March 8, 2014

Activist back from Egypt, hurting from injuries and sore at the State Department

Bay Area peace activist Medea Benjamin is back in the United States, still in pain from rough treatment by Egyptian police — and still wondering why her calls for help from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo went unanswered.

“It’s a big mystery to me, because during my 17-hour ordeal I never once heard from the embassy,” the co-founder of Code Pink said Friday from Washington, D.C., where she flew after her forceful deportation from Egypt earlier in the week.  Benjamin said she has a dislocated shoulder and torn ligaments and has been told she’ll need about a year of therapy.

Her case has become a touchy subject for the State Department, which initially said consular officers had contacted Benjamin in Egypt and provided “all appropriate consular assistance.” On Friday the department backtracked and said it had tried its best to help her.

Benjamin was part of an international delegation of about 100 women who traveled to Egypt in hopes of being allowed to cross the border and enter Gaza. Benjamin said she’d been in contact with the Egyptian government for months and had been assured that they could proceed to Gaza if conditions were safe but in any event would be allowed into Egypt.

But when Benjamin landed at the Cairo airport Monday night, she was held by police and kept in jail overnight. The next morning, she said, five men dragged her out of her cell, knocked her down, jumped on her, tightly handcuffed her wrists behind her back, and yanked her left shoulder out of its socket. Later, she said, they stuffed a scarf into her mouth to stop her from screaming, and threw her onto a plane for Turkey — fortunately, on a flight where another passenger was a physician who was able to help her. She said the men who detained and beat her never gave her an explanation.

Read More: http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/03/07/activist-back-from-egypt-hurting-from-injuries-and-sore-at-the-state-dept-epartment/

March 8, 2014

Study: Chemotherapy May Lead To Less Peaceful Death

More than half of end-stage cancer patients receive chemotherapy during the last few months of their life, and those who received such treatment were more likely to die in a hospital intensive care unit, hooked to a ventilator, rather than at home as they would have preferred, says a new study.

Patients were also less likely to have discussed their end of life wishes with their oncologist compared to other end-stage cancer patients who opted not to continue chemotherapy.

Researchers say doctors have a hard time initiating conversations with their patients, especially those dying from metastatic cancer.

“There’s a subtle dance that happens between oncologist and patient,” Dr. Alexi Wright, an assistant professor of medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the study’s lead author, told the Boston Globe. “Where doctors don’t want to broach the subject of dying, especially in younger patients, because it makes those patients think we’re giving up on them.”

Wright and her team of researchers studied 386 terminally ill cancer patients. They found that the 56 percent that had chemotherapy tended to be younger, better educated, richer, and more optimistic about their prognosis.

The patients died within an average of four months after participating in the study.

Sixty-five percent died in their preferred place; as compared to 80 percent of those who chose to stop treatments. The researchers found that those taking chemotherapy were more likely to die in a hospital intensive care unit rather than at home and were more likely to get placed on a ventilator. Most were referred to hospice within a week of their death.

http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/03/08/study-chemotherapy-may-lead-to-less-peaceful-death/

March 8, 2014

The most important lesson from 83,000 brain scans:Daniel Amen at TEDxOrangeCoast

March 6, 2014

College Grads Taking Low-Wage Jobs Displace Less Educated

Jeanina Jenkins, a 20-year-old high-school graduate from St. Louis, is stuck in a $7.82-an-hour part-time job at McDonald’s Corp. that she calls a “last resort” because nobody would offer her anything better.

Stephen O’Malley, 26, a West Virginia University graduate, wants to put his history degree to use teaching high school. What he’s found instead is a bartender’s job in his home town of Manasquan, New Jersey.

Jenkins and O’Malley are at opposite ends of a dynamic that is pushing those with college degrees down into competition with high-school graduates for low-wage jobs that don’t require college. As this competition has intensified during and after the recession, it’s meant relatively higher unemployment, declining labor market participation and lower wages for those with less education.

The jobless rate of Americans ages 25 to 34 who have only completed high school grew 4.3 percentage points to 10.6 percent in 2013 from 2007, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Unemployment for those in that age group with a college degree rose 1.5 percentage points to 3.7 percent in the same period.

“The underemployment of college graduates affects lesser educated parts of the labor force,” said economist Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a not-for-profit research organization in Washington. “Those with high-school diplomas that normally would have no problem getting jobs as bartenders or taxi drivers are sometimes kept from getting the jobs by people with college diplomas,” said Vedder, who is also a Bloomberg View contributor.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-06/college-grads-taking-low-wage-jobs-displace-less-educated.html

March 6, 2014

Pot meet kettle - Human Rights Record of the United States in 2013 - Chinese report

The State Department of the United States, which posed as "the world judge of human rights," made arbitrary attacks and irresponsible remarks on the human rights situation in almost 200 countries and regions again in its just-released Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013. However, the U.S. carefully concealed and avoided mentioning its own human rights problems. In fact, there were still serious human rights problems in the U.S in 2013, with the situation in many fields even deteriorating.

-- In 2013, 137 people died in 30 mass killings, which caused four or more deaths each, in the U.S.. A shooting rampage in the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C. left 12 people dead.

-- The U.S. engaged in a tapping program, code-named PRISM, exercising long-term and vast surveillance both at home and abroad. The program is a blatant violation of international law and seriously infringes on human rights.

-- The use of solitary confinement is prevalent in the U.S.. About 80,000 U.S. prisoners are in solitary confinement in the country. Some have even been held in solitary confinement for over 40 years.

-- The U.S. still faces grave employment situation with its unemployment rate remained high. Rates of unemployment for the lowest-income families have topped 21 percent. The homeless population in the U.S. kept swelling and it had climbed 16 percent from 2011 to 2013.

-- There are a large amount of child laborers in the agricultural sector in the U.S. and their physical and mental health was seriously harmed.

-- Frequent drone strikes by the U.S. in countries including Pakistan and Yemen have caused heavy civilian casualties. The U.S. has carried out 376 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004, causing deaths of up to 926 civilians.

-- The U.S. remains a country which has not ratified or participated in a series of core UN conventions on human rights, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-02/28/c_133150579.htm

March 3, 2014

Gay, Lesbian Troops Perform in Drag at Fundraiser

Since the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, U.S. military bases have hosted a gay marriage ceremonies and a potluck gatherings. But on Saturday, servicemembers here may have been the first to take to the stage and perform as drag queens on a military installation in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender troops.

Drag queens and drag kings, to be precise.

Six servicemembers -- gay, lesbian and straight -- donned heavy makeup to dance and lip sync songs such as "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" for a raucous capacity crowd at the Rocker NCO Club at Kadena Air Base. The event was a fundraiser for the recently formed Okinawa chapter of OutServe-SLDN, which is the largest nonprofit advocate for the military's LGBT community.

"We didn't think there was much of a desire for an event like this on the island but it has actually blown up," said Navy Lt. Marissa Greene, co-chapter leader of OutServe Okinawa.

Greene said she had hoped to sell about 75 tickets to fund some future support activities for the group, which was formed last summer and still "starting from scratch." The event was approved as a "variety show" by Kadena's 18th Wing through the same process as other on-base fundraisers.

But an initial 200 tickets were plucked up almost immediately, so they issued another 200.

"We ended up selling 400 tickets in 10 days," she said.

Amid the unexpected success, OutServe carefully avoided any mention of politics, but its variety show comes at a pivotal time for gay civil rights in the United States, with many states passing laws dealing with marriage or debating individual liberties.

It is also a sign of the times within the military; just a few years ago, gay and lesbian drag performances on a military base would have been unthinkable and potentially a cause for dismissal from the service.

Read More: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/03/03/gay-lesbian-troops-perform-in-drag-at-fundraiser.html?comp=700001075741&rank=3

March 3, 2014

Americans used smartphone and tablet apps more than PCs to access the Internet last month

the first time that has ever happened.

Mobile apps overtake PC Internet usage in U.S.


Americans used smartphone and tablet apps more than PCs to access the Internet last month -- the first time that has ever happened.

Mobile devices accounted for 55% of Internet usage in the United States in January. Apps made up 47% of Internet traffic and 8% of traffic came from mobile browsers, according to data from comScore, cited Thursday by research firm Enders Analysis. PCs clocked in at 45%.

Although total Internet usage on mobile devices has previously exceeded that on PCs, this is the first time it's happened for app usage alone.

The shift follows a freefall in PC sales, which suffered their worst decline in history last year.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/28/technology/mobile/mobile-apps-internet/index.html

March 1, 2014

Blowing Up: Tesla's Gigafactory Is Going To Revolutionize The Auto And Utility Industries

Very soon, Tesla is going to announce plans to build the world’s largest battery factory here in the United States. It desperately needs to get started on the project in order to have enough lithium-ion capacity to power its third-generation car that it hopes to sell for $35,000 just 3 years from now. To do this, the company will enlist longtime partner Panasonic, who is rumored to be investing upwards of $1 billion of its own money; likely raise significant capital of its own; and quite possibly even bring in additional outside players. That alone should be enough of an undertaking. But Elon Musk is thinking bigger. Not only is this multi-billion-dolllar venture going to set his automaker up for a move to the big time in the world market, it’s also going to give him a wedge to basically destroy the utility business in the U.S. And, those companies have no one but themselves to blame.

Batteries included

Under existing agreements with Panasonic, Tesla is already planning on buying 1.8 billion lithium-ion cells over the next 4 years. The reason it needs so many is because it uses thousands of them in each of its vehicles. Those nearly 2 billion batteries will barely give Tesla the ability to produce 250,000 Model S sedans and Model X SUVs and it’s likely the less-expensive “Model E” as its often referred to will sell nearly that many in its first year alone. Enter the Gigafactory, as Musk has taken to calling it, which will produce upwards of 30 gigawatt-hours worth of batteries per year. How much is that? “We are talking about something that is comparable to all of the lithium-ion battery production in the world in one factory,” Musk has said.

And it’s enough for hundreds of thousands of Tesla vehicles, assuming they offer similar packs to today’s cars, which Musk has also promised on a number of occasions. The marvel of the factory is that it will take in raw materials — lithium and the other metals needed — and spit out finished packs on the other end, in whatever sizes Tesla requires. Today, that’s 60 and 85 kilowatt-hours in a “large format” that will support both the S and X. The future vehicle likely will require a smaller pack and it seems probable a 100-kilowatt pack (or larger) is coming to the big vehicles soon.

Power to the people

But there’s much more. Tesla has already been running trials with SolarCity, which is run by Musk’s cousin Lyndon Rive, on a storage unit. What it does is hold onto some excess power generated by the panels on the roof of a home or business rather than immediately sending it to the grid. In the short run, this has the potential to solve a very big problem that’s headed California’s way brought on by the success of solar in the state. It’s something called “the duck graph” and what it shows is what happens when the sun starts to set and people head home from work. The result is a big mess where net demand for electricity spikes to the highest levels of the day all in the space of one hour. California is so concerned it has mandated significant energy storage be brought online to reel in the length of the duck’s neck before it gets too long.

snip

But the utilities have instead begun a war on solar. In Arizona, the state’s largest utility sought a fee of roughly $50 per month from each solar customer for the right to connect back to the grid. They lost and the fee will be $3-6 instead. Five other states are now seeking similar money grabs. Their problem is that solar customers are supposedly not paying their fair share of grid costs and are are costing everyone else money by selling power back to the grid they don’t use at the same retail rates they buy power, something called “net metering.”

The danger for utilities, though, is that they get exactly what they want. If net metering is killed, more customers will simply install storage and hardly ever tap the grid at all. While those customers will end up paying something to be on the grid, it will be a minimal amount. All their excess power will fill their battery pack and their electric vehicle and none of it will go to stabilizing the grid. It turns out the utility model isn’t well designed to lose even small numbers of customers yet in many states, it’s already cheaper to roll your own power than to buy it from the local utility. Make it punitive to play nice with the grid and more people will simply choose not to. That sets off a chain reaction that basically kills the utility business in a matter of a few years.

Where the Gigafactory fits in is that it’s likely going to drive the cost of that storage into the ground.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2014/02/26/blowing-up-teslas-gigafactory-is-going-to-revolutionize-the-auto-and-utility-industries/