Paul E Ester
Paul E Ester's JournalChinese bowl bought for just $3 sells for $2.2 million at auction
An ancient Chinese bowl that dates from the Northern Song dynasty sold for $2.2 million on Tuesday at a Sotheby's auction in New York. What makes the sale particularly noteworthy is that the sellers had reportedly purchased the bowl for just $3.
The bowl was part of a Sotheby's auction of Chinese ceramics and other works of art. The sellers were a New York family who had purchased the bowl in 2007 at a garage sale for a mere $3, according to reports. The BBC News said that the buyer was London dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi. The name of the New York family that sold the item hasn't been publicized
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-chinese-bowl-auction-20130320,0,5660164.story
Score!
Senate votes to kill Obamacare-related tax
Source: Washington Times.
The Senate on Thursday voted to repeal a sales tax on medical devices that is part of President Obama’s health-care law, a rare bipartisan attempt to strip away a section of the controversial reforms.
Sens. Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican, and Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, led the amendment, which passed on a 79-20 vote during debate over the chamber’s budget plan for the coming fiscal year.
As part of debate over the spending blueprint, the vote does not have the force of law. However, it showed that economic forces in Democrats’ home states hold enough sway for senators to turn against specific provisions within the Affordable Care Act.
“Today’s bipartisan vote to repeal the medical device tax is an important step in the right direction,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican. “Unfortunately, Obamacare remains a job-killer that grows the government and slows the economy, which is why it’s important to repeal the whole thing.”
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/21/senate-votes-kill-obamacare-related-tax/
The medical device tax was a bad idea from the beginning.
A revealing map of who wants to move to the U.S.
Those numbers are so high that I wondered how many people in particular countries want to move to the United States. Gallup actually posted some of those numbers on its Web site and when I asked for more, kindly sent them over. I’ve mapped out the data above.
It turns out that there are 44 countries where, according to Gallup’s data, more than 5 percent of the adult population say say they would like to move to the United States. Five percent! That’s a remarkably large share. In 15 of those countries, the proportion of the population that wants to move to the United States is above 10 percent. And there are three countries where more than a quarter of the adult population would like to move here: Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Dominican Republic.
First, a note about the map: It labels all countries where more than 5 percent of adults want to move to the United States; in the darker countries, an even larger share of the population wants to migrate. But you might notice that the key does not increase by a fixed amount, but rather by incrementally larger amounts. I did this because the data are not distributed evenly but tend to cluster toward the bottom; mapping it out this way makes it easier to see the variation. Just keep in mind that the difference between a yellow country and an orange country, for example, is not mathematically the same as the difference between and an orange and a red country. Okay, back to the results.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/03/22/a-revealing-map-of-who-wants-to-move-to-the-u-s/
Cook County board prez: Why are we closing schools and packing the jail?
But she does have a few thoughts on the matter. Like: What are they thinking?
"I talked to a member of the school board that I knew and said what a terrible idea I thought it was," Preckwinkle told me in an interview. "You know, schools are community anchors. They're social centers. They're part of a community's identity. And often kids go half a dozen blocks and they're in different gang territory.
"The closings are going to take place almost entirely within the African-American community, and given the problems we already have with violence, I think it's very problematic."
Preckwinkle, the county board president, wasn't just venting. The county oversees the local criminal justice system, and she's made a priority of reducing the number of people caught up in it—along with the cost to taxpayers. I had stopped by her office to discuss the recent news that the population of the county jail has surged despite her goals. It was disturbing how smoothly the conversation shifted to school closings.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2013/03/22/county-board-prez-why-are-we-closing-schools-and-packing-the-jail
Israeli prime minister apologizes to Turkish leader over flotilla raid
Source: CNN
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan on Friday to apologize for a 2010 Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that killed several Turkish activists, the Israeli and Turkish governments confirmed.
Netanyahu made the call during an airport meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama before Obama departed Israel after his first visit to the Jewish state since taking office in 2009.
He apologized for what happened and acknowledged "operational mistakes," and Erdogan accepted the apology for the raid on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara flotilla ship, a vessel transporting aid to Gazans and intent on breaking an Israeli sea blockade.
Eight Turks and an American of Turkish origin were killed in the raid.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/world/meast/israel-turkey-apology/index.html?c=homepage-t
Score one for President Obama. They also decided to normalize their fractured diplomatic ties, agreeing to return ambassadors to their posts.
Tell W3C: We don't want the Hollyweb
Hollywood is at it again. Its latest ploy to take over the Web? Use its influence at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to weave Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into HTML5 — in other words, into the very fabric of the Web.
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5
https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media.html
North Carolina Police Officer Resigns After Road Rage Video Goes Viral
In an interview Wednesday, Deputy Craig Culpepper said he just wanted the man in the pickup truck with the video camera to just go away.
"I felt antagonized by him and I really just wanted the guy to go away," Culpepper said. "If you want to go do your thing, go do your thing. Don't bother me with it."
Culpepper, who worked for the Onslow County Sheriff's Office, was in North Charleston for K-9 training earlier this week, Sheriff Ed Brown said Wednesday, when he was caught up in a road rage incident on I-526.
"Deputy Culpepper, for no apparent reason, did what is called a brake check (immediately applied his brakes) thus the irate citizen struck Deputy Culpepper's vehicle in the rear," Brown said. "Deputy Culpepper tendered his resignation immediately after the Administrative Staff of the Onslow County Sheriff's Office and I addressed the matter with Deputy Culpepper."
http://www.abcnews4.com/story/21731404/video-shows-collision-with-cop-on-526
US General Kelly plays down Guantanamo hunger strike
Gen John Kelly, the head of US Southern Command, told the House Armed Services Committee that some prisoners "were eating a bit, but not a lot".
Reports say the protest against alleged mishandling of the Koran began in February. Gen Kelly denied such abuse.
More than 20 inmates are now thought to be on hunger strike, the jail says.
Prison spokesman Navy Capt Robert Durand said the number had risen from 14 on Friday.
Eight of them had lost so much weight that they were being fed through tubes and two were being treated for dehydration, he added.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21872214
Acupuncturist guilty of intentionally infecting 16 people with HIV
A regional court in the canton (state) of Bern said the man was sentenced Friday to 12 years and 9 months in prison.
Prosecutors had asked for a 15-year sentence for causing serious bodily harm and spreading human diseases.
They accused him of using various pretexts to prick his victims with a needle and infect them with HIV between 2001 and 2005.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_SWITZERLAND_HIV_ACUPUNCTURIST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-03-22-08-06-56
NM man films horse killing to send message to activists
Source: KOB 4
A video posted on YouTube has sparked outrage among animal activists and left death threats against a Roswell meat company.
In the video, an employee at the Valley Meat Company out of Roswell, NM - which is working with the USDA to get a horse slaughter plant in the area - brings a horse out of its pen, swears at activists and then kills the horse with a single gunshot.
“To all you animal activists, f**k you,” Tim Sappington, a maintenance contractor with Valley Meat Company, said in the video.
He then shoots the horse point blank in the head. The horse falls to the ground and dies.
Sappington has received several death threats for the video. People who operate the plant, who contend they had nothing to do with the video, are also receiving threats.
Now, the FBI is involved.
Read more: http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S2971822.shtml?cat=500
News report at the link.
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