AT the ceremony where he announced a new drug czar this month, Vice President Joseph Biden would not take questions from reporters, but before he arrived, a press aide explained why the post was no longer a cabinet-level position. It was not necessary, the aide said, because the vice president had more than 30 years [...]
Archive for March, 2009
No Comment. But You Didn’t Hear It From Me.
Posted in Politics on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Obama Envoy: Time to Act on Climate Change
Posted in Energy and Environment on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Once booed at international climate talks, the United States won sustained applause Sunday when President Barack Obama’s envoy pledged to ”make up for lost time” in reaching a global agreement on climate change. Todd Stern also praised efforts by countries like China to reign in their carbon emissions, but said global warming ”requires a global [...]
Cholesterol Drugs May Reduce Risk of Blood Clots in Veins
Posted in Health on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
New results from a large study suggest that the drugs known as statins may have a benefit beyond lowering cholesterol: reducing the risk of developing blood clots in the veins. The study, published on the Web site of The New England Journal of Medicine and presented on Sunday at an American College of Cardiology convention, [...]
High Island beckons bird watchers
Posted in Natural sciences, Photo galleries on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
A rainbow forms over Clay Bottom Pond, a wildlife watering hole at the Smith Oaks Bird Sanctuary that once stored High Island’s water supply. Aside from hosting various birds such as egrets, blue-winged teals and roseate spoonbills, the man-made pond is home to alligators and turtles. __________ You don’t have to be a bird lover [...]
Resume do’s and don’ts
Posted in Practical advice on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
__________ The good resume: Clean, detailed and on point Specifics are key. • Including plenty of numbers shows recruiters exactly how you’ll be good for their budget. • Explain the how and why of your success by giving examples. For instance: “Saved money by negotiating with providers.” • Skip the Objective section for a Summary that highlights the [...]
Crafting a resume that will grab recruiters
Posted in Practical advice on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
__________ Some old rules no longer apply. Creativity can help, but going too far can ruin your chances for a job. Even in choppy waters, recruiters are still angling for the perfect job candidate. But employers don’t have the time or resources to sift through all the applications churned up by the recession. California’s unemployment [...]
Take the Limbaugh Challenge
Posted in Editorials and opinion on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Liberals who hate Rush Limbaugh — why don’t you actually listen to his show before bashing him? If you are reading this newspaper, the likelihood is that you agree with the Obama administration’s recent attacks on conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. That’s the likelihood; here’s the certainty: You’ve never listened to Rush Limbaugh. Oh no, [...]
Murder, She Wrote
Posted in Law on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
__________ How forensic handwriting identification works. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office has convened a grand jury to probe the 1985 disappearance of John and Linda Sohus, who once rented property to Clark Rockefeller. Two handwriting experts said on Wednesday that they’d been subpoenaed to weigh in on the authenticity of a postcard, purportedly mailed [...]
Bubblespeak
Posted in Language on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
__________ In his timeless 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell condemned political rhetoric as a tool used “to make lies sound truthful” and “to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Were he alive today, Orwell might well be moved to pen a companion piece on the use of financial lingo. [...]
Blue Eyed Greed?
Posted in Popular culture on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
As international lunacy goes, it was hard to beat the pope saying that condoms spread AIDS. But Brazil’s president, known simply as Lula, gave it his best shot. At a press conference Thursday in Brasilia with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain — who has a talent for getting himself into dicey spots — Lula [...]
Marjorie Grene, a Leading Philosopher of Biology, Is Dead at 98
Posted in Physical sciences on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Marjorie Grene in 2003. __________ With an uncompromising, volatile brilliance, Marjorie Grene helped shape a modern philosophical approach to biology, opening a new field that strives to interpret the deepest meanings of the scientific study of life, including the meaning of humanness. A philosopher of biology who once spent time as a farmer’s wife writing [...]
Cost Works Against Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources in Time of Recession
Posted in Energy and Environment on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Windmills and solar panel arrays have become symbols of America’s growing interest in alternative energy. Yet as Congress begins debating new rules to restrict carbon dioxide emissions and promote electricity produced from renewable sources, an underlying question is how much more Americans will be willing to pay to harness the wind and the sun. Curbing [...]
Space Shuttle Lands in Florida
Posted in Physical sciences on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
The shuttle Discovery landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday after a 13-day mission. __________ The shuttle Discovery glided to a hazy Florida landing on Saturday, leaving the International Space Station behind in orbit with a complete set of solar arrays and a repaired water recycling system. Running one orbit late because of [...]
Obama’s Nobel Headache
Posted in Economy and business on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Paul Krugman on Princeton’s campus in March 2009. __________ Paul Krugman has emerged as Obama’s toughest liberal critic. He’s deeply skeptical of the bank bailout and pessimistic about the economy. Why the establishment worries he may be right. Traditionally, punditry in Washington has been a cozy business. To get the inside scoop, big-time columnists sometimes [...]
Camels
Posted in Animals, Natural sciences, Photo galleries on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
An one-day-old camel named Jenny is seen with her 17-year-old mother, Jolan, at the Budapest Zoo Park and Botanic Garden in the Hungarian capital. __________ Full article and photo: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/5060701/Animal-pictures-of-the-week-27-March-2009.html?image=17
Mother tigress and her cubs
Posted in Natural sciences on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
A white tigress feeds her newly-born cubs in a zoological park in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. __________ Full article and photo: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/5060701/Animal-pictures-of-the-week-27-March-2009.html?image=5
European Court Seems to Rankle Kremlin
Posted in Law on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Fed up with the brazen string-pulling and favor-trading in the corrupt Moscow courts, a judge named Olga B. Kudeshkina went public, criticizing the system in numerous interviews as little more than a legal bazaar — “an instrument,” as she put it, “for settling political, commercial or simply personal scores.” When Ms. Kudeshkina was then dismissed, [...]
We’re Not the Boss of A.I.G.
Posted in Law on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
__________ BARNEY FRANK, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the House Financial Services Committee, recently said that the government should sue American International Group to recover the $165 million in bonuses it paid to executives in its financial products division. “We own this company, in effect,” Mr. Frank said, referring to the government’s 80 percent stake. [...]
Putting Yourself Out There on a Shelf to Buy
Posted in Practical advice on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
I HEAR the word “brand,” as in “learn how to brand yourself,” and my heart sinks. I became a journalist rather than a salesperson because I do not like selling anything — including myself. And selling myself as a brand seems even less appealing than selling myself as, well, me. I know, I’m showing my [...]
Anglo-American Capitalism on Trial
Posted in Economy and business on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Roosevelt and Churchill cast the postwar mold; Bill Clinton and Tony Blair extended its triumph in the late 1990’s; now Barack Obama and Gordon Brown defend it. __________ The meeting is too short — a single day — to make more than a start on fixing the weaknesses in the international financial system [...]
Obama Will Face a Defiant World on Foreign Visit
Posted in Politics on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
LONDON A protest of the Group of 20 meeting on Saturday. Trade unions and foes of globalization and war have planned marches. __________ President Obama is facing challenges to American power on multiple fronts as he prepares for his first trip overseas since taking office, with the nation’s economic woes emboldening allies and adversaries alike. [...]
Spain court mulls US torture case
Posted in Law on March 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Some inmates were subjected to controversial interrogation techniques Spanish judges have agreed to consider charging six former US officials with providing legal justification for alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay. Human rights lawyers brought the case against the six, who all served under former President George W Bush. Among those named was former defence official Douglas [...]
For Obama, Three Afghanistan Tests
Posted in Conflicts and wars on March 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Three time bombs are buried within the new and ambitious strategy for Afghanistan that President Obama unveiled Friday. Their detonation — which would cripple the international mission to stabilize the country and perhaps cripple Obama’s presidency — is not inevitable. But defusing them will take an exceptional performance by U.S. military commanders and diplomats, some [...]
Which comes first? The dinosaur or the egg?
Posted in Natural sciences on March 28, 2009 | Comments Off
It may sound like a Jurassic Park sequel, but scientists at McGill and several U.S. universities are working toward hatching a live dinosaur from a regular chicken’s egg. __________ Among the potential benefits of causing a chicken embryo to develop dinosaurian characteristics is that this is a project that could capture the popular imagination. It [...]
The five-hour scramble to save Natasha Richardson
Posted in Health on March 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The crackling message over the 911 scanner is delivered with cold precision: The female patient in the ambulance is dazed and concussed, clinging to consciousness. Natasha Richardson lay on a stretcher inside the speeding vehicle, her mind confused, her breathing aided by oxygen. A fall taken on a ski hill earlier was already, silently, killing [...]
Obama plans climate change summit
Posted in Energy and Environment on March 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Mr Obama hopes to create a global consensus on greenhouse emissions US President Barack Obama has invited figures from the world’s 16 major economies to Washington for a meeting on climate change at the end of April. The event will be the first meeting of what the White House styles “the Major Economies Forum [...]
Qatari Emir Warns of ‘Chaos’ in Sudan
Posted in Politics on March 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. __________ The emir of Qatar has warned that the international warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir could destablize the entire region. “If anything happened to Omar al-Bashir and Sudan ended up in chaos, the whole of Africa will sink into chaos,” Sheik Hamad [...]
THE GARDEN The beds at the Lewis House in Colonial Williamsburg are seeded with heirlooms. __________ THE quince hedge was already covered with salmon-pink flowers the day Lawrence Griffith, the curator of plants at Colonial Williamsburg, planted 19 varieties of heirloom flowers from seed. Not indoors in pots, mind you, something the colonists rarely [...]
Defeat and Some Success for Texas Evolution Foes
Posted in Physical sciences on March 28, 2009 | Comments Off
In an evenly split vote, the State Board of Education on Thursday upheld teaching evolution as accepted mainstream science. But social conservatives on the board, using a series of amendments tailored to particular school subjects, succeeded in requiring teachers to evaluate critically a variety of scientific principles like cell formation and the Big Bang. The [...]
Sectarian Tension Takes Volatile Form in Bahrain
Posted in Conflicts and wars on March 28, 2009 | Comments Off
A fire set by antigovernment protesters last week in Malkiya, Bahrain. Daily clashes with the police reflect the Shiite majority’s discontent with Sunni minority rule. __________ It was just another night in this small Shiite Muslim village on the Persian Gulf. A mattress and chairs were set on fire in the street. The police [...]
