discussions chaired by the government.
If the National Conversations are supposed to be an improved version of citizen engagement, post GE2011, there needs to be a visible departure from this old mode of operation.
I believe that most Singaporeans who were unhappy with how the Conversations were conducted would not likely give two hoots about which opposition party was invited to join, so long as some are invited. Hence, Wong's comment on party preferences is seriously misguided.
We simply do not want to see a Conversation that is dominated by people who might be sympathetic of the ruling party's position on national issues, and are hence more likely to be part of the ancient echo chamber. How would we look forward, if so?
In other words, Wong and others like him need to realise that the ball is in the PAP's court to prove that they can be non-partisan, rather than lambast those who are raising the red flag on partisanship as 'politicised'. Proof is in actions, not words.
We want diverse voices, even oppositional ones that sit at the far ends of the fence of logic and possibility, to get to the bottom of matters and stimulate a hearty, if not heart-felt, discussion, rather than another consensus building show-and-tell. And Singaporeans have the right to expect the National Conversations to be like that.
And finally, to contradict his point on partisanship and add insult to injury, Wong ended his comments about the good things that the PAP has done.
While we might not doubt his political beliefs and convictions, Wong seems to have forgotten that people who wish to make Singapore better no longer see a need for political affiliation. Similarly, those online critics whom Wong slams for politicising the issue could just as well be people who are no less keen to see this country through to better times ? in politics, public service, citizen engagement, and everything else they care about and care to comment about.
Brushing aside these concerns is not only a detriment to the true spirit of an open conversation, but limiting the ideas and options that this administration needs to keep Singapore going.
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Tropical Storm Kristy was expected to create life-threatening surf and rip currents of the coast of southern Baja California and southwest Mexico over the next few days, the National Hurricane Center warned Friday.
The NHC said winds had weakened to 50 mph by Friday afternoon but still posed a danger.
Tropical storm-force winds extended about 140 miles from the center.
?Swells generated by Kristy will affect portions of the coast of southwestern Mexico and southern Baja California during the next day or two,? the NHC notice said.
?These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,? it added.
Meanwhile in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Nadine had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph and was about 765 miles east-southeast of Bermuda, according to the NHC.
It was expected to turn north Friday and then head northeast toward the Azores Islands.
The NHC said little change in Nadine?s strength was expected but added ?any strengthening would allow Nadine to become a hurricane.?
Storm-force winds extended about 230 miles from the center.
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ScienceDaily (Sep. 14, 2012) ? NASA's long-lived rover Opportunity has returned an image of the Martian surface that is puzzling researchers.
Spherical objects concentrated at an outcrop Opportunity reached last week differ in several ways from iron-rich spherules nicknamed "blueberries" the rover found at its landing site in early 2004 and at many other locations to date.
Opportunity is investigating an outcrop called Kirkwood in the Cape York segment of the western rim of Endeavour Crater. The spheres measure as much as one-eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) in diameter. The analysis is still preliminary, but it indicates that these spheres do not have the high iron content of Martian blueberries.
"This is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission," said Opportunity's principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "Kirkwood is chock full of a dense accumulation of these small spherical objects. Of course, we immediately thought of the blueberries, but this is something different. We never have seen such a dense accumulation of spherules in a rock outcrop on Mars."
The Martian blueberries found elsewhere by Opportunity are concretions formed by action of mineral-laden water inside rocks, evidence of a wet environment on early Mars. Concretions result when minerals precipitate out of water to become hard masses inside sedimentary rocks. Many of the Kirkwood spheres are broken and eroded by the wind. Where wind has partially etched them away, a concentric structure is evident.
Opportunity used the microscopic imager its arm to look closely at Kirkwood. Researchers checked the spheres' composition by using an instrument called the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer on Opportunity's arm.
"They seem to be crunchy on the outside, and softer in the middle," Squyres said. "They are different in concentration. They are different in structure. They are different in composition. They are different in distribution. So, we have a wonderful geological puzzle in front of us. We have multiple working hypotheses, and we have no favorite hypothesis at this time. It's going to take a while to work this out, so the thing to do now is keep an open mind and let the rocks do the talking."
Just past Kirkwood lies another science target area for Opportunity. The location is an extensive pale-toned outcrop in an area of Cape York where observations from orbit have detected signs of clay minerals. That may be the rover's next study site after Kirkwood. Four years ago, Opportunity departed Victoria Crater, which it had investigated for two years, to reach different types of geological evidence at the rim of the much larger Endeavour Crater.
The rover's energy levels are favorable for the investigations. Spring equinox comes this month to Mars' southern hemisphere, so the amount of sunshine for solar power will continue increasing for months.
"The rover is in very good health considering its 8-1/2 years of hard work on the surface of Mars," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Energy production levels are comparable to what they were a full Martian year ago, and we are looking forward to productive spring and summer seasons of exploration."
NASA launched the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity in the summer of 2003, and both completed their three-month prime missions in April 2004. They continued bonus, extended missions for years. Spirit finished communicating with Earth in March 2010. The rovers have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life.
JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
To view the image of the area, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/multimedia/pia16139.html
For more information about Opportunity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov .
You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .
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Hundreds of protesters storm the U.S. Embassy compound in the capital Sanaa, chanting "death to America." They removed the embassy's sign on the outer wall, set tires ablaze and pelted the compound with rocks. Protesters smashed windows as they breached the embassy perimeter, although they did not enter the main building housing the offices. They brought down the U.S. flag in the courtyard, burned it and replaced it with a black banner bearing Islam's declaration of faith ? "There is no God but Allah."
Yemeni security forces rushed to the scene, fired in the air and used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators. They were able to drive them out of the compound after about 45 minutes, sealing off the surrounding streets. Yemen's president apologized to President Barack Obama for the attack that he said was aimed to derail Yemen's close relations with Washington.
___
EGYPT
Protesters clash with police near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo for the third day in a row. Police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators and the two sides pelted each other with rocks. Sixteen protesters and 13 policemen were wounded in the clashes, which broke out overnight. Twelve protesters have been arrested, the Interior Ministry said. Unlike Tuesday, police kept protesters away from the U.S. embassy grounds.
Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi vowed during a visit to Brussels not to allow attacks on foreign embassies in Cairo, saying the Egyptian people reject such "unlawful acts."
The ruling Muslim Brotherhood called for demonstrations after Friday prayers to protest against the movie that ridicules Prophet Muhammad.
___
IRAQ
Hundreds of followers of the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr demanded the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad ? the largest American diplomatic mission in the world ? because of the film. Thousands marched in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in northeast Baghdad and shouted, "No, no, to Israel! No, no to America!" and "Yes, yes for Messenger of God."
An Iran-backed Shiite militant group threatened U.S. interests in Iraq with its militia's leader, Qais al-Khazali, telling the AP that the amateurish movie was unforgiveable. He called on all Muslims to "face our joint enemy." An estimated 15,000 employees work at the U.S. embassy.
Large protests are expected in Baghdad and Iraq's second largest city, Basra, after Friday prayers.
----
AFGHANISTAN
The government in Kabul is seeking to avert any protests as past anger over perceived insults to Islam has triggered violence in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai cancelled an official visit to Norway and spoke by phone with U.S. President Barack Obama to convey his condolences for the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other diplomats. He also discussed the "film and the insulting of holy Islamic values."
A Shiite cleric condemned the film during a sermon in a mosque west of Kabul. Sayyed Eisa Hossaini Mazari told about 200 worshippers in a mosque west of Kabul that a "dirty American made a movie and it was put on YouTube." Mazari did not directly call for demonstrations in Afghanistan, but told the AP there will be protests if there is no "U.S. action against the movie."
----
IRAN
About 50 protesters gathered in Tehran outside the Swiss Embassy, which looks after U.S. diplomatic interests in Iran, shouting "Death to America" and condemning the film. The embassy is heavily guarded by Iranian riot police and there were no reports of violence.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the United States to punish those who were involved in making and financing the film, calling it "a grave and unforgivable sin" and a "dirty crime."
Authorities have called for protests after Friday prayers.
___
GAZA
About 150 Muslim clerics and lawmakers from the ruling Hamas movement stage a protest outside the parliament building in Gaza City to condemn the film. They accused Israel and the West of stoking up sectarian tensions in the region and pitching Muslims against Christians.
Hamas and the smaller militant group Islamic Jihad are calling for large protests across Gaza on Friday.
-----
ISRAEL
Israeli police said they were stepping up security ahead of Friday prayers in Jerusalem. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that "tensions have been felt." He said a larger number of officers would be deployed around Jerusalem's Old City, where the Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest site, is located.
-----
JORDAN
Calls by several Muslim opposition groups for protests at the U.S. Embassy in the capital Amman were ignored. A banned extremist Islamic movement with links to al-Qaida called on its followers to attend a demonstration outside the American embassy compound after Friday prayers.
With the Chicago teacher?s strike entering its third day, both sides appear determined to settle matters behind closed doors and not in a courtroom, even though the city has authority to take the fight there ? though at significant political risk, legal experts say.
Although untested in the courts, a provision added to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act last year could prohibit teachers from striking on all matters except compensation involving pay and benefits. The walkout, which started Monday, appears to be about a broad range of issues, many of which have little to do with wages.
Chicago Teachers Union representatives have acknowledged that their gripes with the city are not necessarily financial. "What I would say about the economics of this thing is that that isn?t the main issue,? Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey told reporters late Sunday.
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Indeed, Chicago teachers are paid more than any others in the state, according to a 2012 report by Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. The average public teacher salary in Chicago is $74,236, compared with a state average of $64,978. As of Sunday, the Chicago Public Schools district offered teachers a 16 percent raise over four years. On Sunday, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said the offer was ?not far apart? from what the union was seeking.
So if the strike is not strictly about compensation, it may be an illegal action according to state law, which even the union recognizes. ?While new Illinois law prohibits us from striking over the recall of laid-off teachers and compensation for a longer school year, we do not intend to sign an agreement until these matters are addressed,? the union said in a statement released Sunday.
Representatives from the Chicago Teachers Union would not return requests for comment Wednesday.
Another tool that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, has at his ready is a provision in state law that says if a teacher strike ?is or has become a clear and present danger to the health or safety of the public,? the mayor can seek a court injunction to stop it. However, this option seems unlikely, because the provision does not cover public welfare, which would be more germane for the strike, says Martin Malin, director of the Institute for Law and the Workplace at the Illinois Institute of Chicago.
So far, the city is not pursuing the possible illegality of the strike, but instead is taking its case to the public, describing the union as conducting a ?strike of choice.? Sarah Hamilton, communications director for Mayor Emanuel, says his administration?s ?focus is getting kids back in the classroom learning from their teachers, and we believe this is best resolved at the negotiating table, not in front of a judge.?
On Tuesday, Emanuel said the two primary issues in the negotiations ? teacher evaluations and teacher rehiring ? are legally ?non-strikeable.?
Emanuel?s comments ?may be setting things up, particularly if the strike is lengthy, for him to appeal to the Legislature to further restrict [the union?s] right to strike, perhaps by requiring additional third-party intervention or restricting the subject over which a union may strike,? says Mr. Malin.
It is not uncommon for public-sector workers who defy state rules on strike actions to face the risk of prison time or large fines. More than 200 teachers in Middletown, N.J., were jailed in December 2001 for defying a judge?s back-to-work order after breaking state law. More recently, a transit-workers strike in New York City in December 2005 resulted in a $2.5 million fine for the Transport Workers Union Local 100 and a 10-day jail sentence for its president.
If the teacher strike in Chicago hits the two-week mark, it is likely Emanuel will turn to the courts for a resolution, says Randolph McLaughlin, a labor attorney and professor at Pace University Law School in White Plains, N.Y.
?This can become very serious. The city, to its credit, isn?t pulling that trigger yet. They realize that once you start jailing teachers, battle lines are drawn and there will be no compromise,? Mr. McLaughlin says. However, the longer the strike endures and tests the patience of parents, Emanuel will likely feel emboldened to seek guidance from the courts.
?If this continues for two weeks, the city will ratchet it up to the next level, because pressure from parents will become so severe. That?s the critical issue,? he says.
Unlike strikes in the private sector, public-sector strikes have an added political dimension, which is why both sides are presenting dueling narratives to explain to the public what is at stake.
For Emanuel, the two central issues are teacher evaluations that include measures of student achievement and the authority of principals to hire the teachers they want. The unions are presenting a more complex set of issues: increasing class size, deteriorating school buildings, and job security. They worry that factors like neighborhood violence and family discord will drive down student performance, unfairly penalize teachers, and result in some 6,000 teacher layoffs. They also say teachers who lose their jobs as a result of school closings should be priority hires when open positions are available.
The jockeying for public support, particularly from parents, is common in public-sector labor battles, says William Powell Jones, an associate professor of history specializing in labor issues at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
?They?re emphasizing things that are more important to each other but are also issues that are seen in the public as sympathetic. The reality is all of these issues are at stake here and it?s complicated by the fact that Rahm Emanuel is a national figure,? Mr. Jones says.
Moreover, it's difficult for the public to grasp what's at issue in the standoff, because the talks are sequestered behind closed doors.
?The problem is that, since this matter is in the midst of a collective bargaining process, both sides spin the story to their advantage. Without access to the actual proposals and responses it is difficult to say what the real issues are,? says McLaughlin, the labor attorney.
What is known is that the strike is being seen in a much broader context about the purpose of public unions and the effectiveness of the reforms levied against them in recent years by legislative majority leaders, particularly Republicans, in neighboring states like Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio.
?It?s about the legitimacy of public-sector unions,? says Jones. ?These are issues that go far beyond Chicago, and that?s why people are paying attention this strike.?
RECOMMENDED: Obama vs. Romney: 5 differences on education
Daniel Russell knows how to find the answers to questions you can't get to with a simple Google query. In his weekly Search Research column, Russell issues a search challenge, then follows up later in the week with his solution?using whatever search technology and methodology fits the bill. This week's challenge: Does Northern or Southern California have more Superfund sites and brownfields as defined by the EPA?
For as long as I've lived there's been a long-running, low-level feud between Southern California and Northern California. You see it most obviously in the sports competitions?San Francisco Giants vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers, but you also read it about it in terms of inequities in resource distribution. Does Southern California really get more money and care than Northern California?
(And in the spirit of full disclosure, I was born and raised in Los Angeles, but now live in Palo Alto, which is definitely in Northern California. I was a Dodgers fan, but now I root for the Giants. Not that this would influence my judgment in any way...)
But seriously...let's look at a resource allocation issue as an investigative journalist might.
As you know, the Environmental Protection agency makes declarations of "Superfund sites" (that is, places that are so badly polluted that there's a special federal fund dedicated to cleaning them up) and "brownfields," places that are still polluted, but don't have quite as much funding dedicated to cleanup.
Today's question is pretty straightforward.
Question: Does Northern or Southern California have more Superfund sites and brownfields as defined by the EPA?
And if you're into it, for extra credit, can you determine which of those sites has more funding spent on cleanup over the past decade? Again, which region wins? The North or the South?
For our purposes, the split between North and South California is at 36.344 north latitude. (A line that runs through Visalia, CA.)
Remember... please let us know HOW you found the answer (what steps you did along the way), and how LONG it took you to find it!
Search on!
Wednesday search challenge (9/12/12): Northern vs. Southern California | SearchReSearch
Daniel M. Russell studies the way people search and research?an anthropologist of search, if you will. You can read more from Russell on his SearchReSearch blog, and stay tuned for his weekly challenges (and answers) here on Lifehacker.
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First comprehensive review of European breast cancer screening programs finds benefits outweigh harmPublic release date: 12-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Emma Mason e.mason@qmul.ac.uk Queen Mary, University of London
A major review of breast cancer screening services in Europe, jointly led by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, has concluded that the benefits of screening in terms of lives saved outweigh the harms caused by over-diagnosis.
The results, which are published in a special supplement of The Journal of Medical Screening [1] today (Thursday), show that for every 1,000 women screened every two years from the age of 50 to the age of about 68-69, between seven and nine lives would be saved, and four cases would be over-diagnosed.
The European Screening Network (EUROSCREEN) working group [2], with members from nine European countries where outcome of screening programmes have been assessed, reviewed the estimates of benefit in published European studies in terms of breast cancer deaths prevented, and the major harms, in particular, the rates of what are called "over-diagnosed" cancers. These are breast cancers diagnosed as a result of screening, which would never have given rise to any symptoms during a woman's lifetime and would not have been diagnosed had she not been screened.
A second working group European Network for Indicators on Cancer (EUNICE) reviewed the organisation, participation rates and main performance parameters of 26 screening programmes in 18 countries, involving 12 million women, between 2001 and 2007 [3]. The reports from both working groups have contributed to the review published today.
Stephen Duffy, Professor of Cancer Screening at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Barts and The London School of Medicine & Dentistry, part of Queen Mary, University of London (UK), who is one of the coordinators of the EUROSCREEN working group and co-author of the supplement, said: "This is the only comprehensive review of the results of breast screening services in Europe. It reports results from screening millions of women, and confirms that the screening services are delivering the benefits expected from the research studies conducted years ago. In particular, it is good news that lives saved by screening outweigh over-diagnosed cases by a factor of two to one."
The researchers also found that for every 1,000 women screened, 170 women would have at least one recall followed by a non-invasive assessment before absence of cancer could be confirmed (a negative result), and 30 women would have at least one recall followed by invasive procedures, such as a biopsy, before confirming a negative result. Screening results that lead to recalls in these circumstances are called "false positives" and can cause women stress and anxiety until the negative result is confirmed.
Dr Eugenio Paci, Director of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute in Florence, Italy, who is a second EUROSCREEN coordinator and co-author, said: "By weighing up the pros and cons of breast cancer screening programmes we hope to ensure that women are fully aware of the chief benefits and harms and can make a fully informed choice when they decide whether or not they wish to attend screening. There has been quite a lot of discussion recently over the worth of breast cancer screening and for this reason it is timely that the international group of experts has assessed the impact of population-based screening in Europe and has found that it is contributing to the reduction in deaths from the disease.
"We believe that not only should our conclusions be communicated to women offered breast screening in Europe, but that, in addition, communication methods should be improved in order to raise women's awareness, and to make information more accessible, relevant and comprehensible."
###
[1] "Summary of the evidence of breast cancer screening outcomes in Europe and first estimate of the benefit and harm balance sheet", by the EUROSCREEN working group. Journal of Medical Screening 2012, volume 19, supplement 1.
[2] The EUROSCREEN working group included representatives of nine European countries: Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, United Kingdom.
[3] The EUNICE working group included representatives from 18 European countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom.
[4] Financial support was provided by the National Monitoring Italian Centre to host EUROSCREEN meetings and the supplement publication, and by the National Expert and Training Centre for Breast Cancer Screening, Nijmegen, The Netherlands to host a EUROSCREEN meeting.
[5] Breast cancer facts and figures:
Worldwide, breast cancer is the most frequent cancer among women and approximately 1.38 million women were diagnosed with this disease in 2008 (the year for which most recent figures are available).
In Europe, including non-European Union (EU) countries, 425,000 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in 2008 and 129,000 European women died of the disease.
Data source: Ferlay J et al. GLOBOCAN 2008, Cancer Incidence and Mortality Worldwide. International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2010 (http://globocan.iarc.fr).
In the UK breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with more than 48,400 women diagnosed each year and around 11,550 women dying from the disease. The lifetime risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer is one in eight.
The UK's NHS breast screening programme detected almost 16,500 cases of breast cancer in 2009/2010.
Data source: Cancer Research UK key facts (http://info.cancerresearchuk.org).
In Europe, approximately 100,000-140,000 cancers are detected by screening each year among women aged 50-69.
The UK is conducting a review of breast cancer screening in order to assess benefits and harms, chaired by Professor Sir Michael Marmot, and to which Prof Duffy submitted evidence earlier this year.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
First comprehensive review of European breast cancer screening programs finds benefits outweigh harmPublic release date: 12-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Emma Mason e.mason@qmul.ac.uk Queen Mary, University of London
A major review of breast cancer screening services in Europe, jointly led by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, has concluded that the benefits of screening in terms of lives saved outweigh the harms caused by over-diagnosis.
The results, which are published in a special supplement of The Journal of Medical Screening [1] today (Thursday), show that for every 1,000 women screened every two years from the age of 50 to the age of about 68-69, between seven and nine lives would be saved, and four cases would be over-diagnosed.
The European Screening Network (EUROSCREEN) working group [2], with members from nine European countries where outcome of screening programmes have been assessed, reviewed the estimates of benefit in published European studies in terms of breast cancer deaths prevented, and the major harms, in particular, the rates of what are called "over-diagnosed" cancers. These are breast cancers diagnosed as a result of screening, which would never have given rise to any symptoms during a woman's lifetime and would not have been diagnosed had she not been screened.
A second working group European Network for Indicators on Cancer (EUNICE) reviewed the organisation, participation rates and main performance parameters of 26 screening programmes in 18 countries, involving 12 million women, between 2001 and 2007 [3]. The reports from both working groups have contributed to the review published today.
Stephen Duffy, Professor of Cancer Screening at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Barts and The London School of Medicine & Dentistry, part of Queen Mary, University of London (UK), who is one of the coordinators of the EUROSCREEN working group and co-author of the supplement, said: "This is the only comprehensive review of the results of breast screening services in Europe. It reports results from screening millions of women, and confirms that the screening services are delivering the benefits expected from the research studies conducted years ago. In particular, it is good news that lives saved by screening outweigh over-diagnosed cases by a factor of two to one."
The researchers also found that for every 1,000 women screened, 170 women would have at least one recall followed by a non-invasive assessment before absence of cancer could be confirmed (a negative result), and 30 women would have at least one recall followed by invasive procedures, such as a biopsy, before confirming a negative result. Screening results that lead to recalls in these circumstances are called "false positives" and can cause women stress and anxiety until the negative result is confirmed.
Dr Eugenio Paci, Director of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute in Florence, Italy, who is a second EUROSCREEN coordinator and co-author, said: "By weighing up the pros and cons of breast cancer screening programmes we hope to ensure that women are fully aware of the chief benefits and harms and can make a fully informed choice when they decide whether or not they wish to attend screening. There has been quite a lot of discussion recently over the worth of breast cancer screening and for this reason it is timely that the international group of experts has assessed the impact of population-based screening in Europe and has found that it is contributing to the reduction in deaths from the disease.
"We believe that not only should our conclusions be communicated to women offered breast screening in Europe, but that, in addition, communication methods should be improved in order to raise women's awareness, and to make information more accessible, relevant and comprehensible."
###
[1] "Summary of the evidence of breast cancer screening outcomes in Europe and first estimate of the benefit and harm balance sheet", by the EUROSCREEN working group. Journal of Medical Screening 2012, volume 19, supplement 1.
[2] The EUROSCREEN working group included representatives of nine European countries: Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, United Kingdom.
[3] The EUNICE working group included representatives from 18 European countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom.
[4] Financial support was provided by the National Monitoring Italian Centre to host EUROSCREEN meetings and the supplement publication, and by the National Expert and Training Centre for Breast Cancer Screening, Nijmegen, The Netherlands to host a EUROSCREEN meeting.
[5] Breast cancer facts and figures:
Worldwide, breast cancer is the most frequent cancer among women and approximately 1.38 million women were diagnosed with this disease in 2008 (the year for which most recent figures are available).
In Europe, including non-European Union (EU) countries, 425,000 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in 2008 and 129,000 European women died of the disease.
Data source: Ferlay J et al. GLOBOCAN 2008, Cancer Incidence and Mortality Worldwide. International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2010 (http://globocan.iarc.fr).
In the UK breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with more than 48,400 women diagnosed each year and around 11,550 women dying from the disease. The lifetime risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer is one in eight.
The UK's NHS breast screening programme detected almost 16,500 cases of breast cancer in 2009/2010.
Data source: Cancer Research UK key facts (http://info.cancerresearchuk.org).
In Europe, approximately 100,000-140,000 cancers are detected by screening each year among women aged 50-69.
The UK is conducting a review of breast cancer screening in order to assess benefits and harms, chaired by Professor Sir Michael Marmot, and to which Prof Duffy submitted evidence earlier this year.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Declines in U.S. and European defense spending are putting heavy pressure on thousands of small and mid-sized companies that together build about 70 percent of major weapons systems, top defense and industry officials warned this week.
They forecast a new wave of consolidation as smaller companies adjust to more austere times, but say some may exit the arms business completely, which could result in bottlenecks and strains in the supply chain for years.
Defense contractors such as Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp and Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc are also demanding ever-better pricing from suppliers as they scramble to cut overhead, consolidate plants and maintain profit margins.
Unlike bigger players with diverse portfolios, smaller suppliers often lack the resources to adapt to changing market conditions, especially since many specialize in producing one set of products for a specific program.
Northrop Chief Executive Wes Bush says companies such as his are diversified enough to weather the storm, but uncertainty about future defense budgets is taking a toll on smaller suppliers in the broader industrial base.
The sheer scale of disruptions caused by an additional $500 billion in across-the-board U.S. defense cuts that could kick in next year could drive a broad number of suppliers to leave the industry, Bush said.
The Pentagon estimates the automatic cuts required under sequestration would shave 11 percent from 2,500 budget line items, requiring changes in thousands of contracts, according to Brett Lambert, deputy assistant secretary of defense for manufacturing and industrial base policy.
"It's not ones or twos that worry me," Northrop's Bush said, referring to the top levels of suppliers. "It's when we start to see a broader backing off from the defense supply chain that concerns me because then you take the slack out of the system - and then when you begin to have the one or two problems, you can't fix it."
KEEPING CRITICAL SKILLS
Lambert said the Pentagon has developed a detailed database to understand and monitor the challenges facing defense suppliers, with a particular eye to preserving critical skills such as high-tech welding.
"A master welder who takes 12 or 13 years to get that status is essential for the Department of Defense," he told Reuters. "Those are the individuals that, once lost, would be very difficult to recover."
Mike Petters, chief executive of shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls, said his company used components from all 50 states to build aircraft carriers and some of those companies were on tenuous ground.
"The supply chain has really been under pressure for many, many years," he said.
The slow pace of shipbuilding, with one ship ordered at a time, had already driven many smaller companies out of business, leaving a large number of companies that were the only provider of a given item, he added.
About 60 percent of Huntington's suppliers were sole-source providers, with that percentage rising to 80 percent for submarines, Petters said. Many of those companies had put investment decisions on hold until the budget crisis is resolved.
"There's a whole lot of anxiety there," Petters added.
Dennis Muilenburg, chief executive of Boeing's defense business, said his company is closely monitoring the health of thousands of suppliers to ensure continued competition and is ready to help on a case-by-case basis.
Airbus, Boeing's European rival, once acquired an ailing German company to make sure it would have a continued supply of components.
"I'm not suggesting that we're going to go around purchasing U.S. manufacturers," Airbus Americas President Barry Eccleston said. "But if it looks like one (supplier) is getting into trouble, we'll pay them extra special attention to make sure they stay in business."
In rare cases, Boeing, Northrop and others say they could consider acquiring struggling suppliers, but only if such deals made strategic sense, executives said.
COMPETITION, COST IMPLICATIONS
Record commercial production, together with a surge of new competition from China, Japan, Canada and Brazil, is placing further strain on a global supply chain that overlaps between commercial and military customers. Airbus and Boeing are increasing production on all their civil programs.
Competition is also heating up with the wind-power industry, among others, for materials and production skills for lightweight carbon composites, used for both aerospace structures and wind turbine blades.
Lambert said the department was trying to intervene in a more targeted manner to preserve critical capabilities, without pumping billions of dollars into orders with prime contractors for weapons systems that were not needed at the moment.
"It's hard to reconstitute certain kinds of knowledge," said Christina Chaplain, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the Government Accountability Office.
Industry executives warn that shifts in the supplier base will wind up costing the Pentagon more than they save in the short term, driving up the cost of future weapons programs.
Joe McCarthy, vice president and general manager of combat vehicles for BAE Systems, said the Army's plan to temporarily stop building Bradleys could affect 700 suppliers in 45 states, potentially leading to the loss of 800 jobs at the York plant, and 10,000 jobs around the country.
He said BAE will survive, but many of its suppliers may not.
Rosario Sciortino, who has spent two decades in purchasing at the York, Pennsylvania plant where BAE builds the Bradleys, said some companies have already told him they plan to "lay off people, shut down their lines, or move into other products."
McCarthy estimates that it would cost $750 million to shut down the Bradley line for 36 months. Work on restarting the line would have to begin about 30 months ahead of time to ensure the supplier base was ready to roll, he said.
Future weapons programs will also be more expensive, since overhead would be spread over a far smaller base.
Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, said the Pentagon's record of starting and then terminating multiple weapons programs was undercutting the confidence of suppliers in the prospects for future orders.
Erin Moseley, chief lobbyist for BAE Systems, said her company had been working hard to meet the government's cost-cutting goals, but uncertainty about tax rates, budgets and future programs has raised questions about the continued viability of the ground vehicle sector for her company.
"At the end of the day, we have to have things to compete for," Moseley said.
(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa and Karen Jacobs; Editing by Patricia Kranz and Andre Grenon)
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok have started Marginal Revolution University, intended to be a set of online classes that will ?communicate [their] personal vision of economics?. One selling point is the content will be designed for online delivery, rather than? being recordings of lectures.
They don?t mention another advantage. Before I was hired at Berkeley, I went there for a series of interviews. One was with a group of graduate students. One of them asked, ?Which do you like better, teaching or research?? ?I like research better,? I said. The graduate students smiled. You?re supposed to say you like them equally.
At Berkeley I met plenty of professors who liked teaching small classes. I never met a single professor who liked teaching large classes. (That included me ? I didn?t like teaching them.) Berkeley has recently joined Harvard and MIT to form EdX, a nonprofit company that will offer online classes. ?We are deeply committed to public education,? said Berkeley?s chancellor. Well, that might sound good or it might sound pro forma, but either way few of Berkeley?s professors want to teach the classes that EdX would offer, such as Introductory Psychology. Unless a class with 100,000 students is more personal than a class with 500 students. Whereas Tyler and Alex must want to do what they?re doing. No one is pushing them to do it.
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This entry was posted on Friday, September 7th, 2012 at 5:00 am and is filed under education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
South Korea?s government has urged textbook publishers to ignore calls to remove two examples of evolution from high-school textbooks.
The move follows a campaign earlier this year by the Society for Textbook Revise (STR), which argued that details about the evolution of the horse and of the avian ancestor Archaeopteryx should be removed from the books (see ?South Korea surrenders to creationist demands?).
The STR, an offshoot of the Korea Association for Creation Research, says that students should learn ?various? theories about the development of life on Earth. It argued that the textbooks used flawed examples of evolution that are under debate by evolutionary scientists.
In May, news emerged that publishers were planning to drop the offending sections, sparking outrage among some scientists. The resulting furore led the government to set up an 11-member panel, led by the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) and including five experts on evolution and fossils, to oversee science-textbook revisions (see ?Expert panel to guide science-textbook revisions in South Korea?).
On 5 September, the panel concluded that Archaeopteryx must be included in Korean science textbooks, and it reaffirmed that the theory of evolution is an essential part of modern science that all students must learn in school.
The panel emphasized that ongoing scientific debate about whether Archaeopteryx gave rise to all birds or is just one example of a feathered dinosaur does not undermine the theory of evolution itself. Indeed, the panel says, it is important to mention the existence of many ornithological fossils that could be intermediate species between dinosaurs and birds.
The panel accepted that the textbooks' explanation of the evolution of the horse was too simplistic and should be revised or replaced with a different example, such as the evolution of whales. The government has backed the panel?s conclusions, and textbook publishers will be asked to report on how they have implemented these revisions before the new books are rolled out to schools in 2013.
The STR responded to the news by claiming that the government showed bias in excluding STR members from the expert panel, and says that it will keep fighting for ?better? science textbooks.
Duckhwan Lee, president of the Basic Science Council and the panel leader, says he hopes that? the panel's guidance will eventually improve the public?s understanding of evolution. In July, a survey by Gallup Korea, a research firm based in Seoul, found that of 613 respondents, 45% believed in evolution and 32% believed in creationism.
Lee says that he is glad that the STR?s campaign has provided an opportunity to improve science textbooks. ?We welcome any petition in the future,? he says, ?if it is regarding flaws in the evolution parts of science textbooks. But we do not want to waste our time if it has any religious implication.?
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on September 6, 2012.
You know it is a slow news day when the Facebook posting of a Minister makes it to the news.
Daniel Russell knows how to find the answers to questions you can't get to with a simple Google query. In his weekly Search Research column, Russell issues a search challenge, then follows up later in the week with his solution?using whatever search technology and methodology fits the bill. This week's challenge: Does Northern or Southern California have more Superfund sites and brownfields as defined by the EPA? ![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 12-Sep-2012
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