http://www.odeo.com/channels/39367-Slate-s-Explainer-Podcast AndyBowers no Have you ever finished reading a complex news story and realized there's some fundamental fact you just don't get? The Explainer team at Slate.com is here to answer those basic questions that somehow slip through the cracks of daily news coverage. Have you ever finished reading a complex news story and realized there's some fundamental fact you just don't get? The Explainer team at Slate.com is here to answer those basic questions that somehow slip through the cracks of daily news coverage. A daily podcast of Slate.com's popular column, The Explainer. en-us 40 Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:16:38 -0800 Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:16:38 -0800 Politics http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23852551-Explainer-What-Is-the-Most-Disloyal-Dog-Breed What Is the Most Disloyal Dog Breed? An answer to the Explainer's 2008 Question of the Year. By Daniel Engber Three weeks ago, the Explainer released the annual list of questions we were either unable or unwilling to answer in 2008. Among this year's entries were brainteasers like "Why do women like soup?" and "If someone with DNA from the Stone Age were born today, would they be normal?" In keeping with Slate tradition, we then asked readers to vote for the unanswered question that most deserved a response. More than 30,000 votes came in by the time the polls had closed. Many of our astute readers also wrote in to say that some of the questions on the list had been answered elsewhere. Indeed, our top vote-getter—Why do cockroaches flip over on their backsides when they die?—was explained 25 years ago by the Explainer's arch-nemesis, Cecil Adams. (Answer: They don't always die that way.) The second-place question—Why don't humans have a mating season?—has also been thoroughly invest... What Is the Most Disloyal Dog Breed? An answer to the Explainer's 2008 Question of the Year. By Daniel Engber Three weeks ago, the Explainer released the annual list of questions we were either unable or unwilling to answer in 2008. Among this year's entries were brainteasers like "Why do women like soup?" and "If someone with DNA from the Stone Age were born today, would they be normal?" In keeping with Slate tradition, we then asked readers to vote for the unanswered question that most deserved a response. More than 30,000 votes came in by the time the polls had closed. Many of our astute readers also wrote in to say that some of the questions on the list had been answered elsewhere. Indeed, our top vote-getter—Why do cockroaches flip over on their backsides when they die?—was explained 25 years ago by the Explainer's arch-nemesis, Cecil Adams. (Answer: They don't always die that way.) The second-place question—Why don't humans have a mating season?—has also been thoroughly investigated, by Jared Diamond. (Answer: We have sex year-round so fathers have a reason to stick around.) Same goes for No. 3 in the standings, concerning a dimly remembered photograph from Life magazine that shows a descendent of George Washington. The image can be found here, and several articles have been written on the question of Washington's lineage. So, by process of elimination, we bring you the fourth-most popular question on the list, and our official Explainer Question of the Year for 2008: What is the most disloyal dog breed? The answer: Nobody knows. The conventional wisdom among dog fanciers holds that each of the 161 breeds now recognized by the American Kennel Club has a distinctive temperament reflecting its history and original purpose. The terriers, for example, were once bred to hunt vermin; thus they're thought to be hostile to other animals. Working dogs that were originally bred to guard property might be seen as especially loyal. But recent work suggests that the personalities of modern dogs may have little to do with their breed's history. A researcher at Stockholm University named Kenth Svartberg analyzed the behavioral profiles of more than 15,000 animals and derived several essential canine traits: A dog is more or less playful, curious/fearless, and sociable. Then he studied a few dozen breed types and rated them according to those traits as well as on their level of aggression. Svartberg turned up two interesting facts. First, like many other researchers, he found tremendous variability among dogs of a particular breed. So even though German shepherds scored higher marks for playfulness than, say, poodles, you'll still find plenty of individual poodles that are more playful than a given German shepherd. Second, he discovered no significant differences in traits among the broader breed groups—terriers, working dogs, herding dogs, and sporting dogs. For instance, the terriers taken as a whole were no more aggressive than the other breed groups, and the working dogs were no more sociable or fearless. The recent history of dog ownership may explain why we don't see distinctive personalities in these groups today. Whereas dogs were once bred for a specific task, now they tend to be bred for physical traits (that make for better show dogs) or for a family-friendly temperament (that makes for better household pets). It's nevertheless possible to identify personality differences across specific breeds. (There may not be a temperament common to all terriers, but each individual terrier breed has its own predilections.) So which breeds are most disloyal? That depends on how you define the term. Loyalty is not a trait measured by any mainstream dog personality assessment—if it exists at all, it's a complicated mixture of other traits. In Svartberg's system, for example, you might argue that a loyal dog is one that's generally affectionate (high playfulness) but aggressive toward strangers (low sociability). By that logic, a friendly and playful Labrador retriever would be construed as disloyal since it's prone to lavish affection on everyone who comes near it. According to Svartberg's data (PDF), a pinscher, a Bernese mountain dog, or an English springer spaniel might be the most disloyal since each ranks very low on playfulness, with moderate sociability. Of course, you'll get a different Judas breed for every definition of disloyal and for every method used to assess the dogs. Animal behaviorists Lynette and Benjamin Hart conducted a large-scale survey of small-animal veterinarians and created a table of breed rankings for 10 personality traits. In their system, a "disloyal" dog might be construed as one that ranks high for "aggression towards owner" (e.g., chows, Rottweilers, and Akitas) and low for "territorial defense" (e.g., whippets, golden retrievers, and basset hounds). Once again, since there's no definition or measure of loyalty, there's no accepted answer to the question. Bonus Explainer: How do you measure a dog's personality? Give the owner a questionnaire, or test the dog directly. There are many standardized instruments for assessing canine temperament; click here (PDF) for a review of the literature. Kenth Svartberg uses something called the "Dog Mentality Assessment," used by breeders with the Swedish Working Dog Association. Here the dog must endure 10 trials as it walks down a wooded path. These include the sound of a gunshot, the sound of a metal chain being dragged across a piece of corrugated metal, and the sudden appearance of a humanlike dummy. (The dummy is pulled off the ground with ropes that are slung over tree branches.) In the most peculiar segment, the dog is rated on its "reaction to two slowly approaching persons covered in white sheets ('ghosts'). … Over the head the functionaries have white plastic buckets with holes for the eyes." What Is the Most Disloyal Dog Breed? An answer to the Explainer's 2008 Question of the Year. By Daniel Engber Three weeks ago, the Explainer released the annual list of questions we were either unable or unwilling to answer in 2008. Among this year's entries were brainteasers like "Why do women like soup?" and "If someone with DNA from the Stone Age were born today, would they be normal?" In keeping with Slate tradition, we then asked readers to vote for the unanswered question that most deserved a response. More than 30,000 votes came in by the time the polls had closed. Many of our astute readers also wrote in to say that some of the questions on the list had been answered elsewhere. Indeed, our top vote-getter—Why do cockroaches flip over on their backsides when they die?—was explained 25 years ago by the Explainer's arch-nemesis, Cecil Adams. (Answer: They don't always die that way.) The second-place question—Why don't humans have a mating season?—has also been thoroughly investigated, by Jared Diamond. (Answer: We have sex year-round so fathers have a reason to stick around.) Same goes for No. 3 in the standings, concerning a dimly remembered photograph from Life magazine that shows a descendent of George Washington. The image can be found here, and several articles have been written on the question of Washington's lineage. So, by process of elimination, we bring you the fourth-most popular question on the list, and our official Explainer Question of the Year for 2008: What is the most disloyal dog breed? The answer: Nobody knows. The conventional wisdom among dog fanciers holds that each of the 161 breeds now recognized by the American Kennel Club has a distinctive temperament reflecting its history and original purpose. The terriers, for example, were once bred to hunt vermin; thus they're thought to be hostile to other animals. Working dogs that were originally bred to guard property might be seen as especially loyal. But recent work suggests that the personalities of modern dogs may have little to do with their breed's history. A researcher at Stockholm University named Kenth Svartberg analyzed the behavioral profiles of more than 15,000 animals and derived several essential canine traits: A dog is more or less playful, curious/fearless, and sociable. Then he studied a few dozen breed types and rated them according to those traits as well as on their level of aggression. Svartberg turned up two interesting facts. First, like many other researchers, he found tremendous variability among dogs of a particular breed. So even though German shepherds scored higher marks for playfulness than, say, poodles, you'll still find plenty of individual poodles that are more playful than a given German shepherd. Second, he discovered no significant differences in traits among the broader breed groups—terriers, working dogs, herding dogs, and sporting dogs. For instance, the terriers taken as a whole were no more aggressive than the other breed groups, and the working dogs were no more sociable or fearless. The recent history of dog ownership may explain why we don't see distinctive personalities in these groups today. Whereas dogs were once bred for a specific task, now they tend to be bred for physical traits (that make for better show dogs) or for a family-friendly temperament (that makes for better household pets). It's nevertheless possible to identify personality differences across specific breeds. (There may not be a temperament common to all terriers, but each individual terrier breed has its own predilections.) So which breeds are most disloyal? That depends on how you define the term. Loyalty is not a trait measured by any mainstream dog personality assessment—if it exists at all, it's a complicated mixture of other traits. In Svartberg's system, for example, you might argue that a loyal dog is one that's generally affectionate (high playfulness) but aggressive toward strangers (low sociability). By that logic, a friendly and playful Labrador retriever would be construed as disloyal since it's prone to lavish affection on everyone who comes near it. According to Svartberg's data (PDF), a pinscher, a Bernese mountain dog, or an English springer spaniel might be the most disloyal since each ranks very low on playfulness, with moderate sociability. Of course, you'll get a different Judas breed for every definition of disloyal and for every method used to assess the dogs. Animal behaviorists Lynette and Benjamin Hart conducted a large-scale survey of small-animal veterinarians and created a table of breed rankings for 10 personality traits. In their system, a "disloyal" dog might be construed as one that ranks high for "aggression towards owner" (e.g., chows, Rottweilers, and Akitas) and low for "territorial defense" (e.g., whippets, golden retrievers, and basset hounds). Once again, since there's no definition or measure of loyalty, there's no accepted answer to the question. Bonus Explainer: How do you measure a dog's personality? Give the owner a questionnaire, or test the dog directly. There are many standardized instruments for assessing canine temperament; click here (PDF) for a review of the literature. Kenth Svartberg uses something called the "Dog Mentality Assessment," used by breeders with the Swedish Working Dog Association. Here the dog must endure 10 trials as it walks down a wooded path. These include the sound of a gunshot, the sound of a metal chain being dragged across a piece of corrugated metal, and the sudden appearance of a humanlike dummy. (The dummy is pulled off the ground with ropes that are slung over tree branches.) In the most peculiar segment, the dog is rated on its "reaction to two slowly approaching persons covered in white sheets ('ghosts'). … Over the head the functionaries have white plastic buckets with holes for the eyes." tag:odeo.com,2009-01-09,23852551 Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:16:38 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23841001-Explainer-Self-Mutilation-for-Dummies Self-Mutilation for Dummies Is there a right way for Shiites to lash themselves on Ashura? By Brian Palmer Thousands of Shiites marched in Karbala, Iraq, on Tuesday to mark the Muslim holiday of Ashura. According to a report in Reuters, men "cut their scalps with daggers and whipped their backs with chains." Can a Shiite self-mutilate any way he wants? In a sense. A subset of male Shiites injure themselves on Ashura to represent their grief over the martyrdom of Hussein, grandson of the prophet, at the hands of the Ummayad army in 680. These people engage in violent rituals such as pounding their chests with their fists, lacerating their scalps with a knife or machete, or self-flagellation with a zanjeer—five blades connected to a wooden handle by steel chain. But none of these forms of expression is sanctioned by mainstream religious authorities; most prominent Shiite clerics object to all forms of self-mutilation, since it has no basis in early religious history and appears barbar... Self-Mutilation for Dummies Is there a right way for Shiites to lash themselves on Ashura? By Brian Palmer Thousands of Shiites marched in Karbala, Iraq, on Tuesday to mark the Muslim holiday of Ashura. According to a report in Reuters, men "cut their scalps with daggers and whipped their backs with chains." Can a Shiite self-mutilate any way he wants? In a sense. A subset of male Shiites injure themselves on Ashura to represent their grief over the martyrdom of Hussein, grandson of the prophet, at the hands of the Ummayad army in 680. These people engage in violent rituals such as pounding their chests with their fists, lacerating their scalps with a knife or machete, or self-flagellation with a zanjeer—five blades connected to a wooden handle by steel chain. But none of these forms of expression is sanctioned by mainstream religious authorities; most prominent Shiite clerics object to all forms of self-mutilation, since it has no basis in early religious history and appears barbaric to outsiders. Annual processions mourning the death of Hussein became common in the eighth century, but self-mutilation did not become part of the ritual until the 15th century. A piece of apocrypha explains the practice: According to some, Hussein's sister Zainab, overcome with grief at the sight of her brother's severed head, banged her head bloody against her saddle post. Variations in method and degree of brutality exist. Some older Muslims accept self-flagellation but feel it has become too showy and gruesome: The modern zanjeer blades have two sharp edges rather than one, drawing much more blood than the traditional versions. Some participants shun the blades altogether and use the chains alone. Many South Asian Shiites hold razors between their fingers while slapping their chests. Individual mourners have developed altogether novel practices, including hanging weights from a body piercing. Not all Ashura mourning rituals are violent. The less painful traditions include prolific weeping, wearing black, reciting mournful poetry, passion plays, somber music concerts, and fasting. In South Asia, it is traditional to build an ornate casket and carry it to the sea. Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran issued a fatwa against self-mutilation in 1994, and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most prominent cleric, has issued statements suggesting ambivalence about the practice. Some flagellation enthusiasts rejected the pronouncements entirely or claimed they prohibited only the cutting of the scalp with swords. Others accepted the fatwa and redirected their efforts toward more socially productive acts like Ashura blood drives. Over time, most clerics have muted their criticism, as many Shiites' devotion to the practice has been too strong to break. Self-Mutilation for Dummies Is there a right way for Shiites to lash themselves on Ashura? By Brian Palmer Thousands of Shiites marched in Karbala, Iraq, on Tuesday to mark the Muslim holiday of Ashura. According to a report in Reuters, men "cut their scalps with daggers and whipped their backs with chains." Can a Shiite self-mutilate any way he wants? In a sense. A subset of male Shiites injure themselves on Ashura to represent their grief over the martyrdom of Hussein, grandson of the prophet, at the hands of the Ummayad army in 680. These people engage in violent rituals such as pounding their chests with their fists, lacerating their scalps with a knife or machete, or self-flagellation with a zanjeer—five blades connected to a wooden handle by steel chain. But none of these forms of expression is sanctioned by mainstream religious authorities; most prominent Shiite clerics object to all forms of self-mutilation, since it has no basis in early religious history and appears barbaric to outsiders. Annual processions mourning the death of Hussein became common in the eighth century, but self-mutilation did not become part of the ritual until the 15th century. A piece of apocrypha explains the practice: According to some, Hussein's sister Zainab, overcome with grief at the sight of her brother's severed head, banged her head bloody against her saddle post. Variations in method and degree of brutality exist. Some older Muslims accept self-flagellation but feel it has become too showy and gruesome: The modern zanjeer blades have two sharp edges rather than one, drawing much more blood than the traditional versions. Some participants shun the blades altogether and use the chains alone. Many South Asian Shiites hold razors between their fingers while slapping their chests. Individual mourners have developed altogether novel practices, including hanging weights from a body piercing. Not all Ashura mourning rituals are violent. The less painful traditions include prolific weeping, wearing black, reciting mournful poetry, passion plays, somber music concerts, and fasting. In South Asia, it is traditional to build an ornate casket and carry it to the sea. Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran issued a fatwa against self-mutilation in 1994, and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most prominent cleric, has issued statements suggesting ambivalence about the practice. Some flagellation enthusiasts rejected the pronouncements entirely or claimed they prohibited only the cutting of the scalp with swords. Others accepted the fatwa and redirected their efforts toward more socially productive acts like Ashura blood drives. Over time, most clerics have muted their criticism, as many Shiites' devotion to the practice has been too strong to break. tag:odeo.com,2009-01-08,23841001 Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:47:35 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23841002-Explainer-How-Many-Albinos-Are-in-Tanzania How Many Albinos Are in Tanzania? More than you might think. By Juliet Lapidos Three men armed with machetes killed an 8-year-old albino boy in Burundi last week and are believed to have smuggled his limbs to Tanzania, where witch doctors use albino body parts for potions. At least 35 albinos were killed in Tanzania in 2008, prompting police officials to set up an emergency hot line and a program to distribute free cell phones to all albinos. How many albinos are there in Tanzania? A whole lot. Albinism, a genetic disorder characterized by lack of melanin pigment in the skin, hair, and eyes, is listed as a rare disease by the National Institutes of Health—meaning it affects fewer than 200,000 Americans. Around the world, between one in 17,000 and one in 20,000 people are albinos. The prevalence in parts of Africa, however, is far higher than the global average. Albinos make up about one in 4,000 people in South Africa and perhaps one in 5,000 in Nigeria. According to a 2006 review p... How Many Albinos Are in Tanzania? More than you might think. By Juliet Lapidos Three men armed with machetes killed an 8-year-old albino boy in Burundi last week and are believed to have smuggled his limbs to Tanzania, where witch doctors use albino body parts for potions. At least 35 albinos were killed in Tanzania in 2008, prompting police officials to set up an emergency hot line and a program to distribute free cell phones to all albinos. How many albinos are there in Tanzania? A whole lot. Albinism, a genetic disorder characterized by lack of melanin pigment in the skin, hair, and eyes, is listed as a rare disease by the National Institutes of Health—meaning it affects fewer than 200,000 Americans. Around the world, between one in 17,000 and one in 20,000 people are albinos. The prevalence in parts of Africa, however, is far higher than the global average. Albinos make up about one in 4,000 people in South Africa and perhaps one in 5,000 in Nigeria. According to a 2006 review published in the journal BMC Public Health, the prevalence in Tanzania is one in 1,400, but this estimate is based on incomplete data. Since Tanzania's total population is more than 40 million, that would suggest an albino community of about 30,000. A census is under way, however, and the Albino Association of Tanzania believes the total figure could be more than 150,000. Albinism may be more prevalent in some geographic areas because of inbreeding. A study published in 1982 notes that albinism is less common among the South African Zulu and Xhosa tribes (one in 4,500) than the Swazi and Sotho-Tswana tribes (one in 2,000), which have no taboo against cousins marrying. In Zimbabwe, about four-fifths of albinos belong to the majority ethnic group, the Shona. Since the Shona discourage consanguineous relationships, this prevalence may be the result of the founder effect, wherein a small number of people from a larger population form a new community, resulting in the loss of genetic variation. But the extraordinary rate of albinism in Tanzania is not yet fully understood. In any case, albinism is especially dangerous in sunny climates, like Tanzania's, because lack of melanin predisposes albinos to severe skin damage from UV exposure. Albinos frequently suffer from sunburns, blisters, and solar keratosis as well as visual problems like myopia. Bonus Explainer: How do you count albinos? Look to the children. Researchers distribute surveys at schools and conduct interviews with administrators to get a sense of the albino population among the pupils, then extrapolate to the rest of the population. Hospital maternity wards are sometimes targeted, too, to count the number of albino babies born. And Albino Associations conduct outreach programs to register the local population officially. How Many Albinos Are in Tanzania? More than you might think. By Juliet Lapidos Three men armed with machetes killed an 8-year-old albino boy in Burundi last week and are believed to have smuggled his limbs to Tanzania, where witch doctors use albino body parts for potions. At least 35 albinos were killed in Tanzania in 2008, prompting police officials to set up an emergency hot line and a program to distribute free cell phones to all albinos. How many albinos are there in Tanzania? A whole lot. Albinism, a genetic disorder characterized by lack of melanin pigment in the skin, hair, and eyes, is listed as a rare disease by the National Institutes of Health—meaning it affects fewer than 200,000 Americans. Around the world, between one in 17,000 and one in 20,000 people are albinos. The prevalence in parts of Africa, however, is far higher than the global average. Albinos make up about one in 4,000 people in South Africa and perhaps one in 5,000 in Nigeria. According to a 2006 review published in the journal BMC Public Health, the prevalence in Tanzania is one in 1,400, but this estimate is based on incomplete data. Since Tanzania's total population is more than 40 million, that would suggest an albino community of about 30,000. A census is under way, however, and the Albino Association of Tanzania believes the total figure could be more than 150,000. Albinism may be more prevalent in some geographic areas because of inbreeding. A study published in 1982 notes that albinism is less common among the South African Zulu and Xhosa tribes (one in 4,500) than the Swazi and Sotho-Tswana tribes (one in 2,000), which have no taboo against cousins marrying. In Zimbabwe, about four-fifths of albinos belong to the majority ethnic group, the Shona. Since the Shona discourage consanguineous relationships, this prevalence may be the result of the founder effect, wherein a small number of people from a larger population form a new community, resulting in the loss of genetic variation. But the extraordinary rate of albinism in Tanzania is not yet fully understood. In any case, albinism is especially dangerous in sunny climates, like Tanzania's, because lack of melanin predisposes albinos to severe skin damage from UV exposure. Albinos frequently suffer from sunburns, blisters, and solar keratosis as well as visual problems like myopia. Bonus Explainer: How do you count albinos? Look to the children. Researchers distribute surveys at schools and conduct interviews with administrators to get a sense of the albino population among the pupils, then extrapolate to the rest of the population. Hospital maternity wards are sometimes targeted, too, to count the number of albino babies born. And Albino Associations conduct outreach programs to register the local population officially. tag:odeo.com,2009-01-07,23841002 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:30:49 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24288639-Explainer-Uh-Mind-if-I-Sit-Here Uh ??? Mind if I Sit Here? What's going to happen to the Minnesota and Illinois Senate seats? By Nina Shen Rastogi The first session of the 111th Congress will convene in Washington on Tuesday. Several dozen freshman senators will be seated in tomorrow's swearing-in ceremony, but seats in two states???Minnesota and Illinois???remain contested. (Three more senators???Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, and Ken Salazar???will soon leave their positions for the Obama administration.) What's going to happen with the empty seats? Either they could go unfilled or the Senate might choose to seat someone while reserving the right to boot him out later. At tomorrow's session, the chair of the Senate???i.e., Vice President Cheney???will formally present the credentials for all those seeking to be seated as freshman senators. These take the form of a paper document, asserting either the candidate's election or his appointment, signed by the state's governor and countersigned by its secretary of sta... Uh ??? Mind if I Sit Here? What's going to happen to the Minnesota and Illinois Senate seats? By Nina Shen Rastogi The first session of the 111th Congress will convene in Washington on Tuesday. Several dozen freshman senators will be seated in tomorrow's swearing-in ceremony, but seats in two states???Minnesota and Illinois???remain contested. (Three more senators???Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, and Ken Salazar???will soon leave their positions for the Obama administration.) What's going to happen with the empty seats? Either they could go unfilled or the Senate might choose to seat someone while reserving the right to boot him out later. At tomorrow's session, the chair of the Senate???i.e., Vice President Cheney???will formally present the credentials for all those seeking to be seated as freshman senators. These take the form of a paper document, asserting either the candidate's election or his appointment, signed by the state's governor and countersigned by its secretary of state. Typically, the credentials are collectively accepted without being read aloud; at that point, the senators-elect are administered the oath of office in alphabetical order, in batches of four. Earlier today, the Senate parliamentarian declared that Roland Burris of Illinois???who was appointed by scandal-tainted Gov. Rod Blagojevich???lacks the proper credentials, since the Illinois secretary of state has refused to countersign his certificate of appointment. Al Franken, the Democratic candidate from Minnesota, has just been certified the winner in a hotly contested, very close recount by the state's Canvassing Board, but Minnesota law requires a waiting time of seven days before the governor and the secretary of state can sign his certificate. (That gives opponent Norm Coleman an opportunity to file a petition in the state court appealing the election results.) So Franken, too, lacks the proper paperwork. For either candidate to be seated tomorrow???which now seems unlikely???another senator must propose a resolution calling for his credentials to be considered despite the fact that they're irregular. That would happen after all the other senators-elect had taken their oaths and would pass only with the support of a majority of all "present and voting senators." A resolution on Minnesota might call for the Senate rules committee to investigate the legality of the recount. In the interim, the senators may leave the seat unfilled, but they could also choose to seat Franken "without prejudice"???meaning that, if the committee eventually finds he wasn't the proper victor, Franken can't complain if he's removed from office. The same goes for Burris, should the Senate resolve to consider his credentials in the absence of a properly signed certificate. In the event that a Senate seat remains vacant, business proceeds as usual. According to Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution, the Senate requires the presence of a quorum, or a majority of its sworn, living membership, in order to conduct its business. So if both the Minnesota and Illinois seats go unfilled tomorrow, it would take just 49 members to reach a quorum. Several pieces of key American legislation have passed with a skeleton Senate. The 13th Amendment, for example, which formally abolished slavery, made its way through Congress during the tail end of the Civil War, when both the Senate and the House were refusing to seat members from rebel states. That meant there were 52 active senators, with 20 vacant Southern seats, when the amendment passed in January 1865. (The final vote was 38-6.) Before the 1913 passage of the 17th Amendment, which established voters' rights to directly elect their senators, senators were elected by state legislatures. This sometimes led to hopeless deadlocks, during which times the seats in question remained unfilled. In the most extreme case, Delaware went without a senator for four years, beginning in 1899. Uh ??? Mind if I Sit Here? What's going to happen to the Minnesota and Illinois Senate seats? By Nina Shen Rastogi The first session of the 111th Congress will convene in Washington on Tuesday. Several dozen freshman senators will be seated in tomorrow's swearing-in ceremony, but seats in two states???Minnesota and Illinois???remain contested. (Three more senators???Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, and Ken Salazar???will soon leave their positions for the Obama administration.) What's going to happen with the empty seats? Either they could go unfilled or the Senate might choose to seat someone while reserving the right to boot him out later. At tomorrow's session, the chair of the Senate???i.e., Vice President Cheney???will formally present the credentials for all those seeking to be seated as freshman senators. These take the form of a paper document, asserting either the candidate's election or his appointment, signed by the state's governor and countersigned by its secretary of state. Typically, the credentials are collectively accepted without being read aloud; at that point, the senators-elect are administered the oath of office in alphabetical order, in batches of four. Earlier today, the Senate parliamentarian declared that Roland Burris of Illinois???who was appointed by scandal-tainted Gov. Rod Blagojevich???lacks the proper credentials, since the Illinois secretary of state has refused to countersign his certificate of appointment. Al Franken, the Democratic candidate from Minnesota, has just been certified the winner in a hotly contested, very close recount by the state's Canvassing Board, but Minnesota law requires a waiting time of seven days before the governor and the secretary of state can sign his certificate. (That gives opponent Norm Coleman an opportunity to file a petition in the state court appealing the election results.) So Franken, too, lacks the proper paperwork. For either candidate to be seated tomorrow???which now seems unlikely???another senator must propose a resolution calling for his credentials to be considered despite the fact that they're irregular. That would happen after all the other senators-elect had taken their oaths and would pass only with the support of a majority of all "present and voting senators." A resolution on Minnesota might call for the Senate rules committee to investigate the legality of the recount. In the interim, the senators may leave the seat unfilled, but they could also choose to seat Franken "without prejudice"???meaning that, if the committee eventually finds he wasn't the proper victor, Franken can't complain if he's removed from office. The same goes for Burris, should the Senate resolve to consider his credentials in the absence of a properly signed certificate. In the event that a Senate seat remains vacant, business proceeds as usual. According to Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution, the Senate requires the presence of a quorum, or a majority of its sworn, living membership, in order to conduct its business. So if both the Minnesota and Illinois seats go unfilled tomorrow, it would take just 49 members to reach a quorum. Several pieces of key American legislation have passed with a skeleton Senate. The 13th Amendment, for example, which formally abolished slavery, made its way through Congress during the tail end of the Civil War, when both the Senate and the House were refusing to seat members from rebel states. That meant there were 52 active senators, with 20 vacant Southern seats, when the amendment passed in January 1865. (The final vote was 38-6.) Before the 1913 passage of the 17th Amendment, which established voters' rights to directly elect their senators, senators were elected by state legislatures. This sometimes led to hopeless deadlocks, during which times the seats in question remained unfilled. In the most extreme case, Delaware went without a senator for four years, beginning in 1899. tag:odeo.com,2009-01-06,24288639 Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:16:08 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23841003-Explainer-Uh-%E2%80%A6-Mind-if-I-Sit-Here Uh … Mind if I Sit Here? What's going to happen to the Minnesota and Illinois Senate seats? By Nina Shen Rastogi The first session of the 111th Congress will convene in Washington on Tuesday. Several dozen freshman senators will be seated in tomorrow's swearing-in ceremony, but seats in two states—Minnesota and Illinois—remain contested. (Three more senators—Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, and Ken Salazar—will soon leave their positions for the Obama administration.) What's going to happen with the empty seats? Either they could go unfilled or the Senate might choose to seat someone while reserving the right to boot him out later. At tomorrow's session, the chair of the Senate—i.e., Vice President Cheney—will formally present the credentials for all those seeking to be seated as freshman senators. These take the form of a paper document, asserting either the candidate's election or his appointment, signed by the state's governor and countersigned by its secretary of state. Typically,... Uh … Mind if I Sit Here? What's going to happen to the Minnesota and Illinois Senate seats? By Nina Shen Rastogi The first session of the 111th Congress will convene in Washington on Tuesday. Several dozen freshman senators will be seated in tomorrow's swearing-in ceremony, but seats in two states—Minnesota and Illinois—remain contested. (Three more senators—Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, and Ken Salazar—will soon leave their positions for the Obama administration.) What's going to happen with the empty seats? Either they could go unfilled or the Senate might choose to seat someone while reserving the right to boot him out later. At tomorrow's session, the chair of the Senate—i.e., Vice President Cheney—will formally present the credentials for all those seeking to be seated as freshman senators. These take the form of a paper document, asserting either the candidate's election or his appointment, signed by the state's governor and countersigned by its secretary of state. Typically, the credentials are collectively accepted without being read aloud; at that point, the senators-elect are administered the oath of office in alphabetical order, in batches of four. Earlier today, the Senate parliamentarian declared that Roland Burris of Illinois—who was appointed by scandal-tainted Gov. Rod Blagojevich—lacks the proper credentials, since the Illinois secretary of state has refused to countersign his certificate of appointment. Al Franken, the Democratic candidate from Minnesota, has just been certified the winner in a hotly contested, very close recount by the state's Canvassing Board, but Minnesota law requires a waiting time of seven days before the governor and the secretary of state can sign his certificate. (That gives opponent Norm Coleman an opportunity to file a petition in the state court appealing the election results.) So Franken, too, lacks the proper paperwork. For either candidate to be seated tomorrow—which now seems unlikely—another senator must propose a resolution calling for his credentials to be considered despite the fact that they're irregular. That would happen after all the other senators-elect had taken their oaths and would pass only with the support of a majority of all "present and voting senators." A resolution on Minnesota might call for the Senate rules committee to investigate the legality of the recount. In the interim, the senators may leave the seat unfilled, but they could also choose to seat Franken "without prejudice"—meaning that, if the committee eventually finds he wasn't the proper victor, Franken can't complain if he's removed from office. The same goes for Burris, should the Senate resolve to consider his credentials in the absence of a properly signed certificate. In the event that a Senate seat remains vacant, business proceeds as usual. According to Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution, the Senate requires the presence of a quorum, or a majority of its sworn, living membership, in order to conduct its business. So if both the Minnesota and Illinois seats go unfilled tomorrow, it would take just 49 members to reach a quorum. Several pieces of key American legislation have passed with a skeleton Senate. The 13th Amendment, for example, which formally abolished slavery, made its way through Congress during the tail end of the Civil War, when both the Senate and the House were refusing to seat members from rebel states. That meant there were 52 active senators, with 20 vacant Southern seats, when the amendment passed in January 1865. (The final vote was 38-6.) Before the 1913 passage of the 17th Amendment, which established voters' rights to directly elect their senators, senators were elected by state legislatures. This sometimes led to hopeless deadlocks, during which times the seats in question remained unfilled. In the most extreme case, Delaware went without a senator for four years, beginning in 1899. Uh … Mind if I Sit Here? What's going to happen to the Minnesota and Illinois Senate seats? By Nina Shen Rastogi The first session of the 111th Congress will convene in Washington on Tuesday. Several dozen freshman senators will be seated in tomorrow's swearing-in ceremony, but seats in two states—Minnesota and Illinois—remain contested. (Three more senators—Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, and Ken Salazar—will soon leave their positions for the Obama administration.) What's going to happen with the empty seats? Either they could go unfilled or the Senate might choose to seat someone while reserving the right to boot him out later. At tomorrow's session, the chair of the Senate—i.e., Vice President Cheney—will formally present the credentials for all those seeking to be seated as freshman senators. These take the form of a paper document, asserting either the candidate's election or his appointment, signed by the state's governor and countersigned by its secretary of state. Typically, the credentials are collectively accepted without being read aloud; at that point, the senators-elect are administered the oath of office in alphabetical order, in batches of four. Earlier today, the Senate parliamentarian declared that Roland Burris of Illinois—who was appointed by scandal-tainted Gov. Rod Blagojevich—lacks the proper credentials, since the Illinois secretary of state has refused to countersign his certificate of appointment. Al Franken, the Democratic candidate from Minnesota, has just been certified the winner in a hotly contested, very close recount by the state's Canvassing Board, but Minnesota law requires a waiting time of seven days before the governor and the secretary of state can sign his certificate. (That gives opponent Norm Coleman an opportunity to file a petition in the state court appealing the election results.) So Franken, too, lacks the proper paperwork. For either candidate to be seated tomorrow—which now seems unlikely—another senator must propose a resolution calling for his credentials to be considered despite the fact that they're irregular. That would happen after all the other senators-elect had taken their oaths and would pass only with the support of a majority of all "present and voting senators." A resolution on Minnesota might call for the Senate rules committee to investigate the legality of the recount. In the interim, the senators may leave the seat unfilled, but they could also choose to seat Franken "without prejudice"—meaning that, if the committee eventually finds he wasn't the proper victor, Franken can't complain if he's removed from office. The same goes for Burris, should the Senate resolve to consider his credentials in the absence of a properly signed certificate. In the event that a Senate seat remains vacant, business proceeds as usual. According to Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution, the Senate requires the presence of a quorum, or a majority of its sworn, living membership, in order to conduct its business. So if both the Minnesota and Illinois seats go unfilled tomorrow, it would take just 49 members to reach a quorum. Several pieces of key American legislation have passed with a skeleton Senate. The 13th Amendment, for example, which formally abolished slavery, made its way through Congress during the tail end of the Civil War, when both the Senate and the House were refusing to seat members from rebel states. That meant there were 52 active senators, with 20 vacant Southern seats, when the amendment passed in January 1865. (The final vote was 38-6.) Before the 1913 passage of the 17th Amendment, which established voters' rights to directly elect their senators, senators were elected by state legislatures. This sometimes led to hopeless deadlocks, during which times the seats in question remained unfilled. In the most extreme case, Delaware went without a senator for four years, beginning in 1899. tag:odeo.com,2009-01-06,23841003 Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:16:08 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23822589-Explainer-What-Do-Timekeepers-Do What Do Timekeepers Do? Listen to radio waves; drink café au lait. By Brian Palmer On New Year's Eve at 6:59:59 p.m. ET, an "international consortium of timekeepers" will add one second to the world's clock. How do you get to be an official timekeeper? Earn a Ph.D. in astronomy and move to France. Tweaks to the official clock are announced by the Earth Orientation Center, a Paris-based subunit of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service. The IERS was established in 1987 by two professional associations comprising thousands of astronomers and geodesists (people who measure the Earth and its movements) around the world. It has no dedicated staff or payroll, and it exists merely as a group of government agencies, universities, and foundations that have agreed to share data on the position of celestial bodies and ensure that our clocks are consistent with the Earth's rotation. Duties are divided among the member institutions: As the parent institution of the EOC, t... What Do Timekeepers Do? Listen to radio waves; drink café au lait. By Brian Palmer On New Year's Eve at 6:59:59 p.m. ET, an "international consortium of timekeepers" will add one second to the world's clock. How do you get to be an official timekeeper? Earn a Ph.D. in astronomy and move to France. Tweaks to the official clock are announced by the Earth Orientation Center, a Paris-based subunit of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service. The IERS was established in 1987 by two professional associations comprising thousands of astronomers and geodesists (people who measure the Earth and its movements) around the world. It has no dedicated staff or payroll, and it exists merely as a group of government agencies, universities, and foundations that have agreed to share data on the position of celestial bodies and ensure that our clocks are consistent with the Earth's rotation. Duties are divided among the member institutions: As the parent institution of the EOC, the Paris Observatory is responsible for deciding when to adjust the world's clocks. The task of data collection is shared among other facilities around the world. So if you wanted official control over adding a leap second, you would have to convince the Paris Observatory board of directors to make you the director of the EOC. Even then, you'd have little discretion in the matter—the decision to push the second hand is automatically triggered when the world's clocks fall behind the Earth's actual rotational speed by more than 0.9 seconds. (All the director does is send out the official memo.) If you're interested in the day-to-day work of monitoring the Earth's rotation, you'd do better to seek employment at the U.S. Naval Observatory or other IERS member institutions where the data is actually collected. If you had the right credentials—e.g., a degree in astronomy or geodesy, with a focus on the behavior and orientation of the Earth—you might get hired for the job. Timekeepers calculate precise and universal clock values with an array of radio telescopes located in Hawaii, South Africa, Brazil, Australia, and other locations, and focused on distant galaxies, called objects. Every day, astronomers at each telescope fill a series of hard drives with exact data on the radio signal from those quasars and ship them via common carrier to the other IERS institutions. Each institution compares the signals recorded at all the telescope sites and uses the differences to compute the speed of the Earth's rotation. Their calculations normally agree to within a few microseconds. The system requires the close cooperation of scientists around the globe. Astronomers formed the first transnational society to observe polar motion in 1895, called the International Latitude Service. In 1919, the International Time Bureau was established in Paris and became responsible for adjusting a universal clock. (Until then, those decisions were left up to individual countries.) The bureau retained this authority until it was replaced by the IERS in the 1980s. What Do Timekeepers Do? Listen to radio waves; drink café au lait. By Brian Palmer On New Year's Eve at 6:59:59 p.m. ET, an "international consortium of timekeepers" will add one second to the world's clock. How do you get to be an official timekeeper? Earn a Ph.D. in astronomy and move to France. Tweaks to the official clock are announced by the Earth Orientation Center, a Paris-based subunit of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service. The IERS was established in 1987 by two professional associations comprising thousands of astronomers and geodesists (people who measure the Earth and its movements) around the world. It has no dedicated staff or payroll, and it exists merely as a group of government agencies, universities, and foundations that have agreed to share data on the position of celestial bodies and ensure that our clocks are consistent with the Earth's rotation. Duties are divided among the member institutions: As the parent institution of the EOC, the Paris Observatory is responsible for deciding when to adjust the world's clocks. The task of data collection is shared among other facilities around the world. So if you wanted official control over adding a leap second, you would have to convince the Paris Observatory board of directors to make you the director of the EOC. Even then, you'd have little discretion in the matter—the decision to push the second hand is automatically triggered when the world's clocks fall behind the Earth's actual rotational speed by more than 0.9 seconds. (All the director does is send out the official memo.) If you're interested in the day-to-day work of monitoring the Earth's rotation, you'd do better to seek employment at the U.S. Naval Observatory or other IERS member institutions where the data is actually collected. If you had the right credentials—e.g., a degree in astronomy or geodesy, with a focus on the behavior and orientation of the Earth—you might get hired for the job. Timekeepers calculate precise and universal clock values with an array of radio telescopes located in Hawaii, South Africa, Brazil, Australia, and other locations, and focused on distant galaxies, called objects. Every day, astronomers at each telescope fill a series of hard drives with exact data on the radio signal from those quasars and ship them via common carrier to the other IERS institutions. Each institution compares the signals recorded at all the telescope sites and uses the differences to compute the speed of the Earth's rotation. Their calculations normally agree to within a few microseconds. The system requires the close cooperation of scientists around the globe. Astronomers formed the first transnational society to observe polar motion in 1895, called the International Latitude Service. In 1919, the International Time Bureau was established in Paris and became responsible for adjusting a universal clock. (Until then, those decisions were left up to individual countries.) The bureau retained this authority until it was replaced by the IERS in the 1980s. tag:odeo.com,2009-01-02,23822589 Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:06:35 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23822590-Explainer-How-Many-Civilians-Are-Dead-in-Gaza How Many Civilians Are Dead in Gaza? Figuring out who's who among the casualties. By Juliet Lapidos Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip for the fourth day straight on Tuesday. Gaza officials said that, as of Monday, 364 Palestinians have been killed, and the United Nations noted that at least 62 were civilians. How did the U.N. determine which of the victims were combatants? Gender and age. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency came up with the figure by sending emissaries to visit hospitals and other medical facilities. Under the Geneva Conventions and subsequent international law treaties, civilians are those who do not belong to the armed forces, militias, or organized resistance movements. But in Gaza City, UNRWA counted only female victims and those under the age of 18. North of the city, the agency attempted to get a more complete count by including adult men who were not wearing dark-blue police uniforms and whom community members identified as noncom... How Many Civilians Are Dead in Gaza? Figuring out who's who among the casualties. By Juliet Lapidos Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip for the fourth day straight on Tuesday. Gaza officials said that, as of Monday, 364 Palestinians have been killed, and the United Nations noted that at least 62 were civilians. How did the U.N. determine which of the victims were combatants? Gender and age. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency came up with the figure by sending emissaries to visit hospitals and other medical facilities. Under the Geneva Conventions and subsequent international law treaties, civilians are those who do not belong to the armed forces, militias, or organized resistance movements. But in Gaza City, UNRWA counted only female victims and those under the age of 18. North of the city, the agency attempted to get a more complete count by including adult men who were not wearing dark-blue police uniforms and whom community members identified as noncombatants. At a Monday press conference, an U.N. staffer clarified that the count was only meant to give a credible minimum figure rather than a hard total. Nor did the agency intend to suggest that all men killed in Gaza City were combatants. Making clear distinctions between civilians and militants is difficult since Hamas (which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Israel, and other countries) engages in civic activities (like running schools) as well as military operations. Likewise, it's possible that some of the female victims and older children were Hamas combatants. As a rule, the U.N. does not tally civilian casualties, relying instead on local governments for information. The agency made an exception in Gaza due in part to persistent questions from journalists who wanted to gauge the impact of the Israeli offensive on ordinary Palestinians. How Many Civilians Are Dead in Gaza? Figuring out who's who among the casualties. By Juliet Lapidos Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip for the fourth day straight on Tuesday. Gaza officials said that, as of Monday, 364 Palestinians have been killed, and the United Nations noted that at least 62 were civilians. How did the U.N. determine which of the victims were combatants? Gender and age. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency came up with the figure by sending emissaries to visit hospitals and other medical facilities. Under the Geneva Conventions and subsequent international law treaties, civilians are those who do not belong to the armed forces, militias, or organized resistance movements. But in Gaza City, UNRWA counted only female victims and those under the age of 18. North of the city, the agency attempted to get a more complete count by including adult men who were not wearing dark-blue police uniforms and whom community members identified as noncombatants. At a Monday press conference, an U.N. staffer clarified that the count was only meant to give a credible minimum figure rather than a hard total. Nor did the agency intend to suggest that all men killed in Gaza City were combatants. Making clear distinctions between civilians and militants is difficult since Hamas (which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Israel, and other countries) engages in civic activities (like running schools) as well as military operations. Likewise, it's possible that some of the female victims and older children were Hamas combatants. As a rule, the U.N. does not tally civilian casualties, relying instead on local governments for information. The agency made an exception in Gaza due in part to persistent questions from journalists who wanted to gauge the impact of the Israeli offensive on ordinary Palestinians. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-31,23822590 Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:38:39 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23822591-Explainer-Stuck-on-Santa Stuck on Santa What should you do if your costume fuses with your skin? By Nina Shen Rastogi A disgruntled divorcee wearing a Santa Claus costume killed nine people last week when he arrived at his former in-laws' house and began shooting a semiautomatic handgun. The attacker set a fire before fleeing the scene but was burned badly in the blaze. The police found his body after he committed suicide and discovered that part of his costume had "literally melted to his body." What should you do if your Santa suit fuses to you in a fire? Don't try to pull it off. It's possible for synthetic fabrics to fuse with burned human skin during a fire, especially when the blaze is intense enough to cause second- or third-degree burns. But the word fuse can be misleading: Your skin won't actually liquefy along with your clothing. (Flesh cooks under extreme heat; it doesn't melt.) Instead, a fabric can melt onto you like hot candle wax—when it cools off, it will be stuck to your skin. While you can... Stuck on Santa What should you do if your costume fuses with your skin? By Nina Shen Rastogi A disgruntled divorcee wearing a Santa Claus costume killed nine people last week when he arrived at his former in-laws' house and began shooting a semiautomatic handgun. The attacker set a fire before fleeing the scene but was burned badly in the blaze. The police found his body after he committed suicide and discovered that part of his costume had "literally melted to his body." What should you do if your Santa suit fuses to you in a fire? Don't try to pull it off. It's possible for synthetic fabrics to fuse with burned human skin during a fire, especially when the blaze is intense enough to cause second- or third-degree burns. But the word fuse can be misleading: Your skin won't actually liquefy along with your clothing. (Flesh cooks under extreme heat; it doesn't melt.) Instead, a fabric can melt onto you like hot candle wax—when it cools off, it will be stuck to your skin. While you can safely peel off melted wax, it can be dangerous to rip off a fused piece of red-and-white polyester; if you're not careful, some healthy tissue will come off with the fabric and burned skin, and you'll leave the area vulnerable to infection or nerve damage. Instead, just run the burn under cool tap water to make sure it doesn't get any worse, and then head to the emergency room. There, doctors may be able to remove your burned epidermis and adhered clothing by sloughing it off with a clean towel. A disposable Santa costume is one of the worst disguises you could wear if you're plotting an act of arson. Not only does baggy, ill-fitting clothing increase your risk of catching fire, but bargain costumes—like the economy option at MySantaSuit.com—are often made with polyester. Like many synthetic fibers, polyester takes longer to catch fire than cotton or linen, but when it does ignite, it melts. When the gluey substance reforms, it can stick to your epidermis. Melting fabric can be extremely dangerous, because it can cause scalding burns above and beyond direct fire damage. For that reason, the Marine Corps has banned some polyester- and nylon-based athletic wear in Iraq, where soldiers are in constant danger of fire exposure due to roadside bombs. (Pure cotton, on the other hand, quickly turns to ash, which crumbles and blows away from the body.) Stuck on Santa What should you do if your costume fuses with your skin? By Nina Shen Rastogi A disgruntled divorcee wearing a Santa Claus costume killed nine people last week when he arrived at his former in-laws' house and began shooting a semiautomatic handgun. The attacker set a fire before fleeing the scene but was burned badly in the blaze. The police found his body after he committed suicide and discovered that part of his costume had "literally melted to his body." What should you do if your Santa suit fuses to you in a fire? Don't try to pull it off. It's possible for synthetic fabrics to fuse with burned human skin during a fire, especially when the blaze is intense enough to cause second- or third-degree burns. But the word fuse can be misleading: Your skin won't actually liquefy along with your clothing. (Flesh cooks under extreme heat; it doesn't melt.) Instead, a fabric can melt onto you like hot candle wax—when it cools off, it will be stuck to your skin. While you can safely peel off melted wax, it can be dangerous to rip off a fused piece of red-and-white polyester; if you're not careful, some healthy tissue will come off with the fabric and burned skin, and you'll leave the area vulnerable to infection or nerve damage. Instead, just run the burn under cool tap water to make sure it doesn't get any worse, and then head to the emergency room. There, doctors may be able to remove your burned epidermis and adhered clothing by sloughing it off with a clean towel. A disposable Santa costume is one of the worst disguises you could wear if you're plotting an act of arson. Not only does baggy, ill-fitting clothing increase your risk of catching fire, but bargain costumes—like the economy option at MySantaSuit.com—are often made with polyester. Like many synthetic fibers, polyester takes longer to catch fire than cotton or linen, but when it does ignite, it melts. When the gluey substance reforms, it can stick to your epidermis. Melting fabric can be extremely dangerous, because it can cause scalding burns above and beyond direct fire damage. For that reason, the Marine Corps has banned some polyester- and nylon-based athletic wear in Iraq, where soldiers are in constant danger of fire exposure due to roadside bombs. (Pure cotton, on the other hand, quickly turns to ash, which crumbles and blows away from the body.) tag:odeo.com,2008-12-30,23822591 Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:34:45 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23822595-Explainer-Happy-Birthday-Dear-Yeshua-Happy-Birthday-to-You Happy Birthday, Dear Yeshua, Happy Birthday to You! Was Jesus a common name at the beginning of the first century? By Brian Palmer On Thursday, Christians will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Was the Christian Messiah the first to have that name, or were there a lot of Jesuses running around back then? Many people shared the name. Christ's given name, commonly Romanized as Yeshua, was quite common in first-century Galilee. (Jesus comes from the transliteration of Yeshua into Greek and then English.) Archaeologists have unearthed the tombs of 71 Yeshuas from the period of Jesus' death. The name also appears 30 times in the Old Testament in reference to four separate characters—including a descendent of Aaron who helped to distribute offerings of grain (2 Chronicles 31:15) and a man who accompanied former captives of Nebuchadnezzar back to Jerusalem (Ezra 2:2). The long version of the name, Yehoshua, appears another few hundred times, referring most notably to the legendary conqu... Happy Birthday, Dear Yeshua, Happy Birthday to You! Was Jesus a common name at the beginning of the first century? By Brian Palmer On Thursday, Christians will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Was the Christian Messiah the first to have that name, or were there a lot of Jesuses running around back then? Many people shared the name. Christ's given name, commonly Romanized as Yeshua, was quite common in first-century Galilee. (Jesus comes from the transliteration of Yeshua into Greek and then English.) Archaeologists have unearthed the tombs of 71 Yeshuas from the period of Jesus' death. The name also appears 30 times in the Old Testament in reference to four separate characters—including a descendent of Aaron who helped to distribute offerings of grain (2 Chronicles 31:15) and a man who accompanied former captives of Nebuchadnezzar back to Jerusalem (Ezra 2:2). The long version of the name, Yehoshua, appears another few hundred times, referring most notably to the legendary conqueror of Jericho (and the second most famous bearer of the name). So why do we call the Hebrew hero of Jericho Joshua and the Christian Messiah Jesus? Because the New Testament was originally written in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic. Greeks did not use the sound sh, so the evangelists substituted an S sound. Then, to make it a masculine name, they added another S sound at the end. The earliest written version of the name Jesus is Romanized today as Iesous. (Thus the crucifix inscription INRI: "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum," or "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.") The initial J didn't come until much later. That sound was foreign to Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Not even English distinguished J from I until the mid-17th century. Thus, the 1611 King James Bible refers to Jesus as "Iesus" and his father as "Ioseph." The current spelling likely came from Switzerland, where J sounds more like the English Y. When English Protestants fled to Switzerland during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I, they drafted the Geneva Bible and used the Swiss spelling. Translators in England adopted the Geneva spelling by 1769. In contrast, the Old Testament was translated directly from the original Hebrew into English, rather than via Greek. So anyone named Yehoshua or Yeshua in the Old Testament became Joshua in English. Meanwhile, the holy book of the Syrian Orthodox church, known as the Syriac Bible, is written in Aramaic. While its Gospels were translated from the original Greek, the early scribes recognized that Iesous was a corruption of the original Aramaic. Thus, the Syriac text refers to Yeshua. Bonus Explainer: What was Jesus' last name? It wasn't Christ. Contemporaries would have called him Yeshua Bar Yehosef or Yeshua Nasraya. (That's "Jesus, son of Joseph" or "Jesus of Nazareth.") Galileans distinguished themselves from others with the same first name by adding either "son of" and their father's name, or their birthplace. People who knew Jesus would not have called him Christ, which is the translation of a Greek word meaning "anointed one." Happy Birthday, Dear Yeshua, Happy Birthday to You! Was Jesus a common name at the beginning of the first century? By Brian Palmer On Thursday, Christians will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Was the Christian Messiah the first to have that name, or were there a lot of Jesuses running around back then? Many people shared the name. Christ's given name, commonly Romanized as Yeshua, was quite common in first-century Galilee. (Jesus comes from the transliteration of Yeshua into Greek and then English.) Archaeologists have unearthed the tombs of 71 Yeshuas from the period of Jesus' death. The name also appears 30 times in the Old Testament in reference to four separate characters—including a descendent of Aaron who helped to distribute offerings of grain (2 Chronicles 31:15) and a man who accompanied former captives of Nebuchadnezzar back to Jerusalem (Ezra 2:2). The long version of the name, Yehoshua, appears another few hundred times, referring most notably to the legendary conqueror of Jericho (and the second most famous bearer of the name). So why do we call the Hebrew hero of Jericho Joshua and the Christian Messiah Jesus? Because the New Testament was originally written in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic. Greeks did not use the sound sh, so the evangelists substituted an S sound. Then, to make it a masculine name, they added another S sound at the end. The earliest written version of the name Jesus is Romanized today as Iesous. (Thus the crucifix inscription INRI: "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum," or "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.") The initial J didn't come until much later. That sound was foreign to Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Not even English distinguished J from I until the mid-17th century. Thus, the 1611 King James Bible refers to Jesus as "Iesus" and his father as "Ioseph." The current spelling likely came from Switzerland, where J sounds more like the English Y. When English Protestants fled to Switzerland during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I, they drafted the Geneva Bible and used the Swiss spelling. Translators in England adopted the Geneva spelling by 1769. In contrast, the Old Testament was translated directly from the original Hebrew into English, rather than via Greek. So anyone named Yehoshua or Yeshua in the Old Testament became Joshua in English. Meanwhile, the holy book of the Syrian Orthodox church, known as the Syriac Bible, is written in Aramaic. While its Gospels were translated from the original Greek, the early scribes recognized that Iesous was a corruption of the original Aramaic. Thus, the Syriac text refers to Yeshua. Bonus Explainer: What was Jesus' last name? It wasn't Christ. Contemporaries would have called him Yeshua Bar Yehosef or Yeshua Nasraya. (That's "Jesus, son of Joseph" or "Jesus of Nazareth.") Galileans distinguished themselves from others with the same first name by adding either "son of" and their father's name, or their birthplace. People who knew Jesus would not have called him Christ, which is the translation of a Greek word meaning "anointed one." tag:odeo.com,2008-12-29,23822595 Mon, 29 Dec 2008 06:39:28 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23793762-Explainer-Explainer-s-Christmas-Roundup Explainer's Christmas Roundup Your Christmas-related questions, with answers from our archives. By Sophie Gilbert It's the most wonderful time of the year for some, the most confusing for others. With the holidays fast approaching, Explainer recaps your seasonal questions. Before the kids ask—is it really possible for a virgin to give birth? Yes, in theory. However, a number of rare events would have to occur in close succession, and the chances of these all happening naturally are virtually zero. For a human virgin to get pregnant, one of her eggs would have to produce, on its own, the biochemical changes indicative of fertilization and then divide abnormally to compensate for the lack of sperm DNA. That's the easy part: These two events occur in the eggs or egg precursor cells of one out of every few thousand women. But the egg would also need to be carrying at least two specific genetic deletions to produce a viable offspring. (For more on real virgin births, read this Explainer ... Explainer's Christmas Roundup Your Christmas-related questions, with answers from our archives. By Sophie Gilbert It's the most wonderful time of the year for some, the most confusing for others. With the holidays fast approaching, Explainer recaps your seasonal questions. Before the kids ask—is it really possible for a virgin to give birth? Yes, in theory. However, a number of rare events would have to occur in close succession, and the chances of these all happening naturally are virtually zero. For a human virgin to get pregnant, one of her eggs would have to produce, on its own, the biochemical changes indicative of fertilization and then divide abnormally to compensate for the lack of sperm DNA. That's the easy part: These two events occur in the eggs or egg precursor cells of one out of every few thousand women. But the egg would also need to be carrying at least two specific genetic deletions to produce a viable offspring. (For more on real virgin births, read this Explainer from 2007.) I'm getting my shopping list ready for Christmas dinner. How did we end up with the tradition of eating turkey at Christmas and Thanksgiving? They were fresh, affordable, and big enough to feed a crowd. Americans have long preferred large poultry for celebrations because the birds could be slaughtered without a huge economic sacrifice. Cows were more useful alive than dead, and commercial beef wasn't widely available until the late 19th century. Chicken was more highly regarded than it is today, but rooster meat was tough, and hens were valuable as long as they laid eggs. Venison would have been another option, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, though it would have required you to hunt for your Thanksgiving meal. There was plenty of ham or brined pork around, but it wasn't considered fit for special occasions. Eating turkey was also in keeping with British holiday customs that had been imported to the New World. (For more on turkey during the holidays, read this Explainer from 2007.) I'm considering making a little extra cash over the holidays. How do you become Santa Claus for the festive season? Sign up with a Santa distributor. While would-be Santas can apply to smaller shopping centers directly, national staffing services farm out talent to the larger malls. Noerr Programs Corp. serves as the North Pole's version of Central Casting: It supplies St. Nicks to 169 major malls across the country. At Noerr, aspiring Santas are carefully interrogated about their willingness to travel, experience with kids, and, if applicable, their own memorable moments playing Santa. One key question: What does Christmas mean to you? Preferred answer: It's all about the children. Santas can be of any ethnicity—certain malls prefer African-American or bilingual Santas—but they must be male, in keeping with tradition. Having a natural beard is also a prerequisite. (For more on shopping-mall Santas, read this Explainer from 2006.) I never seem to know when Easter will be. How come Christmas is always on the same day? Because the church said so, in A.D. 325. The date of Easter is determined according to the lunar calendar, while the date of Christmas is fixed on the solar calendar. Before 325, there was no official celebration of the birth of Christ, and Easter was celebrated by some Christians on Passover (a lunar holiday) and by others the following Sunday. The rationale: Christ's Last Supper took place on or around Passover, he was crucified on a Friday, and the festival of Easter celebrates his resurrection two days later. In 325, church officials at the First Council of Nicaea formalized the date of Easter as the Sunday following the first full moon after March 21. At the same time, the council inaugurated Christmas by making Dec. 25 the Feast of the Nativity. Because Christmas was not directly related to a lunar holiday, and because it had never been celebrated before—the date of Christ's birth is not mentioned in the Bible—the council was able to establish an unambiguous date for the celebration. (For more on why Easter is flexible, read this Explainer from 2005.) I used to be able to watch It's a Wonderful Life almost every day throughout the Christmas season. What happened? U.S. copyright law determines who may distribute, display, or reproduce a film, book, or drawing. Works not covered by copyrights—including ones with copyrights that have expired and those that never secured this protection—are said to be in the "public domain." These works, like the near-ancient Sherlock Holmes stories and some of Charlie Chaplin's silent films, can be reproduced, broadcast, and sold freely. It's a Wonderful Life entered the public domain by accident when Republic Pictures, the original copyright owner and producer of Wonderful Life, neglected to renew the 1946 copyright in 1974. Stations programmed it heavily during the holidays, paying no royalties to its producers, and more than 100 distributors sold the movie on tape. Republic regained control of the lucrative property in 1993 by flexing a new Supreme Court ruling that determined that the holder of a copyright to a story from which a movie was made had certain property rights over the movie itself. Since Republic still owned the copyrighted story behind It's a Wonderful Life and had also purchased exclusive rights to the movie's copyrighted music, it was able to essentially yank the movie out of the public domain, meaning that it could no longer be shown without the studio's permission. (For more on holiday reruns, read this Explainer from 1999.) Explainer's Christmas Roundup Your Christmas-related questions, with answers from our archives. By Sophie Gilbert It's the most wonderful time of the year for some, the most confusing for others. With the holidays fast approaching, Explainer recaps your seasonal questions. Before the kids ask—is it really possible for a virgin to give birth? Yes, in theory. However, a number of rare events would have to occur in close succession, and the chances of these all happening naturally are virtually zero. For a human virgin to get pregnant, one of her eggs would have to produce, on its own, the biochemical changes indicative of fertilization and then divide abnormally to compensate for the lack of sperm DNA. That's the easy part: These two events occur in the eggs or egg precursor cells of one out of every few thousand women. But the egg would also need to be carrying at least two specific genetic deletions to produce a viable offspring. (For more on real virgin births, read this Explainer from 2007.) I'm getting my shopping list ready for Christmas dinner. How did we end up with the tradition of eating turkey at Christmas and Thanksgiving? They were fresh, affordable, and big enough to feed a crowd. Americans have long preferred large poultry for celebrations because the birds could be slaughtered without a huge economic sacrifice. Cows were more useful alive than dead, and commercial beef wasn't widely available until the late 19th century. Chicken was more highly regarded than it is today, but rooster meat was tough, and hens were valuable as long as they laid eggs. Venison would have been another option, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, though it would have required you to hunt for your Thanksgiving meal. There was plenty of ham or brined pork around, but it wasn't considered fit for special occasions. Eating turkey was also in keeping with British holiday customs that had been imported to the New World. (For more on turkey during the holidays, read this Explainer from 2007.) I'm considering making a little extra cash over the holidays. How do you become Santa Claus for the festive season? Sign up with a Santa distributor. While would-be Santas can apply to smaller shopping centers directly, national staffing services farm out talent to the larger malls. Noerr Programs Corp. serves as the North Pole's version of Central Casting: It supplies St. Nicks to 169 major malls across the country. At Noerr, aspiring Santas are carefully interrogated about their willingness to travel, experience with kids, and, if applicable, their own memorable moments playing Santa. One key question: What does Christmas mean to you? Preferred answer: It's all about the children. Santas can be of any ethnicity—certain malls prefer African-American or bilingual Santas—but they must be male, in keeping with tradition. Having a natural beard is also a prerequisite. (For more on shopping-mall Santas, read this Explainer from 2006.) I never seem to know when Easter will be. How come Christmas is always on the same day? Because the church said so, in A.D. 325. The date of Easter is determined according to the lunar calendar, while the date of Christmas is fixed on the solar calendar. Before 325, there was no official celebration of the birth of Christ, and Easter was celebrated by some Christians on Passover (a lunar holiday) and by others the following Sunday. The rationale: Christ's Last Supper took place on or around Passover, he was crucified on a Friday, and the festival of Easter celebrates his resurrection two days later. In 325, church officials at the First Council of Nicaea formalized the date of Easter as the Sunday following the first full moon after March 21. At the same time, the council inaugurated Christmas by making Dec. 25 the Feast of the Nativity. Because Christmas was not directly related to a lunar holiday, and because it had never been celebrated before—the date of Christ's birth is not mentioned in the Bible—the council was able to establish an unambiguous date for the celebration. (For more on why Easter is flexible, read this Explainer from 2005.) I used to be able to watch It's a Wonderful Life almost every day throughout the Christmas season. What happened? U.S. copyright law determines who may distribute, display, or reproduce a film, book, or drawing. Works not covered by copyrights—including ones with copyrights that have expired and those that never secured this protection—are said to be in the "public domain." These works, like the near-ancient Sherlock Holmes stories and some of Charlie Chaplin's silent films, can be reproduced, broadcast, and sold freely. It's a Wonderful Life entered the public domain by accident when Republic Pictures, the original copyright owner and producer of Wonderful Life, neglected to renew the 1946 copyright in 1974. Stations programmed it heavily during the holidays, paying no royalties to its producers, and more than 100 distributors sold the movie on tape. Republic regained control of the lucrative property in 1993 by flexing a new Supreme Court ruling that determined that the holder of a copyright to a story from which a movie was made had certain property rights over the movie itself. Since Republic still owned the copyrighted story behind It's a Wonderful Life and had also purchased exclusive rights to the movie's copyrighted music, it was able to essentially yank the movie out of the public domain, meaning that it could no longer be shown without the studio's permission. (For more on holiday reruns, read this Explainer from 1999.) tag:odeo.com,2008-12-22,23793762 Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:06:34 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23774201-Explainer-The-Questions-We-Never-Answered-in-2008 The Questions We Never Answered in 2008 Digging through the bottom of the Explainer mailbag. By Daniel Engber The Explainer has completed another year of valuable community service. Over the last 12 months, we've told you how to interrogate a small child and given instructions for turning a human skull into a sweet bong. Regular readers learned how to survive a 47-story fall and why you can't survive falling into a black hole. And we had the final word on whether terrorists really bump fists to say hello. But, for all that, the column managed to address just a tiny fraction of the 8,500 messages that arrived in our mailbox. Today, as part of our Explainer holiday tradition, we present an assortment of inquiries culled from the voluminous backlog. Below are the reader questions that Slate felt ill-equipped or unwilling to answer in 2008. Once again, we'd like you to let us know which of these unanswered questions is most deserving of an answer. The one that receives the most reader v... The Questions We Never Answered in 2008 Digging through the bottom of the Explainer mailbag. By Daniel Engber The Explainer has completed another year of valuable community service. Over the last 12 months, we've told you how to interrogate a small child and given instructions for turning a human skull into a sweet bong. Regular readers learned how to survive a 47-story fall and why you can't survive falling into a black hole. And we had the final word on whether terrorists really bump fists to say hello. But, for all that, the column managed to address just a tiny fraction of the 8,500 messages that arrived in our mailbox. Today, as part of our Explainer holiday tradition, we present an assortment of inquiries culled from the voluminous backlog. Below are the reader questions that Slate felt ill-equipped or unwilling to answer in 2008. Once again, we'd like you to let us know which of these unanswered questions is most deserving of an answer. The one that receives the most reader votes will be designated the Explainer Question of the Year for 2008 and will be addressed in an upcoming column. Click here to vote for the Explainer Question of the Year. The Explainer's Unanswered Questions From 2008 • What is the most disloyal dog breed? • Why does some music make you want to shake your butt? • Could you please explain why it is that squirrels are capable of such amazing athletic feats? What is it about their brains and, to a lesser degree, their bodies that allows it? I watch them at my house and have seen some amazing things. • Why do women like soup? Is it for perceived health benefits? Is it because it's a quasi-comfort food? • Is it just me, or do all national anthems the world over, no matter how rich and exotic the culture, seem to sound like European marching-band music? Wouldn't one expect China's national anthem be more "plinky"? Shouldn't Iraq's national anthem sound a little more "Arab-y"? • I am an 11-year-old boy and girls in my class harass me constantly and I want to file a restraining order against one of them. Is that possible? • It is a common baseball prank to give someone a cream pie in the face during a TV interview. Where do these cream pies come from? Do baseball teams keep cream pies in the dugout? • Why don't humans have a mating season? • When and why did the Communist Chinese change the name of their capital "PEKING" to Bazging? Sorry, I don't know how it is spelled. Thank you. • My toaster identifies which of the two slots should be used for making a single slice of toast. Why does it make a difference which slot I use? • If one gets a personal e-mail from a very famous or important person, such as the president, or the queen of England, or the Pope, or Paul McCartney, can that e-mail have monetary value? I guess not. It's just an electronic transmission on a screen. There's no original. There's no way to buy or sell it. Seems a shame tho. • Does indoor tanning hurt your tits if you have had a breast silicone implant put in for over 30 years? • Why do all of the deli guys and food cart guys call me "Boss" (well, me and everyone else)? • I live in Washington, D.C., and we have very long escalators coming out of the Metro. If I grabbed the handrail when I first step onto the escalator and did not let go until I was at the top, my body would be almost prostrate across the steps. As I go higher on the escalator, I have to readjust the hand that is grabbing the rubber handrail. Why can't the companies that make escalators sync the steps and the handrails so that they go the same speed? • If you were on a boat, what signs do sharks give if they are hungry and will attack versus if they just want to swim around the boat? • How did early man deal with growing toe and fingernails? • If someone with DNA from the Stone Age were born today, would they be normal? • I have been accused of assault in Ohio. The woman fell over a box in the hall backward, and my brother opened the door, saw her lying there, and started hitting me. I got him down and held him down. It was all over a fight concerning my niece. What do you think will happen? • I wonder what's going on with Obama's eyes. When he made his keynote address to the Democratic Convention in 2004, I noticed his eyes had a bit of a pretty eyes makeup look. I concluded that it was just the makeup they put on him for the TV cameras. But then yesterday on TV I saw some older footage of Obama and again his eyes had that same pretty look. This was before he was nationally known. I looked carefully and I think that look comes from having long eyelashes. I mentioned this to some other people and they noticed it too. But so then where did those long eyelashes go? Maybe eyelashes get shorter with age. Do they? BUT also I'm wondering if Obama has had his eyelashes shortened. If he has had them shortened, I think that's an excellent idea. Because that long lashes pretty eyes look actually doesn't look so good on a man. At least not if he's running for president. • During this weekend's football playoff game in Green Bay, the temperature at kickoff was 0 degrees, and by the end of the game was -4 degrees. When players get injured in such weather, do they bother putting ice on the injury? Wouldn't that warm up the injury to 32 degrees? • Burma's dictator has a chestful of bullshit medals. What's up with that, Explainer? • If there is so much oil in the Middle East, could one missile (such as the ones used to penetrate bunkers and caves) explode deep underground and hypothetically blow up a few countries? • How can personal coaches justify coaching athletes who are much better than they ever were? If they know so much about how to win, why aren't they competing? • Can men eat the Activia yogurt that is advertised exclusively to the modern woman in khakis? Will it have the same internal regulatory effects on the male system that are promised for the female bowels? If not, why not? • Can an average person not in politics get a pardon from the president of the United States? (Possession of forged instrument, October of 1989.) • Is the stomach normally full of air like a balloon, or is it squeezed flat by the other organs, like a balloon with no air that spreads open as food and water come in? Are the other organs squeezed and compressed like a squeezed sponge, or are they like a sponge not being squeezed? What about the intestines? Are they squeezed flat normally, or are they open like one of those long balloons that magicians make animals out of? I'm trying to get a picture in my mind what the inside of the body normally looks like. • Please explain the method of formation and origin of black holes. Are they located at the Bermuda Triangle area and why there? • Who made up the rule that if you wore a shirt all day, went home, and washed it, you can't wear it the next day? • I live in Chicago, where taxi drivers are constantly talking on their phones. To whom are they talking? • Why do cockroaches flip over on their backsides when they die? I sprayed RAID into a hole in my wall the other day, and by the next morning I found six cockroaches laid out on my floor, all flipped over and all very dead! • Why do the women gymnasts walk around between events with that goofy arm-swing gait? • I am 79 years old. I bring this up first to help explain my question. In the late 1930s or early 1940s, I was looking through an old stack of Life magazines, and there was a picture of an old couple sitting on the porch of a cabin (or shack) up in the mountains somewhere in Appalachia, with the notation: "The King and Queen of America?" The small article with the picture stated that if George Washington had become king of the U.S., these two would (under the usual custom) be our king and queen. I have thought of this from time to time, even doubted it. (It might have been part of the propaganda of the time, the Depression years, that we were all equal, etc.) I am dimly aware that George Washington had brothers, and that it is possible that the descent is known. As I remember, it was a lovely picture, the old couple looking out over a valley, with mist, and smoking their corncob pipes. Can you find the picture? Can you tell me whether there was truth in the assertion? • Why are pandas names doubled? Ling Ling, Tuan Tuan, Yuan Yuan. • Are the frequently used "jaws of life" really necessary or just big-boy toys for rescuers? • How long can humans live when they are caught on fire? For example, when a car crashes and explodes turns into a gulf of flames, but humans are alive. • Hi, I am Anna. I am only 11 years old! My friend told me about this black hole, and I have gotten really scared. I don't want to die! I thought if it didn't happen today, it wasn't going to happen. I did not know nothing about it happening in Spring! I find it unfair that scientists are making a machine that could possibly destroy the entire human race. Me and my friends have cried about the black hole, and I find it really upsetting. There has been barely nothing about it on the news. I am so nervous. I just think I am too young to die—is there any way we could stop it happening? The Questions We Never Answered in 2008 Digging through the bottom of the Explainer mailbag. By Daniel Engber The Explainer has completed another year of valuable community service. Over the last 12 months, we've told you how to interrogate a small child and given instructions for turning a human skull into a sweet bong. Regular readers learned how to survive a 47-story fall and why you can't survive falling into a black hole. And we had the final word on whether terrorists really bump fists to say hello. But, for all that, the column managed to address just a tiny fraction of the 8,500 messages that arrived in our mailbox. Today, as part of our Explainer holiday tradition, we present an assortment of inquiries culled from the voluminous backlog. Below are the reader questions that Slate felt ill-equipped or unwilling to answer in 2008. Once again, we'd like you to let us know which of these unanswered questions is most deserving of an answer. The one that receives the most reader votes will be designated the Explainer Question of the Year for 2008 and will be addressed in an upcoming column. Click here to vote for the Explainer Question of the Year. The Explainer's Unanswered Questions From 2008 • What is the most disloyal dog breed? • Why does some music make you want to shake your butt? • Could you please explain why it is that squirrels are capable of such amazing athletic feats? What is it about their brains and, to a lesser degree, their bodies that allows it? I watch them at my house and have seen some amazing things. • Why do women like soup? Is it for perceived health benefits? Is it because it's a quasi-comfort food? • Is it just me, or do all national anthems the world over, no matter how rich and exotic the culture, seem to sound like European marching-band music? Wouldn't one expect China's national anthem be more "plinky"? Shouldn't Iraq's national anthem sound a little more "Arab-y"? • I am an 11-year-old boy and girls in my class harass me constantly and I want to file a restraining order against one of them. Is that possible? • It is a common baseball prank to give someone a cream pie in the face during a TV interview. Where do these cream pies come from? Do baseball teams keep cream pies in the dugout? • Why don't humans have a mating season? • When and why did the Communist Chinese change the name of their capital "PEKING" to Bazging? Sorry, I don't know how it is spelled. Thank you. • My toaster identifies which of the two slots should be used for making a single slice of toast. Why does it make a difference which slot I use? • If one gets a personal e-mail from a very famous or important person, such as the president, or the queen of England, or the Pope, or Paul McCartney, can that e-mail have monetary value? I guess not. It's just an electronic transmission on a screen. There's no original. There's no way to buy or sell it. Seems a shame tho. • Does indoor tanning hurt your tits if you have had a breast silicone implant put in for over 30 years? • Why do all of the deli guys and food cart guys call me "Boss" (well, me and everyone else)? • I live in Washington, D.C., and we have very long escalators coming out of the Metro. If I grabbed the handrail when I first step onto the escalator and did not let go until I was at the top, my body would be almost prostrate across the steps. As I go higher on the escalator, I have to readjust the hand that is grabbing the rubber handrail. Why can't the companies that make escalators sync the steps and the handrails so that they go the same speed? • If you were on a boat, what signs do sharks give if they are hungry and will attack versus if they just want to swim around the boat? • How did early man deal with growing toe and fingernails? • If someone with DNA from the Stone Age were born today, would they be normal? • I have been accused of assault in Ohio. The woman fell over a box in the hall backward, and my brother opened the door, saw her lying there, and started hitting me. I got him down and held him down. It was all over a fight concerning my niece. What do you think will happen? • I wonder what's going on with Obama's eyes. When he made his keynote address to the Democratic Convention in 2004, I noticed his eyes had a bit of a pretty eyes makeup look. I concluded that it was just the makeup they put on him for the TV cameras. But then yesterday on TV I saw some older footage of Obama and again his eyes had that same pretty look. This was before he was nationally known. I looked carefully and I think that look comes from having long eyelashes. I mentioned this to some other people and they noticed it too. But so then where did those long eyelashes go? Maybe eyelashes get shorter with age. Do they? BUT also I'm wondering if Obama has had his eyelashes shortened. If he has had them shortened, I think that's an excellent idea. Because that long lashes pretty eyes look actually doesn't look so good on a man. At least not if he's running for president. • During this weekend's football playoff game in Green Bay, the temperature at kickoff was 0 degrees, and by the end of the game was -4 degrees. When players get injured in such weather, do they bother putting ice on the injury? Wouldn't that warm up the injury to 32 degrees? • Burma's dictator has a chestful of bullshit medals. What's up with that, Explainer? • If there is so much oil in the Middle East, could one missile (such as the ones used to penetrate bunkers and caves) explode deep underground and hypothetically blow up a few countries? • How can personal coaches justify coaching athletes who are much better than they ever were? If they know so much about how to win, why aren't they competing? • Can men eat the Activia yogurt that is advertised exclusively to the modern woman in khakis? Will it have the same internal regulatory effects on the male system that are promised for the female bowels? If not, why not? • Can an average person not in politics get a pardon from the president of the United States? (Possession of forged instrument, October of 1989.) • Is the stomach normally full of air like a balloon, or is it squeezed flat by the other organs, like a balloon with no air that spreads open as food and water come in? Are the other organs squeezed and compressed like a squeezed sponge, or are they like a sponge not being squeezed? What about the intestines? Are they squeezed flat normally, or are they open like one of those long balloons that magicians make animals out of? I'm trying to get a picture in my mind what the inside of the body normally looks like. • Please explain the method of formation and origin of black holes. Are they located at the Bermuda Triangle area and why there? • Who made up the rule that if you wore a shirt all day, went home, and washed it, you can't wear it the next day? • I live in Chicago, where taxi drivers are constantly talking on their phones. To whom are they talking? • Why do cockroaches flip over on their backsides when they die? I sprayed RAID into a hole in my wall the other day, and by the next morning I found six cockroaches laid out on my floor, all flipped over and all very dead! • Why do the women gymnasts walk around between events with that goofy arm-swing gait? • I am 79 years old. I bring this up first to help explain my question. In the late 1930s or early 1940s, I was looking through an old stack of Life magazines, and there was a picture of an old couple sitting on the porch of a cabin (or shack) up in the mountains somewhere in Appalachia, with the notation: "The King and Queen of America?" The small article with the picture stated that if George Washington had become king of the U.S., these two would (under the usual custom) be our king and queen. I have thought of this from time to time, even doubted it. (It might have been part of the propaganda of the time, the Depression years, that we were all equal, etc.) I am dimly aware that George Washington had brothers, and that it is possible that the descent is known. As I remember, it was a lovely picture, the old couple looking out over a valley, with mist, and smoking their corncob pipes. Can you find the picture? Can you tell me whether there was truth in the assertion? • Why are pandas names doubled? Ling Ling, Tuan Tuan, Yuan Yuan. • Are the frequently used "jaws of life" really necessary or just big-boy toys for rescuers? • How long can humans live when they are caught on fire? For example, when a car crashes and explodes turns into a gulf of flames, but humans are alive. • Hi, I am Anna. I am only 11 years old! My friend told me about this black hole, and I have gotten really scared. I don't want to die! I thought if it didn't happen today, it wasn't going to happen. I did not know nothing about it happening in Spring! I find it unfair that scientists are making a machine that could possibly destroy the entire human race. Me and my friends have cried about the black hole, and I find it really upsetting. There has been barely nothing about it on the news. I am so nervous. I just think I am too young to die—is there any way we could stop it happening? tag:odeo.com,2008-12-18,23774201 Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:16:27 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23770644-Explainer-Slate-s-Field-Guide-to-Financial-Scams Slate's Field Guide to Financial Scams Ponzis, pyramids, and bucket shops. By Juliet Lapidos Federal agents arrested Bernard Madoff on Thursday and charged him with what may be the biggest scam in Wall Street history. The list of wealthy victims includes Elie Wiesel, Steven Spielberg, and the Gift of Life Foundation. News reports are referring to Madoff's fraud as a "Ponzi scheme." What makes a scheme a Ponzi? Short-term returns are paid out with cash from new investors. The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who swindled thousands of New Englanders in the early 1920s. Ponzi claimed he'd found a weakness in the postal system (wherein he'd send agents to buy international postal-reply coupons in Italy on the cheap, exchange them for U.S. stamps at a higher value, then sell them) and promised his investors a 50 percent return in 45 days or a 100 percent profit in twice that time. Initially, Ponzi suckered his friends, who spread the word; then he hired agents to... Slate's Field Guide to Financial Scams Ponzis, pyramids, and bucket shops. By Juliet Lapidos Federal agents arrested Bernard Madoff on Thursday and charged him with what may be the biggest scam in Wall Street history. The list of wealthy victims includes Elie Wiesel, Steven Spielberg, and the Gift of Life Foundation. News reports are referring to Madoff's fraud as a "Ponzi scheme." What makes a scheme a Ponzi? Short-term returns are paid out with cash from new investors. The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who swindled thousands of New Englanders in the early 1920s. Ponzi claimed he'd found a weakness in the postal system (wherein he'd send agents to buy international postal-reply coupons in Italy on the cheap, exchange them for U.S. stamps at a higher value, then sell them) and promised his investors a 50 percent return in 45 days or a 100 percent profit in twice that time. Initially, Ponzi suckered his friends, who spread the word; then he hired agents to find new investors, creating a frenzy. In one spectacular three-hour period, he took in $1 million, and he averaged $200,000 per day in new investments. For a short time he lived in luxury, buying a mansion in Lexington, Mass., but about six months in, the Boston Post started running stories questioning Ponzi's strategy. He was arrested shortly thereafter. Madoff's scam worked a little differently. Peter J. Henning argued in the New York Times that it deserves its own moniker since Madoff 1) preyed exclusively on very wealthy investors and 2) offered steady returns of 10 percent a year rather than a quick, spectacular gain. Still, Madoff seems to have financed his scam in the same basic manner as Ponzi. A pyramid scheme functions like a peer-to-peer version of a Ponzi scheme. Instead of funneling payments to a single person—such as Ponzi or Madoff—investors pass the money among themselves. Each new participant must recruit several others to perpetuate the scheme. Eventually, the pyramid collapses because it gets harder and harder to find fresh blood. As this clever SEC chart demonstrates, a pyramid scheme that starts with six people will, after 11 levels, require more members than the U.S. population and, after 13 levels, more than the world population. Albania learned this the hard way. In the mid-'90s, about two-thirds of the population invested in a series of government-endorsed pyramid schemes. When the schemes failed, Albanians took to the streets and more than 2,000 people died in the ensuing riots. Lots of schemes are stock-market specific. There's the pump and dump, in which the perpetrator boosts the price of a stock through false or exaggerated statements, then sells his position at an artificially inflated level. And front-running, in which a broker buys himself shares of a stock right before his brokerage buys a much larger block of shares (or recommends the stock as a good prospect). In the jitney game, brokers trade a stock back and forth to give the impression that it's a hot commodity. Bucket shop is a common term for a brokerage that defrauds its customers, usually by selling worthless or highly speculative stocks that it wants to offload. In Season 2 of The Sopranos, Christopher runs a bucket shop, selling phony stocks to senior citizens then pocketing the cash. Slate's Field Guide to Financial Scams Ponzis, pyramids, and bucket shops. By Juliet Lapidos Federal agents arrested Bernard Madoff on Thursday and charged him with what may be the biggest scam in Wall Street history. The list of wealthy victims includes Elie Wiesel, Steven Spielberg, and the Gift of Life Foundation. News reports are referring to Madoff's fraud as a "Ponzi scheme." What makes a scheme a Ponzi? Short-term returns are paid out with cash from new investors. The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who swindled thousands of New Englanders in the early 1920s. Ponzi claimed he'd found a weakness in the postal system (wherein he'd send agents to buy international postal-reply coupons in Italy on the cheap, exchange them for U.S. stamps at a higher value, then sell them) and promised his investors a 50 percent return in 45 days or a 100 percent profit in twice that time. Initially, Ponzi suckered his friends, who spread the word; then he hired agents to find new investors, creating a frenzy. In one spectacular three-hour period, he took in $1 million, and he averaged $200,000 per day in new investments. For a short time he lived in luxury, buying a mansion in Lexington, Mass., but about six months in, the Boston Post started running stories questioning Ponzi's strategy. He was arrested shortly thereafter. Madoff's scam worked a little differently. Peter J. Henning argued in the New York Times that it deserves its own moniker since Madoff 1) preyed exclusively on very wealthy investors and 2) offered steady returns of 10 percent a year rather than a quick, spectacular gain. Still, Madoff seems to have financed his scam in the same basic manner as Ponzi. A pyramid scheme functions like a peer-to-peer version of a Ponzi scheme. Instead of funneling payments to a single person—such as Ponzi or Madoff—investors pass the money among themselves. Each new participant must recruit several others to perpetuate the scheme. Eventually, the pyramid collapses because it gets harder and harder to find fresh blood. As this clever SEC chart demonstrates, a pyramid scheme that starts with six people will, after 11 levels, require more members than the U.S. population and, after 13 levels, more than the world population. Albania learned this the hard way. In the mid-'90s, about two-thirds of the population invested in a series of government-endorsed pyramid schemes. When the schemes failed, Albanians took to the streets and more than 2,000 people died in the ensuing riots. Lots of schemes are stock-market specific. There's the pump and dump, in which the perpetrator boosts the price of a stock through false or exaggerated statements, then sells his position at an artificially inflated level. And front-running, in which a broker buys himself shares of a stock right before his brokerage buys a much larger block of shares (or recommends the stock as a good prospect). In the jitney game, brokers trade a stock back and forth to give the impression that it's a hot commodity. Bucket shop is a common term for a brokerage that defrauds its customers, usually by selling worthless or highly speculative stocks that it wants to offload. In Season 2 of The Sopranos, Christopher runs a bucket shop, selling phony stocks to senior citizens then pocketing the cash. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-17,23770644 Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:02:47 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23763632-Explainer-Voting-With-Their-Feet Voting With Their Feet What do Iraqis find so insulting about shoes and feet? By Brian Palmer During a Sunday press conference in Baghdad, an angry Iraqi journalist hurled insults, and his shoes, at President Bush. According to the New York Times, "Hitting someone with a shoe is considered the supreme insult in Iraq." Why is that? Because they're so dirty. The degree of insult seems to be an idiosyncratic cultural development, as opposed to one that derives from clear textual sources. There's no particular mention in the Quran or any of the Hadith of shoe-throwing or debasement of enemies by exposing them to feet. And historical origins for the tradition are not easily found. However it started, Arabs—and perhaps Iraqis in particular—throw their shoes to indicate that the target is no better than dirt. The foot has special meaning in many societies. Most cultures see the act of subjecting another to one's feet or shoes as a sign of superiority. (Former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardso... Voting With Their Feet What do Iraqis find so insulting about shoes and feet? By Brian Palmer During a Sunday press conference in Baghdad, an angry Iraqi journalist hurled insults, and his shoes, at President Bush. According to the New York Times, "Hitting someone with a shoe is considered the supreme insult in Iraq." Why is that? Because they're so dirty. The degree of insult seems to be an idiosyncratic cultural development, as opposed to one that derives from clear textual sources. There's no particular mention in the Quran or any of the Hadith of shoe-throwing or debasement of enemies by exposing them to feet. And historical origins for the tradition are not easily found. However it started, Arabs—and perhaps Iraqis in particular—throw their shoes to indicate that the target is no better than dirt. The foot has special meaning in many societies. Most cultures see the act of subjecting another to one's feet or shoes as a sign of superiority. (Former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson learned this lesson when he enraged Saddam Hussein in a 1995 meeting by accidentally exposing the soles of his feet to the dictator.) Likewise, it's an act of humility—or even worship—to voluntarily subject oneself to another's feet. Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist temples all require entrants to remove their shoes. Buddhist temples forbid guests to point their feet at a representation of the Buddha, but adherents do display a deep reverence for the feet of deities. Buddha is often represented by a pair of intricately adorned feet or footprints, and some Hindus worship a footprint believed to belong to the god Vishnu. Many Indians also show respect to their parents or grandparents by touching their feet. In the ancient Near East, it was traditional to offer guests a basin in which to wash their feet. Under Jewish law, the host could also order a servant to wash a guest's feet, as long as the servant was not a Hebrew. Because of this custom, Christians believe that Jesus intended to show humility and servitude to his disciples when he washed their feet at the Last Supper. (This may be why the global aversion to shoes and feet has less force in the Christian world.) Meanwhile, political shoe-throwing has become something of a free-speech tradition for the newly liberated Iraqis. As U.S. soldiers pulled down a Saddam Hussein statue in 2003, Iraqis flung shoes at the monument. Former interim President Iyad Allawi was also pelted with shoes while campaigning in 2005. Sunday's press conference isn't even the first time a U.S. president has suffered a shoe-related insult in Iraq. After the Persian Gulf War, Saddam Hussein installed a mosaic of President George H.W. Bush on the floor of the Al-Rasheed Hotel. Hussein delighted in releasing images of foreign dignitaries stepping on Bush's face. Voting With Their Feet What do Iraqis find so insulting about shoes and feet? By Brian Palmer During a Sunday press conference in Baghdad, an angry Iraqi journalist hurled insults, and his shoes, at President Bush. According to the New York Times, "Hitting someone with a shoe is considered the supreme insult in Iraq." Why is that? Because they're so dirty. The degree of insult seems to be an idiosyncratic cultural development, as opposed to one that derives from clear textual sources. There's no particular mention in the Quran or any of the Hadith of shoe-throwing or debasement of enemies by exposing them to feet. And historical origins for the tradition are not easily found. However it started, Arabs—and perhaps Iraqis in particular—throw their shoes to indicate that the target is no better than dirt. The foot has special meaning in many societies. Most cultures see the act of subjecting another to one's feet or shoes as a sign of superiority. (Former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson learned this lesson when he enraged Saddam Hussein in a 1995 meeting by accidentally exposing the soles of his feet to the dictator.) Likewise, it's an act of humility—or even worship—to voluntarily subject oneself to another's feet. Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist temples all require entrants to remove their shoes. Buddhist temples forbid guests to point their feet at a representation of the Buddha, but adherents do display a deep reverence for the feet of deities. Buddha is often represented by a pair of intricately adorned feet or footprints, and some Hindus worship a footprint believed to belong to the god Vishnu. Many Indians also show respect to their parents or grandparents by touching their feet. In the ancient Near East, it was traditional to offer guests a basin in which to wash their feet. Under Jewish law, the host could also order a servant to wash a guest's feet, as long as the servant was not a Hebrew. Because of this custom, Christians believe that Jesus intended to show humility and servitude to his disciples when he washed their feet at the Last Supper. (This may be why the global aversion to shoes and feet has less force in the Christian world.) Meanwhile, political shoe-throwing has become something of a free-speech tradition for the newly liberated Iraqis. As U.S. soldiers pulled down a Saddam Hussein statue in 2003, Iraqis flung shoes at the monument. Former interim President Iyad Allawi was also pelted with shoes while campaigning in 2005. Sunday's press conference isn't even the first time a U.S. president has suffered a shoe-related insult in Iraq. After the Persian Gulf War, Saddam Hussein installed a mosaic of President George H.W. Bush on the floor of the Al-Rasheed Hotel. Hussein delighted in releasing images of foreign dignitaries stepping on Bush's face. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-16,23763632 Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:30:37 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23755684-Explainer-Is-Cybersquatting-Against-the-Law Is Cybersquatting Against the Law? When is it OK to buy up an expired domain name? By Christopher Beam The George W. Bush Library Foundation has retrieved its domain name. A small Internet company had bought www.georgewbushlibrary.com for less than $10 after it expired and then sold it back it to the library for $35,000. Is that legal? Probably not. Cybersquatting, the practice of buying up a domain in order to profit from a trademarked name, is prohibited under the 1999 Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act as well as a set of international guidelines called the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy. (Disputes are usually mediated by the National Arbitration Forum or the U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization.) Both systems were created to protect companies, celebrities, and even Joe Schmoes from having their names exploited online for commercial purposes. To sue someone for cybersquatting, you have to show that they acted in "bad faith," meaning they delibera... Is Cybersquatting Against the Law? When is it OK to buy up an expired domain name? By Christopher Beam The George W. Bush Library Foundation has retrieved its domain name. A small Internet company had bought www.georgewbushlibrary.com for less than $10 after it expired and then sold it back it to the library for $35,000. Is that legal? Probably not. Cybersquatting, the practice of buying up a domain in order to profit from a trademarked name, is prohibited under the 1999 Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act as well as a set of international guidelines called the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy. (Disputes are usually mediated by the National Arbitration Forum or the U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization.) Both systems were created to protect companies, celebrities, and even Joe Schmoes from having their names exploited online for commercial purposes. To sue someone for cybersquatting, you have to show that they acted in "bad faith," meaning they deliberately registered a certain domain in order to profit off your name. For example, if someone buys JenniferLopez.com and puts ads up to generate income from random visitors, that's considered bad faith. Same with trying to sell the site back to its rightful owner for a hefty profit, as in the case of the presidential library. (An example of "good faith," meanwhile, might be registering Georgewbushlibrary.com as a nonprofit repository for articles about the president.) There may be added protection for domains that are named after celebrities. In most states, famous people have a right of publicity that prohibits anyone else from profiting off their names or personas. Celebrities can also argue that they have common law rights to the trademark of their own names. In 2000, Madonna won a lawsuit against a cybersquatter who had bought Madonna.com and set up a porn site. (The same guy registered, among other names, wallstreetjournal.com.) Likewise, Hillary Clinton won a case in 2005 against an Italian woman who had bought the domain name Hillaryclinton.com. (See a list of domain name disputes here.) The First Amendment makes it legal to grab even a famous person's domain name in some situations: You might not get Hillaryclinton.com, but you could register Ilovehillaryclinton.com if you're planning to use it for nonprofit political speech. You may also be able to use an established name if you're setting up your own, unrelated company. If the domain name for Delta Airlines expired and you bought it up for your competing airline, that would be against the law. But if you were promoting a very different kind of company—Delta Plumbing, for example—then you'd be within your rights to use Delta.com. As long as you're not profiting off a person or company by misrepresenting them, you're probably OK. Indeed, there's a whole industry of so-called domain "tasting," whereby companies buy up recently expired domain names, test their traffic ratings, and estimate their profitability. (Sites like SnapNames.com and Pool.com will tell you when certain domain names are about to expire.) If a site is deemed a moneymaker, the company will hold on to it. If it's not, the company will give it back within the five-day grace period. The practice is legally restricted to domain names that use words you can find in the dictionary. But some companies will buy up variations or misspellings of other well-known sites—like, say, Micorsoft.com. Those sites aren't legal, but they can still turn a profit before the trademarked party notices. Is Cybersquatting Against the Law? When is it OK to buy up an expired domain name? By Christopher Beam The George W. Bush Library Foundation has retrieved its domain name. A small Internet company had bought www.georgewbushlibrary.com for less than $10 after it expired and then sold it back it to the library for $35,000. Is that legal? Probably not. Cybersquatting, the practice of buying up a domain in order to profit from a trademarked name, is prohibited under the 1999 Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act as well as a set of international guidelines called the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy. (Disputes are usually mediated by the National Arbitration Forum or the U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization.) Both systems were created to protect companies, celebrities, and even Joe Schmoes from having their names exploited online for commercial purposes. To sue someone for cybersquatting, you have to show that they acted in "bad faith," meaning they deliberately registered a certain domain in order to profit off your name. For example, if someone buys JenniferLopez.com and puts ads up to generate income from random visitors, that's considered bad faith. Same with trying to sell the site back to its rightful owner for a hefty profit, as in the case of the presidential library. (An example of "good faith," meanwhile, might be registering Georgewbushlibrary.com as a nonprofit repository for articles about the president.) There may be added protection for domains that are named after celebrities. In most states, famous people have a right of publicity that prohibits anyone else from profiting off their names or personas. Celebrities can also argue that they have common law rights to the trademark of their own names. In 2000, Madonna won a lawsuit against a cybersquatter who had bought Madonna.com and set up a porn site. (The same guy registered, among other names, wallstreetjournal.com.) Likewise, Hillary Clinton won a case in 2005 against an Italian woman who had bought the domain name Hillaryclinton.com. (See a list of domain name disputes here.) The First Amendment makes it legal to grab even a famous person's domain name in some situations: You might not get Hillaryclinton.com, but you could register Ilovehillaryclinton.com if you're planning to use it for nonprofit political speech. You may also be able to use an established name if you're setting up your own, unrelated company. If the domain name for Delta Airlines expired and you bought it up for your competing airline, that would be against the law. But if you were promoting a very different kind of company—Delta Plumbing, for example—then you'd be within your rights to use Delta.com. As long as you're not profiting off a person or company by misrepresenting them, you're probably OK. Indeed, there's a whole industry of so-called domain "tasting," whereby companies buy up recently expired domain names, test their traffic ratings, and estimate their profitability. (Sites like SnapNames.com and Pool.com will tell you when certain domain names are about to expire.) If a site is deemed a moneymaker, the company will hold on to it. If it's not, the company will give it back within the five-day grace period. The practice is legally restricted to domain names that use words you can find in the dictionary. But some companies will buy up variations or misspellings of other well-known sites—like, say, Micorsoft.com. Those sites aren't legal, but they can still turn a profit before the trademarked party notices. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-15,23755684 Mon, 15 Dec 2008 05:33:07 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23738750-Explainer-Ejection-Seats-101 Ejection Seats 101 What's the protocol for using an ejection seat? By Juliet Lapidos A military jet crashed into a residential street in San Diego on Monday, killing at least three people and destroying three houses and four vehicles. The pilot, who had ejected himself from the cockpit, landed safely in a tree. An eyewitness wondered whether the Marine could instead have "turned [the plane] around and put it in the ocean." What's the protocol for using an ejection seat? It depends on the condition of the aircraft. If the pilot is in control of the plane but determines that a crash is inevitable, he should head to the closest unpopulated area, reduce speed, and then eject. If, however, the pilot has lost control of the plane's basic functioning and can no longer alter its path (in military parlance, the aircraft is "not flying, but falling"), then he should prioritize escaping before impact. From news reports, it seems the incident in San Diego falls into the latter category, which w... Ejection Seats 101 What's the protocol for using an ejection seat? By Juliet Lapidos A military jet crashed into a residential street in San Diego on Monday, killing at least three people and destroying three houses and four vehicles. The pilot, who had ejected himself from the cockpit, landed safely in a tree. An eyewitness wondered whether the Marine could instead have "turned [the plane] around and put it in the ocean." What's the protocol for using an ejection seat? It depends on the condition of the aircraft. If the pilot is in control of the plane but determines that a crash is inevitable, he should head to the closest unpopulated area, reduce speed, and then eject. If, however, the pilot has lost control of the plane's basic functioning and can no longer alter its path (in military parlance, the aircraft is "not flying, but falling"), then he should prioritize escaping before impact. From news reports, it seems the incident in San Diego falls into the latter category, which would absolve the pilot of blame. While the Marine Corps provided some information on standard procedure, the Navy refused to comment, since there may be an investigation. All Marine and Naval pilots receive training on in-flight emergency protocol as well as instructions on how actually to launch themselves out of a plane at the moment of crisis. The pilot involved in this week's crash was flying an F/A-18 D, which uses a Navy Air Crew Common Ejection Seat. Before pulling the ejection handle on this device, the pilot should have his chin elevated 10 degrees, the back of his head pressed against the headrest, his elbows to his sides, shoulders and back pressed against the seat, and his heels on the floor. Once the chair activates, a motor located beneath the seat fires and launches the pilot vertically, about 400 feet. His parachute opens, and then his seat falls to the ground. From the time the pilot grips the handle to when the parachute unfurls takes about two seconds. The first ejection seats, powered by compressed air, were developed by the Germans during World War II. In January 1942, a man named Helmut Schenck escaped from his iced-up plane using an ejection seat, marking the first known emergency ejection. Prior to the 1940s, the only way to escape a plane was to jump out the door with a parachute, an especially difficult process in the case of injury. Ejection Seats 101 What's the protocol for using an ejection seat? By Juliet Lapidos A military jet crashed into a residential street in San Diego on Monday, killing at least three people and destroying three houses and four vehicles. The pilot, who had ejected himself from the cockpit, landed safely in a tree. An eyewitness wondered whether the Marine could instead have "turned [the plane] around and put it in the ocean." What's the protocol for using an ejection seat? It depends on the condition of the aircraft. If the pilot is in control of the plane but determines that a crash is inevitable, he should head to the closest unpopulated area, reduce speed, and then eject. If, however, the pilot has lost control of the plane's basic functioning and can no longer alter its path (in military parlance, the aircraft is "not flying, but falling"), then he should prioritize escaping before impact. From news reports, it seems the incident in San Diego falls into the latter category, which would absolve the pilot of blame. While the Marine Corps provided some information on standard procedure, the Navy refused to comment, since there may be an investigation. All Marine and Naval pilots receive training on in-flight emergency protocol as well as instructions on how actually to launch themselves out of a plane at the moment of crisis. The pilot involved in this week's crash was flying an F/A-18 D, which uses a Navy Air Crew Common Ejection Seat. Before pulling the ejection handle on this device, the pilot should have his chin elevated 10 degrees, the back of his head pressed against the headrest, his elbows to his sides, shoulders and back pressed against the seat, and his heels on the floor. Once the chair activates, a motor located beneath the seat fires and launches the pilot vertically, about 400 feet. His parachute opens, and then his seat falls to the ground. From the time the pilot grips the handle to when the parachute unfurls takes about two seconds. The first ejection seats, powered by compressed air, were developed by the Germans during World War II. In January 1942, a man named Helmut Schenck escaped from his iced-up plane using an ejection seat, marking the first known emergency ejection. Prior to the 1940s, the only way to escape a plane was to jump out the door with a parachute, an especially difficult process in the case of injury. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-11,23738750 Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:15:46 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23736510-Explainer-Can-Blagojevich-Still-Appoint-a-New-Senator Can Blagojevich Still Appoint a New Senator? How the Illinois legislature might try to stop him. By Noreen Malone Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday morning after an investigation revealed that he had attempted to sell off the Illinois Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. Blagojevich remains the governor despite his arrest—and that means he still gets to choose the next senator, right? Not necessarily. Illinois state code doesn't require its legislature to approve the governor's pick to fill a vacant Senate seat, nor does it specify a deadline for the appointment. The law merely states that a new senator can't be named until the outgoing one steps down. (Obama took that formal step on Nov. 16.) That means that if Blagojevich acts quickly enough, he could, in theory, make an unfettered appointment of any of the candidates he was caught discussing (PDF)—or anyone else who is constitutionally qualified for the office. But there are several ways in which the governor cou... Can Blagojevich Still Appoint a New Senator? How the Illinois legislature might try to stop him. By Noreen Malone Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday morning after an investigation revealed that he had attempted to sell off the Illinois Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. Blagojevich remains the governor despite his arrest—and that means he still gets to choose the next senator, right? Not necessarily. Illinois state code doesn't require its legislature to approve the governor's pick to fill a vacant Senate seat, nor does it specify a deadline for the appointment. The law merely states that a new senator can't be named until the outgoing one steps down. (Obama took that formal step on Nov. 16.) That means that if Blagojevich acts quickly enough, he could, in theory, make an unfettered appointment of any of the candidates he was caught discussing (PDF)—or anyone else who is constitutionally qualified for the office. But there are several ways in which the governor could be thwarted. The Illinois General Assembly could pass a bill that overturns the existing law and calls for a special election to fill the Senate seat. (The state Senate has already been reconvened for that purpose.) Even if the bill cleared both state Assemblies, however, it would still need a signature from Blagojevich, who would have 60 days to make his decision. A decision to veto could be overturned by a three-fifths majority in both the upper and lower houses. (Blagojevich is a Democrat, and Democrats have a majority in the state assembly. But this vote probably wouldn't split neatly along party lines.) State Assembly leaders are already discussing another way to stop Blagojevich—impeachment. If the governor were formally convicted after the impeachment process, he'd lose the right to appoint the senator. That would take a simple majority in the state Assembly's lower chamber (the House), followed by a trial in the upper chamber (the Senate), presided over by the chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court and requiring a two-thirds majority vote. Blagojevich would also lose the right to make the appointment if he were convicted in federal court, but this isn't likely to happen anytime soon. His gubernatorial predecessor, for example, is currently serving a six-year sentence for corruption, but the trial and appeals dragged on for two years. Even if Blagojevich makes his pick before any state-level action can be taken, the buck stops with the U.S. Constitution, which states: "Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members." That leaves the final say up to the discretion of the U.S. Senate in Washington. There have been five cases in which the Senate has refused to recognize an appointee (although all but one occurred before the 17th Amendment and the direct election of senators). In 1912, the Senate concluded that a 33-year-old businessman named William Lorimer had obtained his seat (three years earlier) through bribery and corruption. The would-be lawmaker hailed from the great state of Illinois. Can Blagojevich Still Appoint a New Senator? How the Illinois legislature might try to stop him. By Noreen Malone Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday morning after an investigation revealed that he had attempted to sell off the Illinois Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. Blagojevich remains the governor despite his arrest—and that means he still gets to choose the next senator, right? Not necessarily. Illinois state code doesn't require its legislature to approve the governor's pick to fill a vacant Senate seat, nor does it specify a deadline for the appointment. The law merely states that a new senator can't be named until the outgoing one steps down. (Obama took that formal step on Nov. 16.) That means that if Blagojevich acts quickly enough, he could, in theory, make an unfettered appointment of any of the candidates he was caught discussing (PDF)—or anyone else who is constitutionally qualified for the office. But there are several ways in which the governor could be thwarted. The Illinois General Assembly could pass a bill that overturns the existing law and calls for a special election to fill the Senate seat. (The state Senate has already been reconvened for that purpose.) Even if the bill cleared both state Assemblies, however, it would still need a signature from Blagojevich, who would have 60 days to make his decision. A decision to veto could be overturned by a three-fifths majority in both the upper and lower houses. (Blagojevich is a Democrat, and Democrats have a majority in the state assembly. But this vote probably wouldn't split neatly along party lines.) State Assembly leaders are already discussing another way to stop Blagojevich—impeachment. If the governor were formally convicted after the impeachment process, he'd lose the right to appoint the senator. That would take a simple majority in the state Assembly's lower chamber (the House), followed by a trial in the upper chamber (the Senate), presided over by the chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court and requiring a two-thirds majority vote. Blagojevich would also lose the right to make the appointment if he were convicted in federal court, but this isn't likely to happen anytime soon. His gubernatorial predecessor, for example, is currently serving a six-year sentence for corruption, but the trial and appeals dragged on for two years. Even if Blagojevich makes his pick before any state-level action can be taken, the buck stops with the U.S. Constitution, which states: "Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members." That leaves the final say up to the discretion of the U.S. Senate in Washington. There have been five cases in which the Senate has refused to recognize an appointee (although all but one occurred before the 17th Amendment and the direct election of senators). In 1912, the Senate concluded that a 33-year-old businessman named William Lorimer had obtained his seat (three years earlier) through bribery and corruption. The would-be lawmaker hailed from the great state of Illinois. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-10,23736510 Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:34:44 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23727428-Explainer-Is-a-1-Salary-Paid-in-Installments Is a $1 Salary Paid in Installments? Plus, wouldn't that be less than minimum wage? By Nina Shen Rastogi The CEOs of the Big Three automakers promised last week to limit themselves to $1 personal salaries in return for federal bailout money for their cash-strapped companies. If that happens, they would join a number of top executives—like Whole Foods' John Mackey, Apple's Steve Jobs, Yahoo's Jerry Yang, and Google's Eric Schmidt—who get paid a single dollar. Does a salary like that get paid out all at once, or do you get a check for 4 cents twice a month? It's paid in a lump sum. Richard Kinder, the CEO of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, gets his $1 dollar salary by check every January—that's 93 cents, after deducting for state and federal taxes. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York also gets an annual check for 93 cents—with 6 cents going to Social Security and one penny to Medicare. (Bloomberg habitually leaves his check uncashed, however.) A dollar a year—or about 1.9 cents a week—... Is a $1 Salary Paid in Installments? Plus, wouldn't that be less than minimum wage? By Nina Shen Rastogi The CEOs of the Big Three automakers promised last week to limit themselves to $1 personal salaries in return for federal bailout money for their cash-strapped companies. If that happens, they would join a number of top executives—like Whole Foods' John Mackey, Apple's Steve Jobs, Yahoo's Jerry Yang, and Google's Eric Schmidt—who get paid a single dollar. Does a salary like that get paid out all at once, or do you get a check for 4 cents twice a month? It's paid in a lump sum. Richard Kinder, the CEO of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, gets his $1 dollar salary by check every January—that's 93 cents, after deducting for state and federal taxes. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York also gets an annual check for 93 cents—with 6 cents going to Social Security and one penny to Medicare. (Bloomberg habitually leaves his check uncashed, however.) A dollar a year—or about 1.9 cents a week—is way less than the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour. Does that mean these symbolic salaries are illegal? Technically, yes. According to the Fair Labor Standards act, executives can be exempted from hourly minimum wage laws (and the requirement that they be paid for working overtime) only if they get paid a salary valued at $455 or more a week. Being paid on a "salary basis" means you get compensated a predetermined amount, regardless of how many hours you work or how good your work is. So even though dollar-a-year CEOs tend to get other kinds of benefits—options, shares, Gulfstreams—those probably wouldn't count as compensation because their values aren't fixed. To qualify as a minimum-wage-exempt executive, the person must also manage two or more full-time employees and have the power to make hiring and firing decisions. Executives who own at least 20 percent equity interest in the company are exempt as well. (For more information on white-collar exemptions to minimum wage law, see this PowerPoint presentation from the Department of Labor.) Last week in The Big Money, Karim Bardeesy explained why the first crop of "dollar-a-year men"—company execs who joined the nation's war effort during World War I—were paid a nominal fee: At the time, it was illegal to work for the government for free. It still is—U.S. Code Title 31, Section 1342 prohibits any officer of the United States government from accepting voluntary services, and Comptroller General decision 201528 (PDF) forbids federal agencies from doing the same. The only exception is in the case of emergencies. Is a $1 Salary Paid in Installments? Plus, wouldn't that be less than minimum wage? By Nina Shen Rastogi The CEOs of the Big Three automakers promised last week to limit themselves to $1 personal salaries in return for federal bailout money for their cash-strapped companies. If that happens, they would join a number of top executives—like Whole Foods' John Mackey, Apple's Steve Jobs, Yahoo's Jerry Yang, and Google's Eric Schmidt—who get paid a single dollar. Does a salary like that get paid out all at once, or do you get a check for 4 cents twice a month? It's paid in a lump sum. Richard Kinder, the CEO of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, gets his $1 dollar salary by check every January—that's 93 cents, after deducting for state and federal taxes. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York also gets an annual check for 93 cents—with 6 cents going to Social Security and one penny to Medicare. (Bloomberg habitually leaves his check uncashed, however.) A dollar a year—or about 1.9 cents a week—is way less than the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour. Does that mean these symbolic salaries are illegal? Technically, yes. According to the Fair Labor Standards act, executives can be exempted from hourly minimum wage laws (and the requirement that they be paid for working overtime) only if they get paid a salary valued at $455 or more a week. Being paid on a "salary basis" means you get compensated a predetermined amount, regardless of how many hours you work or how good your work is. So even though dollar-a-year CEOs tend to get other kinds of benefits—options, shares, Gulfstreams—those probably wouldn't count as compensation because their values aren't fixed. To qualify as a minimum-wage-exempt executive, the person must also manage two or more full-time employees and have the power to make hiring and firing decisions. Executives who own at least 20 percent equity interest in the company are exempt as well. (For more information on white-collar exemptions to minimum wage law, see this PowerPoint presentation from the Department of Labor.) Last week in The Big Money, Karim Bardeesy explained why the first crop of "dollar-a-year men"—company execs who joined the nation's war effort during World War I—were paid a nominal fee: At the time, it was illegal to work for the government for free. It still is—U.S. Code Title 31, Section 1342 prohibits any officer of the United States government from accepting voluntary services, and Comptroller General decision 201528 (PDF) forbids federal agencies from doing the same. The only exception is in the case of emergencies. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-09,23727428 Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:29:24 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23721675-Explainer-Pleased-To-Meet-You%E2%80%94Again Pleased To Meet You—Again Do amnesiacs realize they have amnesia? By Christopher Beam World-famous amnesiac Henry Gustav Molaison died Tuesday of respiratory failure. Better known as "H.M.," he had been unable to form new memories since undergoing brain surgery in 1953 at age 27. Do amnesiacs realize that they're amnesiacs? Yes, usually. Whether they lose their memory through physical brain damage or psychological trauma, most amnesiacs—or "amnesics," in professional terminology—have some awareness of their condition. But it depends on how intact their brains are overall. Amnesia usually results from damage to the hippocampus, part of the brain's medial temporal lobe, which is responsible for short-term memory. When only the hippocampus is affected, patients tend to be aware of their state. In H.M.'s case, for example, his entire hippocampus was surgically removed, but most of the rest of his brain remained functional. So when asked who the president was, he might say, "I'm sorry, b... Pleased To Meet You—Again Do amnesiacs realize they have amnesia? By Christopher Beam World-famous amnesiac Henry Gustav Molaison died Tuesday of respiratory failure. Better known as "H.M.," he had been unable to form new memories since undergoing brain surgery in 1953 at age 27. Do amnesiacs realize that they're amnesiacs? Yes, usually. Whether they lose their memory through physical brain damage or psychological trauma, most amnesiacs—or "amnesics," in professional terminology—have some awareness of their condition. But it depends on how intact their brains are overall. Amnesia usually results from damage to the hippocampus, part of the brain's medial temporal lobe, which is responsible for short-term memory. When only the hippocampus is affected, patients tend to be aware of their state. In H.M.'s case, for example, his entire hippocampus was surgically removed, but most of the rest of his brain remained functional. So when asked who the president was, he might say, "I'm sorry, but my memory isn't very good." (One of his amygdalae, which govern emotions, was also removed, which some experts said explained his unemotional, matter-of-fact manner.) If, however, the entire brain is damaged, a patient may be unaware of his memory loss. That's why people who suffer from advanced Alzheimer's, which affects the whole brain, often don't recognize their condition. There are two main types of amnesia: retrograde and anterograde. Retrograde means you lose your memories from before the surgery, injury, or whatever incident caused the memory loss. One famous retrograde case is Doug Bruce, the subject of the film Unknown White Male who said he "awakened" one day on the subway in New York and didn't know who he was. Anterograde means you lose the ability to form new memories but can still recall things from before the inciting event. That was the case with H.M., who could remember scattered childhood memories. It's generally easier for retrograde amnesics to become aware of their condition since they can create and retain new memories, including the realization that they have a bad memory. For anterograde amnesics, awareness varies depending on the severity of their condition. In extreme cases, a patient will become aware of his amnesia only if someone brings it to his attention—but he'll promptly forget. For example, Clive Wearing, a British musician who suffers from herpes encephalitis (an infection that attacks the brain) is in a constant state of thinking he just woke up. Nearly every entry of his journal says, in one way or another, "I am awake." When shown past entries, he denies he wrote them. He gets upset when confronted with his condition. The professionals who tend to him are therefore trained to speak only in the immediate present, without any indication that they already know him. In less severe cases, patients will become aware of their condition on their own although it's unclear exactly how. It may be through the brute repetition of fact. Or it may be the contrast between their current fuzziness and the richness of their pre-incident memories that helps them recognize their condition. Pleased To Meet You—Again Do amnesiacs realize they have amnesia? By Christopher Beam World-famous amnesiac Henry Gustav Molaison died Tuesday of respiratory failure. Better known as "H.M.," he had been unable to form new memories since undergoing brain surgery in 1953 at age 27. Do amnesiacs realize that they're amnesiacs? Yes, usually. Whether they lose their memory through physical brain damage or psychological trauma, most amnesiacs—or "amnesics," in professional terminology—have some awareness of their condition. But it depends on how intact their brains are overall. Amnesia usually results from damage to the hippocampus, part of the brain's medial temporal lobe, which is responsible for short-term memory. When only the hippocampus is affected, patients tend to be aware of their state. In H.M.'s case, for example, his entire hippocampus was surgically removed, but most of the rest of his brain remained functional. So when asked who the president was, he might say, "I'm sorry, but my memory isn't very good." (One of his amygdalae, which govern emotions, was also removed, which some experts said explained his unemotional, matter-of-fact manner.) If, however, the entire brain is damaged, a patient may be unaware of his memory loss. That's why people who suffer from advanced Alzheimer's, which affects the whole brain, often don't recognize their condition. There are two main types of amnesia: retrograde and anterograde. Retrograde means you lose your memories from before the surgery, injury, or whatever incident caused the memory loss. One famous retrograde case is Doug Bruce, the subject of the film Unknown White Male who said he "awakened" one day on the subway in New York and didn't know who he was. Anterograde means you lose the ability to form new memories but can still recall things from before the inciting event. That was the case with H.M., who could remember scattered childhood memories. It's generally easier for retrograde amnesics to become aware of their condition since they can create and retain new memories, including the realization that they have a bad memory. For anterograde amnesics, awareness varies depending on the severity of their condition. In extreme cases, a patient will become aware of his amnesia only if someone brings it to his attention—but he'll promptly forget. For example, Clive Wearing, a British musician who suffers from herpes encephalitis (an infection that attacks the brain) is in a constant state of thinking he just woke up. Nearly every entry of his journal says, in one way or another, "I am awake." When shown past entries, he denies he wrote them. He gets upset when confronted with his condition. The professionals who tend to him are therefore trained to speak only in the immediate present, without any indication that they already know him. In less severe cases, patients will become aware of their condition on their own although it's unclear exactly how. It may be through the brute repetition of fact. Or it may be the contrast between their current fuzziness and the richness of their pre-incident memories that helps them recognize their condition. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-08,23721675 Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:22:35 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23711542-Explainer-Depth-in-Venice Depth in Venice How will the city's underwater dam work? By Jacob Leibenluft Venice experienced its biggest flood in 22 years earlier this week. But the city is already building an underwater dam to prevent future floods. How can an underwater system stop Venice from flooding? With giant steel barriers, or "gates," that rise from the sea floor. When the city's water level is normal, the 78 hinged gates—generally about 20 meters wide, 4 meters thick, and up to 30 meters long—will rest horizontally at the bottom of the ocean, filled with water. But when flooding is expected, the gates will fill with compressed air. This causes them to rise—picture half of an opening drawbridge—until they break the surface of the water. The gates don't necessarily come to a 90-degree angle with the seabed, but they're still high enough to keep out rising waters. (The gates—set up in rows at three different inlets—are close enough to one another to prevent much water from passing between them.) It shoul... Depth in Venice How will the city's underwater dam work? By Jacob Leibenluft Venice experienced its biggest flood in 22 years earlier this week. But the city is already building an underwater dam to prevent future floods. How can an underwater system stop Venice from flooding? With giant steel barriers, or "gates," that rise from the sea floor. When the city's water level is normal, the 78 hinged gates—generally about 20 meters wide, 4 meters thick, and up to 30 meters long—will rest horizontally at the bottom of the ocean, filled with water. But when flooding is expected, the gates will fill with compressed air. This causes them to rise—picture half of an opening drawbridge—until they break the surface of the water. The gates don't necessarily come to a 90-degree angle with the seabed, but they're still high enough to keep out rising waters. (The gates—set up in rows at three different inlets—are close enough to one another to prevent much water from passing between them.) It should take about 30 minutes for the gates to rise and another 15 minutes for them to go back down to the sea floor. (To see graphics and videos showing how the system will work, click here.) Venice first began planning a barrier to protect against waters after a massive 1966 flood that stranded residents, damaged several historic buildings, and left 5,000 people homeless. But the project faced several challenges. First, the barriers couldn't block the flow of water between the Adriatic Sea and Venice's lagoon under normal conditions—particularly crucial because the city's canals double as its sewer system. Additionally, aesthetic concerns dictated that the barriers could not be visible from the city. Although an underwater system was first proposed in the early 1970s, it wasn't until 2003 that the eventual design—dubbed MOSE, an acronym that doubles as the Italian for Moses—got the final go-ahead. It's now set to start operating in 2014. The project has been surrounded with controversy since it was first conceived. Environmentalists have argued that the gates will need to be up too often, disturbing a fragile ecosystem that relies on tidal flows. Some critics also estimate that global warming will push sea levels so high that MOSE won't be effective. As a result, one team of engineers has proposed another ambitious project: pumping sea water into aquifers below the city to raise its ground level several inches. When MOSE is finished, Venice will not be the only city with moving flood barriers—similar systems now operate to protect London and several Dutch cities, albeit with gates that are far more visible. Depth in Venice How will the city's underwater dam work? By Jacob Leibenluft Venice experienced its biggest flood in 22 years earlier this week. But the city is already building an underwater dam to prevent future floods. How can an underwater system stop Venice from flooding? With giant steel barriers, or "gates," that rise from the sea floor. When the city's water level is normal, the 78 hinged gates—generally about 20 meters wide, 4 meters thick, and up to 30 meters long—will rest horizontally at the bottom of the ocean, filled with water. But when flooding is expected, the gates will fill with compressed air. This causes them to rise—picture half of an opening drawbridge—until they break the surface of the water. The gates don't necessarily come to a 90-degree angle with the seabed, but they're still high enough to keep out rising waters. (The gates—set up in rows at three different inlets—are close enough to one another to prevent much water from passing between them.) It should take about 30 minutes for the gates to rise and another 15 minutes for them to go back down to the sea floor. (To see graphics and videos showing how the system will work, click here.) Venice first began planning a barrier to protect against waters after a massive 1966 flood that stranded residents, damaged several historic buildings, and left 5,000 people homeless. But the project faced several challenges. First, the barriers couldn't block the flow of water between the Adriatic Sea and Venice's lagoon under normal conditions—particularly crucial because the city's canals double as its sewer system. Additionally, aesthetic concerns dictated that the barriers could not be visible from the city. Although an underwater system was first proposed in the early 1970s, it wasn't until 2003 that the eventual design—dubbed MOSE, an acronym that doubles as the Italian for Moses—got the final go-ahead. It's now set to start operating in 2014. The project has been surrounded with controversy since it was first conceived. Environmentalists have argued that the gates will need to be up too often, disturbing a fragile ecosystem that relies on tidal flows. Some critics also estimate that global warming will push sea levels so high that MOSE won't be effective. As a result, one team of engineers has proposed another ambitious project: pumping sea water into aquifers below the city to raise its ground level several inches. When MOSE is finished, Venice will not be the only city with moving flood barriers—similar systems now operate to protect London and several Dutch cities, albeit with gates that are far more visible. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-05,23711542 Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:19:17 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23705042-Explainer-What-Were-Orthodox-Jews-Doing-in-Mumbai What Were Orthodox Jews Doing in Mumbai? Making better Jews. By Christopher Beam Six of the people killed during last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, died in Nariman House, the local headquarters of the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch. What was a group of Orthodox Jews doing in India? Helping Jews be better Jews. Sometimes called "ultra-orthodox" due to their penchant for traditional hats, beards, and long side curls, not to mention their strict adherence to Talmudic teachings, Lubavitchers like those based at Nariman House try to get Jews—Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox—to be more devout. To that end, they set up shop in far-flung parts of the world to offer hard-to-find services like kosher meals, synagogue services, and classes on Jewish thought, mysticism, and law. (Gavriel Holtzberg, the rabbi killed in Mumbai, was also a certified kosher butcher.) Some of their services, however, are nonreligious. They provide workspace, Internet access, day care, and, in ... What Were Orthodox Jews Doing in Mumbai? Making better Jews. By Christopher Beam Six of the people killed during last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, died in Nariman House, the local headquarters of the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch. What was a group of Orthodox Jews doing in India? Helping Jews be better Jews. Sometimes called "ultra-orthodox" due to their penchant for traditional hats, beards, and long side curls, not to mention their strict adherence to Talmudic teachings, Lubavitchers like those based at Nariman House try to get Jews—Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox—to be more devout. To that end, they set up shop in far-flung parts of the world to offer hard-to-find services like kosher meals, synagogue services, and classes on Jewish thought, mysticism, and law. (Gavriel Holtzberg, the rabbi killed in Mumbai, was also a certified kosher butcher.) Some of their services, however, are nonreligious. They provide workspace, Internet access, day care, and, in the case of Nariman House, hotel rooms. Visitors to the Mumbai center tend to be Jewish business travelers, backpackers, and members of the Indian Jewish community, but non-Jews are also welcome. Most of the services are free, although donations are accepted. Outreach serves a messianic purpose, too. Since its founding in Russia in the 18th century, the Chabad movement has had seven rebbes—Yiddish for rabbi. The most recent of them, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, preached that there was cosmic significance in getting Jews to be more observant. Every time a Jew performs a mitzvah, a religious act such as lighting the Shabbat candles or wearing tefillin, he or she hastens the arrival of the moshiah, or Messiah, and brings the day of redemption that much closer. (There are a total of 613 mitzvahs.) Non-Jews can also hasten the Messiah's arrival by following the seven Noahide Laws laid out in the Torah. That said, Lubavitchers aren't interested in converting people to Judaism. The movement became controversial after Schneerson's death in 1994, when some members of the sect argued that Schneerson himself was the moshiah. However, most Lubavitchers believe he has not yet arrived. In order to reach the most Jews possible, the movement went global. The Lubavitch community is based in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. (If a man with a beard approaches you in the New York subway and asks, "Are you Jewish?" he's probably Chabad-Lubavitch.) But after succeeding his father-in-law as rebbe in the 1950s, Schneerson started sending missionaries, or shluchim, around the world. They now have more than 900 centers everywhere from Morocco to Bangkok to Shanghai. Passover services in Nepal attracted more than 1,500 people this year. What Were Orthodox Jews Doing in Mumbai? Making better Jews. By Christopher Beam Six of the people killed during last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, died in Nariman House, the local headquarters of the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch. What was a group of Orthodox Jews doing in India? Helping Jews be better Jews. Sometimes called "ultra-orthodox" due to their penchant for traditional hats, beards, and long side curls, not to mention their strict adherence to Talmudic teachings, Lubavitchers like those based at Nariman House try to get Jews—Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox—to be more devout. To that end, they set up shop in far-flung parts of the world to offer hard-to-find services like kosher meals, synagogue services, and classes on Jewish thought, mysticism, and law. (Gavriel Holtzberg, the rabbi killed in Mumbai, was also a certified kosher butcher.) Some of their services, however, are nonreligious. They provide workspace, Internet access, day care, and, in the case of Nariman House, hotel rooms. Visitors to the Mumbai center tend to be Jewish business travelers, backpackers, and members of the Indian Jewish community, but non-Jews are also welcome. Most of the services are free, although donations are accepted. Outreach serves a messianic purpose, too. Since its founding in Russia in the 18th century, the Chabad movement has had seven rebbes—Yiddish for rabbi. The most recent of them, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, preached that there was cosmic significance in getting Jews to be more observant. Every time a Jew performs a mitzvah, a religious act such as lighting the Shabbat candles or wearing tefillin, he or she hastens the arrival of the moshiah, or Messiah, and brings the day of redemption that much closer. (There are a total of 613 mitzvahs.) Non-Jews can also hasten the Messiah's arrival by following the seven Noahide Laws laid out in the Torah. That said, Lubavitchers aren't interested in converting people to Judaism. The movement became controversial after Schneerson's death in 1994, when some members of the sect argued that Schneerson himself was the moshiah. However, most Lubavitchers believe he has not yet arrived. In order to reach the most Jews possible, the movement went global. The Lubavitch community is based in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. (If a man with a beard approaches you in the New York subway and asks, "Are you Jewish?" he's probably Chabad-Lubavitch.) But after succeeding his father-in-law as rebbe in the 1950s, Schneerson started sending missionaries, or shluchim, around the world. They now have more than 900 centers everywhere from Morocco to Bangkok to Shanghai. Passover services in Nepal attracted more than 1,500 people this year. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-04,23705042 Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:34:36 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23699787-Explainer-Bear-Naked Bear Naked Why is it so hard to tell boy polar bears from girl polar bears? By Juliet Lapidos Various news sources reported last week that handlers at Kushiro Municipal Zoo in northern Japan tried, and failed, to mate two polar bears before realizing that both Tsuyoshi and Kurumi are female. Tsuyoshi had been misidentified as a male three months after birth, and it took zookeepers six months (looking for signs of amorous activity while the two lived together) to recognize their mistake. A representative from the zoo, Masako Inoue, noted that it's not uncommon to mistake a polar bear's gender. Why is it so difficult to distinguish boy polar bears from girl polar bears? Because they're so furry. The polar bear penis is similar to a dog's: It is nublike, with a baculum (a bone) that extends when the animal is in heat. But long hairs cover polar bears' reproductive organs, making it hard to determine gender by sight alone. (Even scientists who observe polar bears having sex may find tha... Bear Naked Why is it so hard to tell boy polar bears from girl polar bears? By Juliet Lapidos Various news sources reported last week that handlers at Kushiro Municipal Zoo in northern Japan tried, and failed, to mate two polar bears before realizing that both Tsuyoshi and Kurumi are female. Tsuyoshi had been misidentified as a male three months after birth, and it took zookeepers six months (looking for signs of amorous activity while the two lived together) to recognize their mistake. A representative from the zoo, Masako Inoue, noted that it's not uncommon to mistake a polar bear's gender. Why is it so difficult to distinguish boy polar bears from girl polar bears? Because they're so furry. The polar bear penis is similar to a dog's: It is nublike, with a baculum (a bone) that extends when the animal is in heat. But long hairs cover polar bears' reproductive organs, making it hard to determine gender by sight alone. (Even scientists who observe polar bears having sex may find that fur obscures the penis.) Males do have slightly longer hair than females at the tip of their penile "sheaths" (skin that surrounds the penis). And females, in turn, have long vulvar hairs underneath their tails. But unless a polar bear is anaesthetized, zookeepers can't get close enough to make out these differences. A slightly more reliable, but still visual, way to determine the sex of a polar bear is to watch it pee. If urine seems to be coming from the belly area, it might be a male; from the tail, a female. (The would-be breeders at Kushiro Municipal Zoo first suspected they were dealing with two animals of the same gender upon noticing that they urinated in the same way.) A zookeeper can also check for urine spotting—if the belly-area hair gets wet, probably a male; if the tail-area hair does, a female. But these methods aren't foolproof. Some polar bears—of both sexes—squat when they pee, so it's hard to tell where the urine's coming from. And bears are often wet from swimming, which makes the spotting technique rather difficult. You might assume a manual check performed while the animal's anaesthetized would do the trick every time—but it doesn't. A poorly trained handler might lift up the tail, not see the vulva (which is quite small if the animal's not in heat), and quickly conclude that the bear is a male without turning it over to feel around for the penis. Or he might mistake an unprotracted penis for a bellybutton (polar bears have outies) and conclude that it's a female. Checks are often done when the bear is young and its genitalia, including the baculum, are still small. Tsuyoshi isn't the only polar bear experiencing gender trouble: Another zoo adopted a bear it thought was Tsuyoshi's brother—but it's actually her sister. In 1999, the Wildlife Society Bulletin published a paper on using genetics to verify the gender of polar bears. The authors found that, after a harvest in the southern Beaufort, Chukchi, and Bering seas of Alaska by native hunters, "sex was incorrectly determined" for 19 of 139 bears. Verifying gender isn't usually so difficult with mammals—in fact, it's not hard at all with other, shorter-haired bears. But zookeepers and researchers have trouble with birds, which have a cloaca, or multipurpose opening, rather than gendered genitals. Some rodents can also be problematic. Bear Naked Why is it so hard to tell boy polar bears from girl polar bears? By Juliet Lapidos Various news sources reported last week that handlers at Kushiro Municipal Zoo in northern Japan tried, and failed, to mate two polar bears before realizing that both Tsuyoshi and Kurumi are female. Tsuyoshi had been misidentified as a male three months after birth, and it took zookeepers six months (looking for signs of amorous activity while the two lived together) to recognize their mistake. A representative from the zoo, Masako Inoue, noted that it's not uncommon to mistake a polar bear's gender. Why is it so difficult to distinguish boy polar bears from girl polar bears? Because they're so furry. The polar bear penis is similar to a dog's: It is nublike, with a baculum (a bone) that extends when the animal is in heat. But long hairs cover polar bears' reproductive organs, making it hard to determine gender by sight alone. (Even scientists who observe polar bears having sex may find that fur obscures the penis.) Males do have slightly longer hair than females at the tip of their penile "sheaths" (skin that surrounds the penis). And females, in turn, have long vulvar hairs underneath their tails. But unless a polar bear is anaesthetized, zookeepers can't get close enough to make out these differences. A slightly more reliable, but still visual, way to determine the sex of a polar bear is to watch it pee. If urine seems to be coming from the belly area, it might be a male; from the tail, a female. (The would-be breeders at Kushiro Municipal Zoo first suspected they were dealing with two animals of the same gender upon noticing that they urinated in the same way.) A zookeeper can also check for urine spotting—if the belly-area hair gets wet, probably a male; if the tail-area hair does, a female. But these methods aren't foolproof. Some polar bears—of both sexes—squat when they pee, so it's hard to tell where the urine's coming from. And bears are often wet from swimming, which makes the spotting technique rather difficult. You might assume a manual check performed while the animal's anaesthetized would do the trick every time—but it doesn't. A poorly trained handler might lift up the tail, not see the vulva (which is quite small if the animal's not in heat), and quickly conclude that the bear is a male without turning it over to feel around for the penis. Or he might mistake an unprotracted penis for a bellybutton (polar bears have outies) and conclude that it's a female. Checks are often done when the bear is young and its genitalia, including the baculum, are still small. Tsuyoshi isn't the only polar bear experiencing gender trouble: Another zoo adopted a bear it thought was Tsuyoshi's brother—but it's actually her sister. In 1999, the Wildlife Society Bulletin published a paper on using genetics to verify the gender of polar bears. The authors found that, after a harvest in the southern Beaufort, Chukchi, and Bering seas of Alaska by native hunters, "sex was incorrectly determined" for 19 of 139 bears. Verifying gender isn't usually so difficult with mammals—in fact, it's not hard at all with other, shorter-haired bears. But zookeepers and researchers have trouble with birds, which have a cloaca, or multipurpose opening, rather than gendered genitals. Some rodents can also be problematic. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-03,23699787 Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:49:27 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23694754-Explainer-Google-s-Blind-Spots Google's Blind Spots Can governments get Google Earth to obscure images of sensitive locations? By Nina Shen Rastogi The 10 gunmen who terrorized Mumbai last week used Google Earth to plot their attacks, according to statements made by the sole captured terrorist. The attackers targeted public areas whose locations were already available on printed maps, but can a government ask Google to exclude images of more sensitive areas from Google Earth? It can try. Google doesn't automatically exclude photos of locations that might represent a security risk, such as nuclear facilities or the homes of political VIPs. But it has fielded requests to do so in the past—as in 2007, for example, when British troops discovered that insurgents in Basra had been printing out detailed Google Earth images of U.K. military bases. In response, Google replaced its satellite shots of Basra with an earlier set of photos, taken before the war began. A Google spokeswoman told the Explainer that this is the on... Google's Blind Spots Can governments get Google Earth to obscure images of sensitive locations? By Nina Shen Rastogi The 10 gunmen who terrorized Mumbai last week used Google Earth to plot their attacks, according to statements made by the sole captured terrorist. The attackers targeted public areas whose locations were already available on printed maps, but can a government ask Google to exclude images of more sensitive areas from Google Earth? It can try. Google doesn't automatically exclude photos of locations that might represent a security risk, such as nuclear facilities or the homes of political VIPs. But it has fielded requests to do so in the past—as in 2007, for example, when British troops discovered that insurgents in Basra had been printing out detailed Google Earth images of U.K. military bases. In response, Google replaced its satellite shots of Basra with an earlier set of photos, taken before the war began. A Google spokeswoman told the Explainer that this is the only image alteration the company has made due to a governmental request. (She denied reports that Google had agreed to distort images of certain Indian locations in 2007 but acknowledges that the company did have conversations with government officials.) Sometimes, what may look like an alteration is actually the result of a lackluster data set. Google Earth—which also provides the "satellite view" images for Google Maps—gets all its images from third-party sources—primarily commercial satellite image providers like DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, but also local municipalities and governmental agencies. (A copyright line with source information can be seen at the bottom of any Google Earth image. The latest version of Google Earth also offers time stamps when available.) Google says its goal is to have the sharpest, most up-to-date photos possible, but it has to work with what its providers can offer—currently, Google Earth has high-resolution images of just 30 percent of the earth's land surface. So a blurry image—or a blurry square in a large, composite image—might simply mean that Google doesn't yet have a clearer shot of the area in question. Some locations seen on Google Earth, however, do appear to have been altered: See, for example, the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., home of the vice president, where everything within the road encircling the Observatory is blurrier than everything surrounding it. Or Soesterberg Air Base and Huis Ten Bosch Palace in the Netherlands, which are represented by choppy pixels. Such instances occur because governments can, in certain cases, exert control over Google's third-party image providers. Most of the very high-resolution images on Google Earth are actually aerial photos, not satellite photos; that means they've been taken from within a nation's airspace and are therefore subject to that nation's rules and regulations. For example, when the Geological Survey wanted to fly over Washington, D.C., to take photos in 2005, it had to promise the Secret Service that it would delete or edit anything that might "jeopardize national security." Google says that it takes a variety of factors into consideration when it decides which images to use on Google Earth—sometimes it will choose an older, low-res photo rather than a newer, doctored one; in other cases, the usefulness of a high-resolution image outweighs the fact that it has a blurry spot. Google's Blind Spots Can governments get Google Earth to obscure images of sensitive locations? By Nina Shen Rastogi The 10 gunmen who terrorized Mumbai last week used Google Earth to plot their attacks, according to statements made by the sole captured terrorist. The attackers targeted public areas whose locations were already available on printed maps, but can a government ask Google to exclude images of more sensitive areas from Google Earth? It can try. Google doesn't automatically exclude photos of locations that might represent a security risk, such as nuclear facilities or the homes of political VIPs. But it has fielded requests to do so in the past—as in 2007, for example, when British troops discovered that insurgents in Basra had been printing out detailed Google Earth images of U.K. military bases. In response, Google replaced its satellite shots of Basra with an earlier set of photos, taken before the war began. A Google spokeswoman told the Explainer that this is the only image alteration the company has made due to a governmental request. (She denied reports that Google had agreed to distort images of certain Indian locations in 2007 but acknowledges that the company did have conversations with government officials.) Sometimes, what may look like an alteration is actually the result of a lackluster data set. Google Earth—which also provides the "satellite view" images for Google Maps—gets all its images from third-party sources—primarily commercial satellite image providers like DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, but also local municipalities and governmental agencies. (A copyright line with source information can be seen at the bottom of any Google Earth image. The latest version of Google Earth also offers time stamps when available.) Google says its goal is to have the sharpest, most up-to-date photos possible, but it has to work with what its providers can offer—currently, Google Earth has high-resolution images of just 30 percent of the earth's land surface. So a blurry image—or a blurry square in a large, composite image—might simply mean that Google doesn't yet have a clearer shot of the area in question. Some locations seen on Google Earth, however, do appear to have been altered: See, for example, the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., home of the vice president, where everything within the road encircling the Observatory is blurrier than everything surrounding it. Or Soesterberg Air Base and Huis Ten Bosch Palace in the Netherlands, which are represented by choppy pixels. Such instances occur because governments can, in certain cases, exert control over Google's third-party image providers. Most of the very high-resolution images on Google Earth are actually aerial photos, not satellite photos; that means they've been taken from within a nation's airspace and are therefore subject to that nation's rules and regulations. For example, when the Geological Survey wanted to fly over Washington, D.C., to take photos in 2005, it had to promise the Secret Service that it would delete or edit anything that might "jeopardize national security." Google says that it takes a variety of factors into consideration when it decides which images to use on Google Earth—sometimes it will choose an older, low-res photo rather than a newer, doctored one; in other cases, the usefulness of a high-resolution image outweighs the fact that it has a blurry spot. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-02,23694754 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:43:46 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23679971-Explainer-Start-the-Presses Start the Presses? What it means for the Fed to start "printing money." By Jacob Leibenluft With the Federal Reserve struggling to find new ways to stimulate the economy, some financial commentators—like the Washington Post's Sebastian Mallaby and the Economist—have mentioned the possibility that the Fed might start "printing money." Does that mean the government will just start producing more dollar bills? Not exactly. The Federal Reserve usually decides a couple of months ahead of the new fiscal year how much cash it needs to print for the next 12 months—much of it simply to retire old bills from circulation. Once it makes that estimate, it sends its annual order over to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. (Here's a description of the Fed's order for 2008.) Those bills enter circulation through a pretty simple process. Banks are required to keep money in a reserve account with the Fed. When people cash checks or take money from the ATM, those banks replenish their cash supply by... Start the Presses? What it means for the Fed to start "printing money." By Jacob Leibenluft With the Federal Reserve struggling to find new ways to stimulate the economy, some financial commentators—like the Washington Post's Sebastian Mallaby and the Economist—have mentioned the possibility that the Fed might start "printing money." Does that mean the government will just start producing more dollar bills? Not exactly. The Federal Reserve usually decides a couple of months ahead of the new fiscal year how much cash it needs to print for the next 12 months—much of it simply to retire old bills from circulation. Once it makes that estimate, it sends its annual order over to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. (Here's a description of the Fed's order for 2008.) Those bills enter circulation through a pretty simple process. Banks are required to keep money in a reserve account with the Fed. When people cash checks or take money from the ATM, those banks replenish their cash supply by getting currency from a Federal Reserve branch, with the amount debited electronically from the bank's reserves. As the New York Fed points out, the amount of currency in circulation can vary from day to day and season to season: More people want cash during the holidays, for example, or on the weekends. Although the stock of currency in circulation has increased by about $43 billion since last year, there is no immediate evidence that the bureau is working its printing presses overtime or has any plans to do so. By the Explainer's calculations, the BEP printed $14.1 billion worth of bills last month—less than it printed in either October 2006 or October 2007, despite the Fed's recent efforts to stimulate the economy. So what do economic commentators mean when they say the Fed might choose to "print money"? After all, even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has used similar language before, explaining in a 2002 speech—when he was a governor on the Federal Reserve Board—that "the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost." (Bernanke also noted that John Maynard Keynes once "semi-seriously proposed, as an anti-deflationary measure, that the government fill bottles with currency and bury them in mine shafts to be dug up by the public.") In practice, the term "printing money" is often used as shorthand for what economists call quantitative easing. Typically, major monetary-policy decisions by the Fed are made by setting a target for the federal funds rate—the interest rate at which banks lend to other banks—and then buying or selling government securities to achieve that goal. But as the targeted federal funds rate nears zero—it currently stands at 1 percent—the Fed may be forced to look for other options to fight off possible deflation. (Japan has found itself facing similar problems in recent years.) Quantitative easing is an attempt to increase the money supply by buying more and more assets from banks without regard to an interest-rate target. The Fed doesn't need to print more currency to do that; it can simply happen electronically, as the banks are credited with more money in the accounts they keep with the Federal Reserve. The Fed can do this as much as it wants, but it could face two potential problems. For one, it's possible that those reserve accounts will keep growing without stimulating any economic activity. Alternatively, the Fed could increase the money supply by too much, resulting in inflation. Start the Presses? What it means for the Fed to start "printing money." By Jacob Leibenluft With the Federal Reserve struggling to find new ways to stimulate the economy, some financial commentators—like the Washington Post's Sebastian Mallaby and the Economist—have mentioned the possibility that the Fed might start "printing money." Does that mean the government will just start producing more dollar bills? Not exactly. The Federal Reserve usually decides a couple of months ahead of the new fiscal year how much cash it needs to print for the next 12 months—much of it simply to retire old bills from circulation. Once it makes that estimate, it sends its annual order over to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. (Here's a description of the Fed's order for 2008.) Those bills enter circulation through a pretty simple process. Banks are required to keep money in a reserve account with the Fed. When people cash checks or take money from the ATM, those banks replenish their cash supply by getting currency from a Federal Reserve branch, with the amount debited electronically from the bank's reserves. As the New York Fed points out, the amount of currency in circulation can vary from day to day and season to season: More people want cash during the holidays, for example, or on the weekends. Although the stock of currency in circulation has increased by about $43 billion since last year, there is no immediate evidence that the bureau is working its printing presses overtime or has any plans to do so. By the Explainer's calculations, the BEP printed $14.1 billion worth of bills last month—less than it printed in either October 2006 or October 2007, despite the Fed's recent efforts to stimulate the economy. So what do economic commentators mean when they say the Fed might choose to "print money"? After all, even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has used similar language before, explaining in a 2002 speech—when he was a governor on the Federal Reserve Board—that "the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost." (Bernanke also noted that John Maynard Keynes once "semi-seriously proposed, as an anti-deflationary measure, that the government fill bottles with currency and bury them in mine shafts to be dug up by the public.") In practice, the term "printing money" is often used as shorthand for what economists call quantitative easing. Typically, major monetary-policy decisions by the Fed are made by setting a target for the federal funds rate—the interest rate at which banks lend to other banks—and then buying or selling government securities to achieve that goal. But as the targeted federal funds rate nears zero—it currently stands at 1 percent—the Fed may be forced to look for other options to fight off possible deflation. (Japan has found itself facing similar problems in recent years.) Quantitative easing is an attempt to increase the money supply by buying more and more assets from banks without regard to an interest-rate target. The Fed doesn't need to print more currency to do that; it can simply happen electronically, as the banks are credited with more money in the accounts they keep with the Federal Reserve. The Fed can do this as much as it wants, but it could face two potential problems. For one, it's possible that those reserve accounts will keep growing without stimulating any economic activity. Alternatively, the Fed could increase the money supply by too much, resulting in inflation. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-28,23679971 Fri, 28 Nov 2008 06:34:54 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23672468-Explainer-Are-Private-Jets-Safer-Than-Commercial-Airliners Are Private Jets Safer Than Commercial Airliners? The Big Three auto companies say they are. By Juliet Lapidos At a hearing of the House financial services committee last week, lawmakers scolded the CEOs of the Big Three auto companies for flying private jets to Washington, D.C., before requesting a bailout. A Chrysler spokeswoman responded that "business travel requires the highest standard of safety for all employees," and CNN noted that the Big Three "have policies requiring their CEOs to travel in private jets for safety reasons." Despite these concerns, General Motors announced yesterday that CEO Richard Wagoner will not use a private aircraft when he returns to the capital for another round of meetings next week. (Ford and Chrysler have yet to announce their plans.) Are private jets really safer than commercial airliners? No. From Jan. 1, 2008, to Oct. 24, 2008, there were only 16 major accidents on commercial planes—including flights carrying passengers and those carrying car... Are Private Jets Safer Than Commercial Airliners? The Big Three auto companies say they are. By Juliet Lapidos At a hearing of the House financial services committee last week, lawmakers scolded the CEOs of the Big Three auto companies for flying private jets to Washington, D.C., before requesting a bailout. A Chrysler spokeswoman responded that "business travel requires the highest standard of safety for all employees," and CNN noted that the Big Three "have policies requiring their CEOs to travel in private jets for safety reasons." Despite these concerns, General Motors announced yesterday that CEO Richard Wagoner will not use a private aircraft when he returns to the capital for another round of meetings next week. (Ford and Chrysler have yet to announce their plans.) Are private jets really safer than commercial airliners? No. From Jan. 1, 2008, to Oct. 24, 2008, there were only 16 major accidents on commercial planes—including flights carrying passengers and those carrying cargo. Seven of these accidents resulted in zero fatalities while the biggest crash of the year killed 154 people (Spanair Flight JK5022 on a Boeing MD-82). During the same time period, there were 10 major accidents on business jets. There were no fatalities on three of these flights and eight (the largest number) on East Coast Jets Flight 81, which crashed at Owatonna Airport in Minnesota. Expressed in terms of flight hours, the accident rate is nearly identical. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, there were .135 accidents per 100,000 flight hours on commercial air carriers in 2007. The NTSB breaks up business flights into two categories—"corporate" (the aircraft must be flown by a two-person, professional crew) and "business" (two-person, professional crew not required). In 2007, the corporate accident rate was .103 per 100,000 hours, and the business rate was .72 per 100,000 hours. Of course, the Big Three may be worried about more than mechanical trouble or pilot error. When the Chrysler spokeswoman said that "business travel requires the highest standard of safety," she likely also meant security. It's true that, if they travel on private jets, CEOs can bring along security guards with handguns and get picked up in SUVs on the tarmac instead of rubbing shoulders with disgruntled or recently laid-off employees at the airport. But the risk level at, say, Reagan National Airport is low for Richard Wagoner: Few people know what he looks like, and American airports are patrolled by police. One way in which a private jet might be considered more safe is in regard to information security. Even in first class there's no real privacy. On a private aircraft, CEOs can discuss proprietary information with colleagues or partners and keep in constant contact with their headquarters. The real benefits of a private jet, naturally, are convenience and efficiency. Getting from Detroit to D.C. is pretty easy, but getting from Detroit to a GM factory in Quito, Ecuador, could be more of a hassle. If a senior executive needs to travel to a far-away affiliate in a town with little or no airline service or to make multiple stops in one day, a private jet seems less frivolous. Are Private Jets Safer Than Commercial Airliners? The Big Three auto companies say they are. By Juliet Lapidos At a hearing of the House financial services committee last week, lawmakers scolded the CEOs of the Big Three auto companies for flying private jets to Washington, D.C., before requesting a bailout. A Chrysler spokeswoman responded that "business travel requires the highest standard of safety for all employees," and CNN noted that the Big Three "have policies requiring their CEOs to travel in private jets for safety reasons." Despite these concerns, General Motors announced yesterday that CEO Richard Wagoner will not use a private aircraft when he returns to the capital for another round of meetings next week. (Ford and Chrysler have yet to announce their plans.) Are private jets really safer than commercial airliners? No. From Jan. 1, 2008, to Oct. 24, 2008, there were only 16 major accidents on commercial planes—including flights carrying passengers and those carrying cargo. Seven of these accidents resulted in zero fatalities while the biggest crash of the year killed 154 people (Spanair Flight JK5022 on a Boeing MD-82). During the same time period, there were 10 major accidents on business jets. There were no fatalities on three of these flights and eight (the largest number) on East Coast Jets Flight 81, which crashed at Owatonna Airport in Minnesota. Expressed in terms of flight hours, the accident rate is nearly identical. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, there were .135 accidents per 100,000 flight hours on commercial air carriers in 2007. The NTSB breaks up business flights into two categories—"corporate" (the aircraft must be flown by a two-person, professional crew) and "business" (two-person, professional crew not required). In 2007, the corporate accident rate was .103 per 100,000 hours, and the business rate was .72 per 100,000 hours. Of course, the Big Three may be worried about more than mechanical trouble or pilot error. When the Chrysler spokeswoman said that "business travel requires the highest standard of safety," she likely also meant security. It's true that, if they travel on private jets, CEOs can bring along security guards with handguns and get picked up in SUVs on the tarmac instead of rubbing shoulders with disgruntled or recently laid-off employees at the airport. But the risk level at, say, Reagan National Airport is low for Richard Wagoner: Few people know what he looks like, and American airports are patrolled by police. One way in which a private jet might be considered more safe is in regard to information security. Even in first class there's no real privacy. On a private aircraft, CEOs can discuss proprietary information with colleagues or partners and keep in constant contact with their headquarters. The real benefits of a private jet, naturally, are convenience and efficiency. Getting from Detroit to D.C. is pretty easy, but getting from Detroit to a GM factory in Quito, Ecuador, could be more of a hassle. If a senior executive needs to travel to a far-away affiliate in a town with little or no airline service or to make multiple stops in one day, a private jet seems less frivolous. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-26,23672468 Wed, 26 Nov 2008 06:46:48 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23667520-Explainer-The-Turkey-Industrial-Complex The Turkey-Industrial Complex How do farmers produce so many birds for Thanksgiving? By Nina Shen Rastogi If last year's numbers are any indication, some 46 million turkeys across America will be trussed up for Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday. That's about 17 percent of all turkeys raised in the United States in a given year. How do turkey farmers meet the huge single-day demand for their birds? They plan ahead. Major commercial turkey brands, like Butterball, Hormel, and Cargill, produce two kinds of whole bird: frozen and fresh. Turkeys destined for the freezer are produced year-round—once these birds reach the proper size and weight, they're slaughtered and blast-frozen at minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point they can be stored all year in preparation for the holiday poultry frenzy. Producing fresh turkeys takes more planning. Market leader Butterball, for example—which grows about one fresh bird for every nine frozen ones—has already begun the production cycle for next ... The Turkey-Industrial Complex How do farmers produce so many birds for Thanksgiving? By Nina Shen Rastogi If last year's numbers are any indication, some 46 million turkeys across America will be trussed up for Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday. That's about 17 percent of all turkeys raised in the United States in a given year. How do turkey farmers meet the huge single-day demand for their birds? They plan ahead. Major commercial turkey brands, like Butterball, Hormel, and Cargill, produce two kinds of whole bird: frozen and fresh. Turkeys destined for the freezer are produced year-round—once these birds reach the proper size and weight, they're slaughtered and blast-frozen at minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point they can be stored all year in preparation for the holiday poultry frenzy. Producing fresh turkeys takes more planning. Market leader Butterball, for example—which grows about one fresh bird for every nine frozen ones—has already begun the production cycle for next year's holiday season. Eggs for breeder birds have been purchased from one of the world's two major genetic suppliers, Hybrid and Nicholas. Those eggs will then be hatched and placed in turkey farms so that they can grow and become sexually mature during the winter. (Butterball needs roughly 28,000 laying hens and 1,700 "stud" toms each year to produce the right amount of fresh turkeys.) Come springtime, these birds will produce the eggs that are destined to become the turkeys we actually eat. Hens produce eggs in 25-weeklong cycles: The first five weeks' worth go toward fresh turkey production, the rest toward the frozen turkey market. Breeder hens are normally used for a single cycle before being slaughtered and processed themselves. The eggs laid next spring will be incubated for 28 days and then, after they hatch, the resulting turkeys will spend about 10 to 18 weeks on a farm before they're brought into the processing plant in late October and November. The birds are slaughtered, quickly chilled to between 40 and 26 degrees Fahrenheit, and then shipped out to retailers, usually all in the same day. (Some fresh birds have to go to market a little early because the plants can't process all of them in mid-November, even working at full capacity.) Poultry companies can also shuffle their production to meet increased demand, routing some of the birds that were meant to be turned into lunch meats, fresh breasts and legs, or ground turkey back into whole bird processing. Bonus explainer: How do turkeys breed? With a little help from their human friends. The vast majority of turkeys sold in the United States are of the white broad-breasted variety. These birds have been bred to produce as much white breast meat as possible, resulting in males so large and unwieldy that they can't properly mount the females. Toms therefore have to be manually stimulated and "milked" for their semen, which is then inserted into a hen using a syringe. Some have decried the assembly-line-like process as inhumane—at the very least, as chronicled in this not-entirely-safe-for-work clip from Discovery's Dirty Jobs, it is extremely messy. Farmers also use artificial lights to trick birds into thinking that it's spring—their natural breeding season—all year-round, thereby increasing their production. The Turkey-Industrial Complex How do farmers produce so many birds for Thanksgiving? By Nina Shen Rastogi If last year's numbers are any indication, some 46 million turkeys across America will be trussed up for Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday. That's about 17 percent of all turkeys raised in the United States in a given year. How do turkey farmers meet the huge single-day demand for their birds? They plan ahead. Major commercial turkey brands, like Butterball, Hormel, and Cargill, produce two kinds of whole bird: frozen and fresh. Turkeys destined for the freezer are produced year-round—once these birds reach the proper size and weight, they're slaughtered and blast-frozen at minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point they can be stored all year in preparation for the holiday poultry frenzy. Producing fresh turkeys takes more planning. Market leader Butterball, for example—which grows about one fresh bird for every nine frozen ones—has already begun the production cycle for next year's holiday season. Eggs for breeder birds have been purchased from one of the world's two major genetic suppliers, Hybrid and Nicholas. Those eggs will then be hatched and placed in turkey farms so that they can grow and become sexually mature during the winter. (Butterball needs roughly 28,000 laying hens and 1,700 "stud" toms each year to produce the right amount of fresh turkeys.) Come springtime, these birds will produce the eggs that are destined to become the turkeys we actually eat. Hens produce eggs in 25-weeklong cycles: The first five weeks' worth go toward fresh turkey production, the rest toward the frozen turkey market. Breeder hens are normally used for a single cycle before being slaughtered and processed themselves. The eggs laid next spring will be incubated for 28 days and then, after they hatch, the resulting turkeys will spend about 10 to 18 weeks on a farm before they're brought into the processing plant in late October and November. The birds are slaughtered, quickly chilled to between 40 and 26 degrees Fahrenheit, and then shipped out to retailers, usually all in the same day. (Some fresh birds have to go to market a little early because the plants can't process all of them in mid-November, even working at full capacity.) Poultry companies can also shuffle their production to meet increased demand, routing some of the birds that were meant to be turned into lunch meats, fresh breasts and legs, or ground turkey back into whole bird processing. Bonus explainer: How do turkeys breed? With a little help from their human friends. The vast majority of turkeys sold in the United States are of the white broad-breasted variety. These birds have been bred to produce as much white breast meat as possible, resulting in males so large and unwieldy that they can't properly mount the females. Toms therefore have to be manually stimulated and "milked" for their semen, which is then inserted into a hen using a syringe. Some have decried the assembly-line-like process as inhumane—at the very least, as chronicled in this not-entirely-safe-for-work clip from Discovery's Dirty Jobs, it is extremely messy. Farmers also use artificial lights to trick birds into thinking that it's spring—their natural breeding season—all year-round, thereby increasing their production. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-25,23667520 Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:46:09 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23661620-Explainer-The-Off-White-House Slate Magazine Podcast Slate Magazine Podcast Slate Magazine Podcast tag:odeo.com,2008-11-24,23661620 Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:46:26 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23652789-Explainer-Explainer-s-Pirate-Roundup Slate Magazine Podcast Slate Magazine Podcast Slate Magazine Podcast tag:odeo.com,2008-11-21,23652789 Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:26:39 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23645131-Explainer-Measuring-the-National-Carbon-Footprint Measuring the National Carbon Footprint How do you total up the greenhouse-gas emissions for an entire country? By Brian Palmer The United Nations reported this week that Kyoto Protocol signatories have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels, four years ahead of the treaty schedule. Is it really possible for a country to measure how much carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and other greenhouse gases it's putting out? Not exactly. For a country to get a direct readout of its national emissions, it would have to put a greenhouse-gas meter on every tailpipe, landfill, and cow. Since that's impractical, government officials track the inputs rather than the outputs. In other words, they count up the number of gallons of fossil fuels consumed, cattle raised, and pounds of waste produced. From there, it's just a matter of doing the right calculations. Carbon dioxide is the easiest gas to measure in this way. When a unit of... Measuring the National Carbon Footprint How do you total up the greenhouse-gas emissions for an entire country? By Brian Palmer The United Nations reported this week that Kyoto Protocol signatories have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels, four years ahead of the treaty schedule. Is it really possible for a country to measure how much carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and other greenhouse gases it's putting out? Not exactly. For a country to get a direct readout of its national emissions, it would have to put a greenhouse-gas meter on every tailpipe, landfill, and cow. Since that's impractical, government officials track the inputs rather than the outputs. In other words, they count up the number of gallons of fossil fuels consumed, cattle raised, and pounds of waste produced. From there, it's just a matter of doing the right calculations. Carbon dioxide is the easiest gas to measure in this way. When a unit of fossil fuel is combusted, it emits a predictable amount of carbon dioxide. While different combustion devices may produce differing levels of certain pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide or particulate matter, the poundage of carbon dioxide emitted depends in large part on the composition of the fuel. For example, combusting one gallon of gasoline reliably produces about 19 pounds of carbon dioxide. One ton of coal can be counted on to give off approximately 5,700 pounds. A cubic foot of natural gas produces 0.12 pounds of carbon dioxide. (Sequestration technology could in theory lower these numbers, but so far has had little impact on national emissions.) That means you can tally the amount of each type of fuel consumed in a year—via surveys of energy importers, producers, and suppliers—then multiply the totals separately. Computing methane emissions is more complicated, because the ratio of inputs to outputs can change from one situation to the next. In the United States, about 24 percent of human-caused methane emissions comes from the decomposition of organic matter in landfills, but the amount that comes out of any one landfill depends on what kind of garbage the landfill contains and at what temperature. A further 21 percent of our emissions are spewed out by livestock—but a cow will be more or less gassy depending on the details of its diet and the bacteria in its gut. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends a method for calculating methane emissions from livestock. The mathematical model looks at a national livestock population's average age, weight, diet, and other factors to generate an "emission factor," representing the average methane emission per head of cattle per day for that population. The emission factor can then be multiplied by the number of cattle, which is calculated via government surveys of ranchers and dairy farmers. There is a similar model for methane emissions from landfills, incorporating the weight of municipal waste, the fraction of waste deposited in landfills, the age of the waste, and climatic conditions. Nitrous oxide estimates are even less reliable. The gas is released when microbes in the soil metabolize nitrogen-rich fertilizer—but the details of this reaction are very difficult to model due to variations in the native microflora and oxygen availability. The best we can do is use temperature data, soil conditions, fertilizer type, and crop type to make an imprecise guess about the overall rate of emission. The difficulties in measuring certain gases means there's likely to be some degree of error in the calculations. That problem is mitigated by the relative ease with which we can estimate carbon dioxide emissions. While methane, nitrous oxide, and other gases are more potent climate change agents, carbon dioxide remains the largest contributor to the problem by a sizable margin. Measuring the National Carbon Footprint How do you total up the greenhouse-gas emissions for an entire country? By Brian Palmer The United Nations reported this week that Kyoto Protocol signatories have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels, four years ahead of the treaty schedule. Is it really possible for a country to measure how much carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and other greenhouse gases it's putting out? Not exactly. For a country to get a direct readout of its national emissions, it would have to put a greenhouse-gas meter on every tailpipe, landfill, and cow. Since that's impractical, government officials track the inputs rather than the outputs. In other words, they count up the number of gallons of fossil fuels consumed, cattle raised, and pounds of waste produced. From there, it's just a matter of doing the right calculations. Carbon dioxide is the easiest gas to measure in this way. When a unit of fossil fuel is combusted, it emits a predictable amount of carbon dioxide. While different combustion devices may produce differing levels of certain pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide or particulate matter, the poundage of carbon dioxide emitted depends in large part on the composition of the fuel. For example, combusting one gallon of gasoline reliably produces about 19 pounds of carbon dioxide. One ton of coal can be counted on to give off approximately 5,700 pounds. A cubic foot of natural gas produces 0.12 pounds of carbon dioxide. (Sequestration technology could in theory lower these numbers, but so far has had little impact on national emissions.) That means you can tally the amount of each type of fuel consumed in a year—via surveys of energy importers, producers, and suppliers—then multiply the totals separately. Computing methane emissions is more complicated, because the ratio of inputs to outputs can change from one situation to the next. In the United States, about 24 percent of human-caused methane emissions comes from the decomposition of organic matter in landfills, but the amount that comes out of any one landfill depends on what kind of garbage the landfill contains and at what temperature. A further 21 percent of our emissions are spewed out by livestock—but a cow will be more or less gassy depending on the details of its diet and the bacteria in its gut. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends a method for calculating methane emissions from livestock. The mathematical model looks at a national livestock population's average age, weight, diet, and other factors to generate an "emission factor," representing the average methane emission per head of cattle per day for that population. The emission factor can then be multiplied by the number of cattle, which is calculated via government surveys of ranchers and dairy farmers. There is a similar model for methane emissions from landfills, incorporating the weight of municipal waste, the fraction of waste deposited in landfills, the age of the waste, and climatic conditions. Nitrous oxide estimates are even less reliable. The gas is released when microbes in the soil metabolize nitrogen-rich fertilizer—but the details of this reaction are very difficult to model due to variations in the native microflora and oxygen availability. The best we can do is use temperature data, soil conditions, fertilizer type, and crop type to make an imprecise guess about the overall rate of emission. The difficulties in measuring certain gases means there's likely to be some degree of error in the calculations. That problem is mitigated by the relative ease with which we can estimate carbon dioxide emissions. While methane, nitrous oxide, and other gases are more potent climate change agents, carbon dioxide remains the largest contributor to the problem by a sizable margin. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-20,23645131 Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:29:50 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23640107-Explainer-The-Millionaire-Arsonist The Millionaire Arsonist Is a homeless felon really expected to pay $101 million? By Christopher Beam A homeless man in California was sentenced Monday to four years in prison and ordered to pay $101 million for setting fires that burned down 160,000 acres of national forest. How's a guy who sleeps in a tent supposed to pay $101 million? He isn't. Instead, he's expected to pay a tiny bit every month until he dies. The man, Steven Emory Butcher, currently receives $1,000 a month in Supplemental Security Income, which is basically welfare for the elderly, disabled, or blind. The federal court ordered that Butcher would pay $25 to Los Padres National Forest four times a year while in prison, and then $50 a month once he's released. No one expects him to deliver the entire $101 million—even a spokesman for the prosecutor acknowledged that the odds of Butcher paying it off were "extremely slim"—but they do expect him to pay what he can. If Butcher gets a job when he gets out of prison, t... The Millionaire Arsonist Is a homeless felon really expected to pay $101 million? By Christopher Beam A homeless man in California was sentenced Monday to four years in prison and ordered to pay $101 million for setting fires that burned down 160,000 acres of national forest. How's a guy who sleeps in a tent supposed to pay $101 million? He isn't. Instead, he's expected to pay a tiny bit every month until he dies. The man, Steven Emory Butcher, currently receives $1,000 a month in Supplemental Security Income, which is basically welfare for the elderly, disabled, or blind. The federal court ordered that Butcher would pay $25 to Los Padres National Forest four times a year while in prison, and then $50 a month once he's released. No one expects him to deliver the entire $101 million—even a spokesman for the prosecutor acknowledged that the odds of Butcher paying it off were "extremely slim"—but they do expect him to pay what he can. If Butcher gets a job when he gets out of prison, the probation officer can modify the amount of monthly payments—the criminal equivalent of refinancing your mortgage. So why fine him so much? It's the law. A federal judge is required by statute to make a defendant pay restitution when there's property damage incurred, even if he doesn't have the money. The amount of the restitution depends not on how much the criminal can afford to pay, but how much property the victim lost, as determined by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. For example, the 2006 fire set by Butcher cost Los Padres National Forest more than $59 million in damages, plus fire suppression costs, according to an assessment by the U.S. Forest Service. Ultimately, the court settled on a $101 million price tag. Monetary loss can also be a factor in calculations of jail time—a practice that has proven controversial over the years. Loss-based sentencing is one reason Jeffrey Skilling and others convicted in financial fraud cases were sentenced to decades in prison. There's a difference, though, between restitution fees and federal fines. Restitution goes to the victim of a crime—in this case, Los Padres National Forest. A fine goes to the state. If Butcher had deeper pockets, he might be ordered to pay the state up to $250,000 in fines as well. But the federal sentencing guidelines say that an individual defendant is off the hook if he "establishes that he is unable to pay and is not likely to become able to pay any fine." Some foreign governments adjust punishments according to what criminals can pay. European countries including Finland and Germany have a system of "day-fines," in which judges take your income into account when assigning penalties. Instead of a flat rate, you're fined a certain portion of your daily disposable income. (In Finland it's usually about half, with a minimum fine of 6 euros.) The Millionaire Arsonist Is a homeless felon really expected to pay $101 million? By Christopher Beam A homeless man in California was sentenced Monday to four years in prison and ordered to pay $101 million for setting fires that burned down 160,000 acres of national forest. How's a guy who sleeps in a tent supposed to pay $101 million? He isn't. Instead, he's expected to pay a tiny bit every month until he dies. The man, Steven Emory Butcher, currently receives $1,000 a month in Supplemental Security Income, which is basically welfare for the elderly, disabled, or blind. The federal court ordered that Butcher would pay $25 to Los Padres National Forest four times a year while in prison, and then $50 a month once he's released. No one expects him to deliver the entire $101 million—even a spokesman for the prosecutor acknowledged that the odds of Butcher paying it off were "extremely slim"—but they do expect him to pay what he can. If Butcher gets a job when he gets out of prison, the probation officer can modify the amount of monthly payments—the criminal equivalent of refinancing your mortgage. So why fine him so much? It's the law. A federal judge is required by statute to make a defendant pay restitution when there's property damage incurred, even if he doesn't have the money. The amount of the restitution depends not on how much the criminal can afford to pay, but how much property the victim lost, as determined by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. For example, the 2006 fire set by Butcher cost Los Padres National Forest more than $59 million in damages, plus fire suppression costs, according to an assessment by the U.S. Forest Service. Ultimately, the court settled on a $101 million price tag. Monetary loss can also be a factor in calculations of jail time—a practice that has proven controversial over the years. Loss-based sentencing is one reason Jeffrey Skilling and others convicted in financial fraud cases were sentenced to decades in prison. There's a difference, though, between restitution fees and federal fines. Restitution goes to the victim of a crime—in this case, Los Padres National Forest. A fine goes to the state. If Butcher had deeper pockets, he might be ordered to pay the state up to $250,000 in fines as well. But the federal sentencing guidelines say that an individual defendant is off the hook if he "establishes that he is unable to pay and is not likely to become able to pay any fine." Some foreign governments adjust punishments according to what criminals can pay. European countries including Finland and Germany have a system of "day-fines," in which judges take your income into account when assigning penalties. Instead of a flat rate, you're fined a certain portion of your daily disposable income. (In Finland it's usually about half, with a minimum fine of 6 euros.) tag:odeo.com,2008-11-19,23640107 Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:22:30 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23634889-Explainer-Can-You-Be-a-Gay-Mormon Can You Be a Gay Mormon? Yes, but only if you don't have sex. By Nina Shen Rastogi Since the passage of California's Proposition 8, which repealed the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, the Mormon Church has been dealing with widespread protests of its support for the measure. What is the official Mormon policy on homosexuality? That orientation is distinct from practice. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued several position statements about homosexuality—or "same-gender attraction," as the church calls it. One of its most recent publications, a 2007 pamphlet titled "God Loveth His Children," states: "If you avoid immoral thoughts and actions, you have not transgressed even if you feel such an attraction." Being a practicing homosexual can be grounds for excommunication, but gay Mormons who remain celibate can continue to be members in good standing, allowed to worship in the temple and assume positions of leadership. (However, gay and lesbian Mormons who pu... Can You Be a Gay Mormon? Yes, but only if you don't have sex. By Nina Shen Rastogi Since the passage of California's Proposition 8, which repealed the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, the Mormon Church has been dealing with widespread protests of its support for the measure. What is the official Mormon policy on homosexuality? That orientation is distinct from practice. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued several position statements about homosexuality—or "same-gender attraction," as the church calls it. One of its most recent publications, a 2007 pamphlet titled "God Loveth His Children," states: "If you avoid immoral thoughts and actions, you have not transgressed even if you feel such an attraction." Being a practicing homosexual can be grounds for excommunication, but gay Mormons who remain celibate can continue to be members in good standing, allowed to worship in the temple and assume positions of leadership. (However, gay and lesbian Mormons who publicly acknowledge their orientations—even if they don't act on them—may face informal disciplinary measures from their congregation bishops.) On the nature-vs.-nurture issue, the church has declined to speculate. But though Mormons believe that gender is a fixed, eternal construct that's set before you're born and continues after death, homosexuality is seen as something that only exists during a person's mortal lifetime. Mormons believe that after you die, your soul moves on to a spirit world, taking with it the knowledge and memories it gained on Earth. According to "God Loveth His Children," Mormons who cannot overcome their same-gender attractions in this life will have their "feelings and desires … perfected in the next life." The Church of Latter-day Saints places great doctrinal emphasis on family and sexuality, which makes homosexuality a particularly complex issue for Mormons. Mormons subscribe to the concept of eternal or celestial marriage—the notion that marriage covenants performed and "sealed" within the temple are binding in the afterlife. Section 132 of the church's Doctrines and Covenants records God's revelation to the prophet Joseph Smith that those who enter into the celestial marriage will, after they die, "be gods," with the "angels … subject unto them." (This same scripture also says that these Mormons will experience a "continuation of the seeds forever and ever," suggesting that these couples will procreate in the afterlife as well.) Marriage is intimately bound up with the church's concept of salvation: Heaven is organized into a series of families, and only those Mormons who are sealed in a temple ceremony are eligible to enter the highest of its three levels, the Celestial Kingdom. Yet homosexuals—like single, heterosexual Mormons who don't find partners in this lifetime—will have the opportunity to be sealed to a husband or wife in the afterlife, provided they live chastely and righteously in this one. Can You Be a Gay Mormon? Yes, but only if you don't have sex. By Nina Shen Rastogi Since the passage of California's Proposition 8, which repealed the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, the Mormon Church has been dealing with widespread protests of its support for the measure. What is the official Mormon policy on homosexuality? That orientation is distinct from practice. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued several position statements about homosexuality—or "same-gender attraction," as the church calls it. One of its most recent publications, a 2007 pamphlet titled "God Loveth His Children," states: "If you avoid immoral thoughts and actions, you have not transgressed even if you feel such an attraction." Being a practicing homosexual can be grounds for excommunication, but gay Mormons who remain celibate can continue to be members in good standing, allowed to worship in the temple and assume positions of leadership. (However, gay and lesbian Mormons who publicly acknowledge their orientations—even if they don't act on them—may face informal disciplinary measures from their congregation bishops.) On the nature-vs.-nurture issue, the church has declined to speculate. But though Mormons believe that gender is a fixed, eternal construct that's set before you're born and continues after death, homosexuality is seen as something that only exists during a person's mortal lifetime. Mormons believe that after you die, your soul moves on to a spirit world, taking with it the knowledge and memories it gained on Earth. According to "God Loveth His Children," Mormons who cannot overcome their same-gender attractions in this life will have their "feelings and desires … perfected in the next life." The Church of Latter-day Saints places great doctrinal emphasis on family and sexuality, which makes homosexuality a particularly complex issue for Mormons. Mormons subscribe to the concept of eternal or celestial marriage—the notion that marriage covenants performed and "sealed" within the temple are binding in the afterlife. Section 132 of the church's Doctrines and Covenants records God's revelation to the prophet Joseph Smith that those who enter into the celestial marriage will, after they die, "be gods," with the "angels … subject unto them." (This same scripture also says that these Mormons will experience a "continuation of the seeds forever and ever," suggesting that these couples will procreate in the afterlife as well.) Marriage is intimately bound up with the church's concept of salvation: Heaven is organized into a series of families, and only those Mormons who are sealed in a temple ceremony are eligible to enter the highest of its three levels, the Celestial Kingdom. Yet homosexuals—like single, heterosexual Mormons who don't find partners in this lifetime—will have the opportunity to be sealed to a husband or wife in the afterlife, provided they live chastely and righteously in this one. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-18,23634889 Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:42:40 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23624021-Explainer-How-Many-Lashes-Can-One-Man-Take How Many Lashes Can One Man Take? Thousands, if they're performed correctly. By Noreen Malone There were protests in Egypt this week after an Egyptian doctor was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 1,500 lashes by the Saudi Arabian government for prescribing medicine to a princess that "drove her to addiction." The wife of the convicted doctor worried publicly that the sentence would kill him. How many lashes can one man stand? It depends on how you're lashed. It's very unlikely that the doctor will die from his sentence if it is administered in the usual Saudi Arabian way—i.e., broken up into weekly bouts of 50 lashings each. (Women are given 20 to 30 at a time.) But a string of regular punishments administered over a span of seven months could still be dangerous. After just one round of lashings, he could suffer lacerated or bruised skin. More serious problems are likely to arise after repeated, weekly abuse—including nerve damage and infection. Saudi Arabia does have some safegua... How Many Lashes Can One Man Take? Thousands, if they're performed correctly. By Noreen Malone There were protests in Egypt this week after an Egyptian doctor was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 1,500 lashes by the Saudi Arabian government for prescribing medicine to a princess that "drove her to addiction." The wife of the convicted doctor worried publicly that the sentence would kill him. How many lashes can one man stand? It depends on how you're lashed. It's very unlikely that the doctor will die from his sentence if it is administered in the usual Saudi Arabian way—i.e., broken up into weekly bouts of 50 lashings each. (Women are given 20 to 30 at a time.) But a string of regular punishments administered over a span of seven months could still be dangerous. After just one round of lashings, he could suffer lacerated or bruised skin. More serious problems are likely to arise after repeated, weekly abuse—including nerve damage and infection. Saudi Arabia does have some safeguards to protect the health of the person being lashed. For example, doctors inspect the medical condition of a prisoner ahead of time to determine whether he or she is fit to be lashed. (There tends not to be a post-lashing inspection.) And according to Islamic law, a flogger is supposed to hold a copy of the Quran under his arm to curb his range of motion and ensure that the strokes are not too powerful. Usually, the lashes are applied to the back, but they can also land on the legs and buttocks, according to firsthand reports. (The more varied the blows, the less likely they are to cause serious damage; hitting the same spot over and over increases the likelihood of breaking skin and causing infection.) More forceful whippings, like those often administered to slaves in pre-Civil War America, are much more dangerous. Lashes with a leather instrument or paddle and a full range of motion have the potential to cause permanent damage to the internal organs and muscles, severe blood loss, shock, and maybe death. If the doctor received his 1,500 weaker strokes all at once, rather than over a seven-month stretch, the outer layer of his skin would be shredded, and he'd be at even greater risk for serious infection. Few cases of death by lashing in the Muslim world have been reported. (People are lashed in non-Muslim countries as well—for instance, the Bahamas reinstituted flogging in 1991.) In 2004, a 14-year-old Iranian boy was killed while serving a sentence of 85 lashes; the person in charge of the punishment misfired, striking his head rather than his back, causing a brain hemorrhage. (A metal cable was used for the lashing in that case.) And in 1998, a Sudanese man was flogged to death by public-order police, but it's unclear how many lashes were administered and with what force. Saudi Arabia metes out by far the strictest lashing sentences in the Muslim world. Both Sudan and Iran employ the practice but usually stick to the more moderate 40 to 80 strokes prescribed in the Quran. The most severe lashing assigned by a modern Saudi Arabian judge took place in 2007, when two men received 7,000 strokes each as punishment for sodomy. How Many Lashes Can One Man Take? Thousands, if they're performed correctly. By Noreen Malone There were protests in Egypt this week after an Egyptian doctor was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 1,500 lashes by the Saudi Arabian government for prescribing medicine to a princess that "drove her to addiction." The wife of the convicted doctor worried publicly that the sentence would kill him. How many lashes can one man stand? It depends on how you're lashed. It's very unlikely that the doctor will die from his sentence if it is administered in the usual Saudi Arabian way—i.e., broken up into weekly bouts of 50 lashings each. (Women are given 20 to 30 at a time.) But a string of regular punishments administered over a span of seven months could still be dangerous. After just one round of lashings, he could suffer lacerated or bruised skin. More serious problems are likely to arise after repeated, weekly abuse—including nerve damage and infection. Saudi Arabia does have some safeguards to protect the health of the person being lashed. For example, doctors inspect the medical condition of a prisoner ahead of time to determine whether he or she is fit to be lashed. (There tends not to be a post-lashing inspection.) And according to Islamic law, a flogger is supposed to hold a copy of the Quran under his arm to curb his range of motion and ensure that the strokes are not too powerful. Usually, the lashes are applied to the back, but they can also land on the legs and buttocks, according to firsthand reports. (The more varied the blows, the less likely they are to cause serious damage; hitting the same spot over and over increases the likelihood of breaking skin and causing infection.) More forceful whippings, like those often administered to slaves in pre-Civil War America, are much more dangerous. Lashes with a leather instrument or paddle and a full range of motion have the potential to cause permanent damage to the internal organs and muscles, severe blood loss, shock, and maybe death. If the doctor received his 1,500 weaker strokes all at once, rather than over a seven-month stretch, the outer layer of his skin would be shredded, and he'd be at even greater risk for serious infection. Few cases of death by lashing in the Muslim world have been reported. (People are lashed in non-Muslim countries as well—for instance, the Bahamas reinstituted flogging in 1991.) In 2004, a 14-year-old Iranian boy was killed while serving a sentence of 85 lashes; the person in charge of the punishment misfired, striking his head rather than his back, causing a brain hemorrhage. (A metal cable was used for the lashing in that case.) And in 1998, a Sudanese man was flogged to death by public-order police, but it's unclear how many lashes were administered and with what force. Saudi Arabia metes out by far the strictest lashing sentences in the Muslim world. Both Sudan and Iran employ the practice but usually stick to the more moderate 40 to 80 strokes prescribed in the Quran. The most severe lashing assigned by a modern Saudi Arabian judge took place in 2007, when two men received 7,000 strokes each as punishment for sodomy. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-14,23624021 Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:52:56 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23614519-Explainer-Brother-Can-You-Spare-a-Dinar Brother, Can You Spare a Dinar? What kind of lifestyle can an Iraqi neighborhood patrol officer afford? By Brian Palmer The Iraqi government this week assumed responsibility from the United States for paying the salaries of the Sons of Iraq, the formerly disaffected Sunnis who now serve as neighborhood patrol officers in cities throughout the country. Their monthly salary is approximately $300. How well can a Son of Iraq live on $300 in Baghdad? He'll need a roommate and some help from his family. Sons of Iraq who live on their own may have to avoid indulgences like air conditioning or chicken dinners. (Many rely on support payments from clans or tribal sheiks.) Rent alone can consume most of their budget. Real estate prices in Baghdad have skyrocketed. A two-bedroom apartment in a safe area currently costs around $400 per month. A small house in a lower-middle-class neighborhood is out of reach at $150,000. Real estate prices in many areas have doubled in the past year and continue... Brother, Can You Spare a Dinar? What kind of lifestyle can an Iraqi neighborhood patrol officer afford? By Brian Palmer The Iraqi government this week assumed responsibility from the United States for paying the salaries of the Sons of Iraq, the formerly disaffected Sunnis who now serve as neighborhood patrol officers in cities throughout the country. Their monthly salary is approximately $300. How well can a Son of Iraq live on $300 in Baghdad? He'll need a roommate and some help from his family. Sons of Iraq who live on their own may have to avoid indulgences like air conditioning or chicken dinners. (Many rely on support payments from clans or tribal sheiks.) Rent alone can consume most of their budget. Real estate prices in Baghdad have skyrocketed. A two-bedroom apartment in a safe area currently costs around $400 per month. A small house in a lower-middle-class neighborhood is out of reach at $150,000. Real estate prices in many areas have doubled in the past year and continue to climb due to security improvements and a housing shortage. Fortunately, basic food staples are affordable. The government's Public Distribution System supplies subsidized monthly food parcels to two-thirds of Iraqi citizens. For approximately 16 cents per month, recipients are entitled to a basket of 10 basic products, including flour, rice, sugar, salt, and cooking oil. The parcel supplies the minimum daily caloric intake requirement, but the central government has discussed steep cuts to the program. Other food items are expensive. A Son of Iraq earns less than 8 percent of the median U.S. law-enforcement officer's salary, but he pays close to the same prices for meats and vegetables. A pound of potatoes in Baghdad costs 75 cents, slightly more than the U.S. price of 67 cents per pound. A pound of chicken would cost a Son of Iraq $1.63, compared with an average U.S. price of $2.08. Electricity is supplied at low rates by the government, but it is unavailable for much of the day. During outages, residents turn to personal or neighborhood generators. The cost can run anywhere from $50 to $150 per month to run a fan, lights, and basic appliances. The cost of operating an air conditioner is too much for many Sons of Iraq, despite average highs of over 100 degrees in the hottest months. Inflation also threatens the already tenuous financial position of the Sons of Iraq. Last year, Iraq's 60 percent inflation was second in the world only to the incredible 100,000 percent inflation in Zimbabwe. In one month alone this year, Iraqi food prices rose by 13.6 percent. Relatively speaking, the Sons of Iraq are paid poorly for their line of work. Official Iraqi police officers and soldiers earn twice as much as the Sons of Iraq. The Sons' salary would be more comparable to that of a Baghdad butcher. However, many Sons of Iraq are illiterate or otherwise underqualified for official police work. The salary was also set in 2006, when the cost of living was lower, and the majority of the Sons lived in Anbar, a less expensive locale. Brother, Can You Spare a Dinar? What kind of lifestyle can an Iraqi neighborhood patrol officer afford? By Brian Palmer The Iraqi government this week assumed responsibility from the United States for paying the salaries of the Sons of Iraq, the formerly disaffected Sunnis who now serve as neighborhood patrol officers in cities throughout the country. Their monthly salary is approximately $300. How well can a Son of Iraq live on $300 in Baghdad? He'll need a roommate and some help from his family. Sons of Iraq who live on their own may have to avoid indulgences like air conditioning or chicken dinners. (Many rely on support payments from clans or tribal sheiks.) Rent alone can consume most of their budget. Real estate prices in Baghdad have skyrocketed. A two-bedroom apartment in a safe area currently costs around $400 per month. A small house in a lower-middle-class neighborhood is out of reach at $150,000. Real estate prices in many areas have doubled in the past year and continue to climb due to security improvements and a housing shortage. Fortunately, basic food staples are affordable. The government's Public Distribution System supplies subsidized monthly food parcels to two-thirds of Iraqi citizens. For approximately 16 cents per month, recipients are entitled to a basket of 10 basic products, including flour, rice, sugar, salt, and cooking oil. The parcel supplies the minimum daily caloric intake requirement, but the central government has discussed steep cuts to the program. Other food items are expensive. A Son of Iraq earns less than 8 percent of the median U.S. law-enforcement officer's salary, but he pays close to the same prices for meats and vegetables. A pound of potatoes in Baghdad costs 75 cents, slightly more than the U.S. price of 67 cents per pound. A pound of chicken would cost a Son of Iraq $1.63, compared with an average U.S. price of $2.08. Electricity is supplied at low rates by the government, but it is unavailable for much of the day. During outages, residents turn to personal or neighborhood generators. The cost can run anywhere from $50 to $150 per month to run a fan, lights, and basic appliances. The cost of operating an air conditioner is too much for many Sons of Iraq, despite average highs of over 100 degrees in the hottest months. Inflation also threatens the already tenuous financial position of the Sons of Iraq. Last year, Iraq's 60 percent inflation was second in the world only to the incredible 100,000 percent inflation in Zimbabwe. In one month alone this year, Iraqi food prices rose by 13.6 percent. Relatively speaking, the Sons of Iraq are paid poorly for their line of work. Official Iraqi police officers and soldiers earn twice as much as the Sons of Iraq. The Sons' salary would be more comparable to that of a Baghdad butcher. However, many Sons of Iraq are illiterate or otherwise underqualified for official police work. The salary was also set in 2006, when the cost of living was lower, and the majority of the Sons lived in Anbar, a less expensive locale. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-13,23614519 Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:38:15 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23610634-Explainer-Who-Stole-the-Cookie-From-the-Cookie-Jar Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar? The best way to interrogate a child. By Juliet Lapidos An 8-year-old Arizona boy charged with murdering his father and another man appeared in court on Monday. Police say the boy confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-caliber gun, but his defense attorneys told reporters that "there could have been improper interview techniques done." What's the "proper" way to interrogate a kid? With kid gloves. Based on the principle that juvenile suspects may not fully comprehend a Miranda warning, most states mandate some form of added protection for children under the age of 16. In at least 20 states, police must notify the child's guardian before questioning; and in at least 13 states, either a parent or an attorney must be present. Under Arizona law, the state carries the "burden of proof" in juvenile interrogation cases. That is, there's a presumption that the child's statements were made involuntarily unless a preponderance of evidence indicat... Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar? The best way to interrogate a child. By Juliet Lapidos An 8-year-old Arizona boy charged with murdering his father and another man appeared in court on Monday. Police say the boy confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-caliber gun, but his defense attorneys told reporters that "there could have been improper interview techniques done." What's the "proper" way to interrogate a kid? With kid gloves. Based on the principle that juvenile suspects may not fully comprehend a Miranda warning, most states mandate some form of added protection for children under the age of 16. In at least 20 states, police must notify the child's guardian before questioning; and in at least 13 states, either a parent or an attorney must be present. Under Arizona law, the state carries the "burden of proof" in juvenile interrogation cases. That is, there's a presumption that the child's statements were made involuntarily unless a preponderance of evidence indicates otherwise. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in State v. Jimenez that in determining whether a confession was voluntary (and therefore admissible), a court should evaluate the child's age, education, background, and intelligence, plus whether the child's parents were present, whether he was in good mental and physical health during the interrogations, and whether he has a mental illness. There's evidence to suggest that juvenile suspects are more likely than adults to make a false confession. A 2004 study of 326 exoneration cases found that 13 percent of adults had falsely confessed, compared with 44 percent of suspects under 18 years old. Among children between the ages of 12 and 15, the rate was 75 percent. After the 1989 beating and rape of a woman known as the Central Park jogger, five New York teenagers served prison sentences based on false confessions. In 1998, a 14-year-old boy named Michael Crowe admitted to stabbing his 12-year-old sister to death after he'd been interrogated for 10 hours over two days. Before the murder trial began, however, the charges were dropped, with the judge ruling that the police had made "illegal promises of leniency"—telling Michael he'd get "help" if he confessed and that he'd go to jail if he didn't. (Click here for video footage of the interrogation.) Law-enforcement officers are often trained to conduct interrogations using the Reid Technique, which involves direct confrontation, physical gestures to appear concerned, and preventing the accused from denying the crime outright. Practitioners are encouraged to use the same methods for children as for adults. This helps explain why children are more likely to offer up false confessions. Children, psychologists argue, are more suggestible than adults and thus more easily swayed by leading questions. They're also more influenced by short-term guarantees—"You can go home right away if you confess"—than by longer-term consequences like 10 years in prison. Third, juveniles are more likely to display behavior that interrogators read as "deceptive," such as saying "I swear" a lot and not making eye contact. Reformers advocate better preparation for police officers as well as mandatory recording of interrogations. Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar? The best way to interrogate a child. By Juliet Lapidos An 8-year-old Arizona boy charged with murdering his father and another man appeared in court on Monday. Police say the boy confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-caliber gun, but his defense attorneys told reporters that "there could have been improper interview techniques done." What's the "proper" way to interrogate a kid? With kid gloves. Based on the principle that juvenile suspects may not fully comprehend a Miranda warning, most states mandate some form of added protection for children under the age of 16. In at least 20 states, police must notify the child's guardian before questioning; and in at least 13 states, either a parent or an attorney must be present. Under Arizona law, the state carries the "burden of proof" in juvenile interrogation cases. That is, there's a presumption that the child's statements were made involuntarily unless a preponderance of evidence indicates otherwise. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in State v. Jimenez that in determining whether a confession was voluntary (and therefore admissible), a court should evaluate the child's age, education, background, and intelligence, plus whether the child's parents were present, whether he was in good mental and physical health during the interrogations, and whether he has a mental illness. There's evidence to suggest that juvenile suspects are more likely than adults to make a false confession. A 2004 study of 326 exoneration cases found that 13 percent of adults had falsely confessed, compared with 44 percent of suspects under 18 years old. Among children between the ages of 12 and 15, the rate was 75 percent. After the 1989 beating and rape of a woman known as the Central Park jogger, five New York teenagers served prison sentences based on false confessions. In 1998, a 14-year-old boy named Michael Crowe admitted to stabbing his 12-year-old sister to death after he'd been interrogated for 10 hours over two days. Before the murder trial began, however, the charges were dropped, with the judge ruling that the police had made "illegal promises of leniency"—telling Michael he'd get "help" if he confessed and that he'd go to jail if he didn't. (Click here for video footage of the interrogation.) Law-enforcement officers are often trained to conduct interrogations using the Reid Technique, which involves direct confrontation, physical gestures to appear concerned, and preventing the accused from denying the crime outright. Practitioners are encouraged to use the same methods for children as for adults. This helps explain why children are more likely to offer up false confessions. Children, psychologists argue, are more suggestible than adults and thus more easily swayed by leading questions. They're also more influenced by short-term guarantees—"You can go home right away if you confess"—than by longer-term consequences like 10 years in prison. Third, juveniles are more likely to display behavior that interrogators read as "deceptive," such as saying "I swear" a lot and not making eye contact. Reformers advocate better preparation for police officers as well as mandatory recording of interrogations. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-12,23610634 Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:12:48 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23605015-Explainer-Cyberspace-Invaders Cyberspace Invaders Is a cyber-attack an act of war? By Christopher Beam Chinese hackers have breached the White House computer network on numerous occasions, the Financial Times reported Thursday. Officials believe the attacks may be sponsored by the Chinese government. Is a cyber-attack by a foreign government an act of war? It depends on the context. An "act of war" is defined in the U.S. Code as any act that occurs during declared war or during armed conflict between two countries (although President Bush did call the Sept. 11 attacks an "act of war"). So, technically, if a cyber-attack occurs during a war, it's an act of war; if not, it's not. Whether or not a cyber-attack is grounds for war depends on the nature of hackers' intentions: to spy, by stealing secrets, or to disrupt national infrastructure. Most governments consider espionage—the collecting of information about another country—a crime but not a casus belli. But sabotage—say, pulling down a power grid that serves hu... Cyberspace Invaders Is a cyber-attack an act of war? By Christopher Beam Chinese hackers have breached the White House computer network on numerous occasions, the Financial Times reported Thursday. Officials believe the attacks may be sponsored by the Chinese government. Is a cyber-attack by a foreign government an act of war? It depends on the context. An "act of war" is defined in the U.S. Code as any act that occurs during declared war or during armed conflict between two countries (although President Bush did call the Sept. 11 attacks an "act of war"). So, technically, if a cyber-attack occurs during a war, it's an act of war; if not, it's not. Whether or not a cyber-attack is grounds for war depends on the nature of hackers' intentions: to spy, by stealing secrets, or to disrupt national infrastructure. Most governments consider espionage—the collecting of information about another country—a crime but not a casus belli. But sabotage—say, pulling down a power grid that serves hundreds of cities—could be construed as one. So far, no cyber-attack has ever started a war. That's because the vast majority of attacks qualify as espionage. In 2007, hackers infiltrated the Pentagon's unclassified e-mail system. The World Bank, with its troves of financial information about foreign governments, has been invaded several times. When a U.S. trade official traveled to China in 2007, foreign spyware programs were reportedly discovered on some of his electronic devices. Hackers targeted both the Obama and McCain campaigns with cyber-attacks, presumably to cull strategic information about the future president. Organized crime is active online, too, but usually the goal is profit, not access to classified information. Another reason governments rarely treat cyber-attacks as acts of war is that they're so hard to trace. The 1999 "Moonlight Maze" incident, in which hackers stole files from the Department of Defense, was traced to computers in Russia. But the Kremlin denied involvement, and the case remains unsolved. There's also a risk that you'll finger the wrong guy. A 1998 investigation called "Solar Sunrise" initially led intelligence officials to suspect Iraq in a series of breaches of Department of Defense computers. It turned out to be the handiwork of two teenagers in Northern California. Compared with the rules of actual warfare—which are recognized by international treaties—the rules of cyber-warfare are murky. In 2007, the Bush administration announced a National Cyber Security Initiative that would, in part, codify the consequences of cyber-attacks on the United States. But the specifics of the doctrine remain classified. (A Senate committee criticized the initiative for its secrecy, arguing that deterrence works only if the enemy knows what the policy is.) Other countries have pushed for a more explicit cyber-doctrine. Estonia, which fell victim to a massive foreign cyber-attack in 2007, created a Cyber Defense Center in cooperation with other NATO countries and urged NATO and the U.N. to establish a doctrine that covers cyber-warfare. Meanwhile, China has been blunt about its ambitions. A Pentagon report from 2007 concluded that while China doesn't have an official cyber-doctrine, it has declared its intent to achieve "electromagnetic dominance" over its opponents and has developed viruses to attack enemy computers. Cyberspace Invaders Is a cyber-attack an act of war? By Christopher Beam Chinese hackers have breached the White House computer network on numerous occasions, the Financial Times reported Thursday. Officials believe the attacks may be sponsored by the Chinese government. Is a cyber-attack by a foreign government an act of war? It depends on the context. An "act of war" is defined in the U.S. Code as any act that occurs during declared war or during armed conflict between two countries (although President Bush did call the Sept. 11 attacks an "act of war"). So, technically, if a cyber-attack occurs during a war, it's an act of war; if not, it's not. Whether or not a cyber-attack is grounds for war depends on the nature of hackers' intentions: to spy, by stealing secrets, or to disrupt national infrastructure. Most governments consider espionage—the collecting of information about another country—a crime but not a casus belli. But sabotage—say, pulling down a power grid that serves hundreds of cities—could be construed as one. So far, no cyber-attack has ever started a war. That's because the vast majority of attacks qualify as espionage. In 2007, hackers infiltrated the Pentagon's unclassified e-mail system. The World Bank, with its troves of financial information about foreign governments, has been invaded several times. When a U.S. trade official traveled to China in 2007, foreign spyware programs were reportedly discovered on some of his electronic devices. Hackers targeted both the Obama and McCain campaigns with cyber-attacks, presumably to cull strategic information about the future president. Organized crime is active online, too, but usually the goal is profit, not access to classified information. Another reason governments rarely treat cyber-attacks as acts of war is that they're so hard to trace. The 1999 "Moonlight Maze" incident, in which hackers stole files from the Department of Defense, was traced to computers in Russia. But the Kremlin denied involvement, and the case remains unsolved. There's also a risk that you'll finger the wrong guy. A 1998 investigation called "Solar Sunrise" initially led intelligence officials to suspect Iraq in a series of breaches of Department of Defense computers. It turned out to be the handiwork of two teenagers in Northern California. Compared with the rules of actual warfare—which are recognized by international treaties—the rules of cyber-warfare are murky. In 2007, the Bush administration announced a National Cyber Security Initiative that would, in part, codify the consequences of cyber-attacks on the United States. But the specifics of the doctrine remain classified. (A Senate committee criticized the initiative for its secrecy, arguing that deterrence works only if the enemy knows what the policy is.) Other countries have pushed for a more explicit cyber-doctrine. Estonia, which fell victim to a massive foreign cyber-attack in 2007, created a Cyber Defense Center in cooperation with other NATO countries and urged NATO and the U.N. to establish a doctrine that covers cyber-warfare. Meanwhile, China has been blunt about its ambitions. A Pentagon report from 2007 concluded that while China doesn't have an official cyber-doctrine, it has declared its intent to achieve "electromagnetic dominance" over its opponents and has developed viruses to attack enemy computers. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-11,23605015 Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:45:11 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23590970-Explainer-What-Happens-to-All-the-Ballots-From-Election-Day What Happens to All the Ballots From Election Day? They'll likely be shredded by Christmas of 2010. By Jacob Leibenluft With all but a few House and Senate races decided, election officials around the country are finishing up the process of counting the vote. When all is said and done, those officials will have processed more than 120 million ballots. What happens to them after they've been tallied up? They'll be stored until at least September 2010. According to U.S. code, ballots and other records related to any federal election—that means for president, U.S. Senate, or U.S. House of Representatives—must be kept for at least 22 months. Beyond that, it's up to the state to decide what to do with them. In most cases, the details of ballot storage during that interval are left up to local election boards. In Arkansas, for example, board of election commissioners in each county keep the ballots for 20 days, after which point they can place them in a secured area in the county courthou... What Happens to All the Ballots From Election Day? They'll likely be shredded by Christmas of 2010. By Jacob Leibenluft With all but a few House and Senate races decided, election officials around the country are finishing up the process of counting the vote. When all is said and done, those officials will have processed more than 120 million ballots. What happens to them after they've been tallied up? They'll be stored until at least September 2010. According to U.S. code, ballots and other records related to any federal election—that means for president, U.S. Senate, or U.S. House of Representatives—must be kept for at least 22 months. Beyond that, it's up to the state to decide what to do with them. In most cases, the details of ballot storage during that interval are left up to local election boards. In Arkansas, for example, board of election commissioners in each county keep the ballots for 20 days, after which point they can place them in a secured area in the county courthouse or a government warehouse. After two years, the ballots may be destroyed. State laws don't typically say how to destroy an old ballot. (In Maine, for example, the rule simply dictates that they be "destroyed using a method that makes the contents unreadable." [PDF]) Conversations with election officials at a half-dozen locations across the country revealed that shredding appears to be the method of choice. (Sending ballots straight to a recycling center is another option.) The Ohio secretary of state issued a more specific directive last year (PDF) requiring that voter registration materials, including personal information like absentee ballot applications, be either destroyed with a "criss-cross shredder" or sent to a "qualified, certified and bonded document disposal business." Most of the time, this process of storing and then destroying the ballots is pretty mundane. But in a couple of recent cases, critics have questioned whether 22 months is long enough. After the Florida recount, lawyers and historians made the case that the ballots should be kept for posterity's sake; today, members of the public can stop by and view them at the Florida State Archives. (See this Explainer from the days immediately following the recount for details of the original plans for storing the ballots.) In Ohio, a judge presiding over a lawsuit brought by groups alleging voter suppression and fraud during the 2004 election ordered that the county boards keep ballots past September 2006, when their 22-month period expired. But documents obtained by the plaintiffs show that in many Ohio counties, the ballots weren't all kept as mandated—an error officials blamed on miscommunications following the judge's order. Bonus Explainer: Nationally, 98 percent of precincts had reported their election results as of early Thursday afternoon, according to CNN. But Oregon and Washington are both listed as having at least 20 percent of votes outstanding. How come the Northwest states are so slow to count their votes? Because most voters there vote by mail. That makes counting the votes a much longer process, as election officials must verify more information and handle more paper. Moreover, while election results typically refer to the percent of precincts reporting, that number doesn't really apply in Washington or Oregon. In Oregon, where the ballots must arrive by Election Day, the "percent reported" number refers to the percentage of ballots counted compared with the number of registered voters in the state. So unless every voter casts a ballot, that number will never reach 100 percent. (Officials expect turnout will be closer to 85 percent this year.) In Washington, things are even more complicated; voters there only need to postmark their ballots by Election Day, so counties may have to wait a few days to receive every vote. What Happens to All the Ballots From Election Day? They'll likely be shredded by Christmas of 2010. By Jacob Leibenluft With all but a few House and Senate races decided, election officials around the country are finishing up the process of counting the vote. When all is said and done, those officials will have processed more than 120 million ballots. What happens to them after they've been tallied up? They'll be stored until at least September 2010. According to U.S. code, ballots and other records related to any federal election—that means for president, U.S. Senate, or U.S. House of Representatives—must be kept for at least 22 months. Beyond that, it's up to the state to decide what to do with them. In most cases, the details of ballot storage during that interval are left up to local election boards. In Arkansas, for example, board of election commissioners in each county keep the ballots for 20 days, after which point they can place them in a secured area in the county courthouse or a government warehouse. After two years, the ballots may be destroyed. State laws don't typically say how to destroy an old ballot. (In Maine, for example, the rule simply dictates that they be "destroyed using a method that makes the contents unreadable." [PDF]) Conversations with election officials at a half-dozen locations across the country revealed that shredding appears to be the method of choice. (Sending ballots straight to a recycling center is another option.) The Ohio secretary of state issued a more specific directive last year (PDF) requiring that voter registration materials, including personal information like absentee ballot applications, be either destroyed with a "criss-cross shredder" or sent to a "qualified, certified and bonded document disposal business." Most of the time, this process of storing and then destroying the ballots is pretty mundane. But in a couple of recent cases, critics have questioned whether 22 months is long enough. After the Florida recount, lawyers and historians made the case that the ballots should be kept for posterity's sake; today, members of the public can stop by and view them at the Florida State Archives. (See this Explainer from the days immediately following the recount for details of the original plans for storing the ballots.) In Ohio, a judge presiding over a lawsuit brought by groups alleging voter suppression and fraud during the 2004 election ordered that the county boards keep ballots past September 2006, when their 22-month period expired. But documents obtained by the plaintiffs show that in many Ohio counties, the ballots weren't all kept as mandated—an error officials blamed on miscommunications following the judge's order. Bonus Explainer: Nationally, 98 percent of precincts had reported their election results as of early Thursday afternoon, according to CNN. But Oregon and Washington are both listed as having at least 20 percent of votes outstanding. How come the Northwest states are so slow to count their votes? Because most voters there vote by mail. That makes counting the votes a much longer process, as election officials must verify more information and handle more paper. Moreover, while election results typically refer to the percent of precincts reporting, that number doesn't really apply in Washington or Oregon. In Oregon, where the ballots must arrive by Election Day, the "percent reported" number refers to the percentage of ballots counted compared with the number of registered voters in the state. So unless every voter casts a ballot, that number will never reach 100 percent. (Officials expect turnout will be closer to 85 percent this year.) In Washington, things are even more complicated; voters there only need to postmark their ballots by Election Day, so counties may have to wait a few days to receive every vote. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-07,23590970 Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:00:52 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23587295-Explainer-The-Presidential-Transition-FAQ The Presidential Transition FAQ Does the president-elect get to ride around in Air Force One-elect? And other questions … By Juliet Lapidos Speaking from the White House Rose Garden this morning, President Bush promised a smooth changing of the guard between his outgoing administration and Barack Obama's incoming one: "During this time of transition," he said, "I will keep the president-elect fully informed of important decisions." The 77-day lame-duck interlude between today and Jan. 20 raised a slew of questions for Explainer readers: Who pays for the transition team? Taxpayers. Before the passage of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, the president- and vice-president-elect and their party raised private money to support the changeover. As Rep. Dante Fascell of Florida put it during House floor debates, "It just does not seem proper and necessary to have [the president- and vice-president-elect] going around begging for money to pay for the cost of what ought to be the legit... The Presidential Transition FAQ Does the president-elect get to ride around in Air Force One-elect? And other questions … By Juliet Lapidos Speaking from the White House Rose Garden this morning, President Bush promised a smooth changing of the guard between his outgoing administration and Barack Obama's incoming one: "During this time of transition," he said, "I will keep the president-elect fully informed of important decisions." The 77-day lame-duck interlude between today and Jan. 20 raised a slew of questions for Explainer readers: Who pays for the transition team? Taxpayers. Before the passage of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, the president- and vice-president-elect and their party raised private money to support the changeover. As Rep. Dante Fascell of Florida put it during House floor debates, "It just does not seem proper and necessary to have [the president- and vice-president-elect] going around begging for money to pay for the cost of what ought to be the legitimate costs of Government." The General Services Administration, the agency tasked with doling out funds, had $7.1 million at its disposal for the 2000-01 transition, including $1.83 million for the outgoing Clinton administration, $4.27 million for the incoming Bush team, and a $1 million cushion for any additional expenses incurred. This year, the budget provides $8.52 million. Private donors contribute, too. This year, for example, the Obama campaign created a nonprofit entity called the "Obama Transition Project," which accepts donations up to $5,000 for transition-related expenses. Where does the transition team work? The GSA has already prepared a 120,000 square-foot space in downtown Washington, D.C., for Obama's committee. Since the 500 or so people who will work on the transition aren't yet federal employees, they don't have access to secure government computer networks. But the GSA has set up a separate network with access to e-mail and shared servers. Some transition team members work out of the president-elect's home-state election headquarters—in this case, Illinois. Does the president-elect get to fly around in a special plane, like an Air Force One-elect? Not really. Bush gets to keep his exclusive seat aboard Air Force One until inauguration day. The Obama team may use Transition Act funds to charter a plane or hire cars. When does the president-elect start getting intelligence briefings? Right away. Key CIA officials met on Wednesday to discuss the transition, and on Thursday National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell will give Obama his first briefing. After an initial lay-of-the-land chat, the CIA will provide Obama with critical overnight intelligence and clue him in to any ongoing covert operations. As Obama puts together his administration, the Joint Staff transition team—which includes representatives from the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy—will prepare briefings on developments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mechanics of managing the military, and disaster management. The Presidential Transition FAQ Does the president-elect get to ride around in Air Force One-elect? And other questions … By Juliet Lapidos Speaking from the White House Rose Garden this morning, President Bush promised a smooth changing of the guard between his outgoing administration and Barack Obama's incoming one: "During this time of transition," he said, "I will keep the president-elect fully informed of important decisions." The 77-day lame-duck interlude between today and Jan. 20 raised a slew of questions for Explainer readers: Who pays for the transition team? Taxpayers. Before the passage of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, the president- and vice-president-elect and their party raised private money to support the changeover. As Rep. Dante Fascell of Florida put it during House floor debates, "It just does not seem proper and necessary to have [the president- and vice-president-elect] going around begging for money to pay for the cost of what ought to be the legitimate costs of Government." The General Services Administration, the agency tasked with doling out funds, had $7.1 million at its disposal for the 2000-01 transition, including $1.83 million for the outgoing Clinton administration, $4.27 million for the incoming Bush team, and a $1 million cushion for any additional expenses incurred. This year, the budget provides $8.52 million. Private donors contribute, too. This year, for example, the Obama campaign created a nonprofit entity called the "Obama Transition Project," which accepts donations up to $5,000 for transition-related expenses. Where does the transition team work? The GSA has already prepared a 120,000 square-foot space in downtown Washington, D.C., for Obama's committee. Since the 500 or so people who will work on the transition aren't yet federal employees, they don't have access to secure government computer networks. But the GSA has set up a separate network with access to e-mail and shared servers. Some transition team members work out of the president-elect's home-state election headquarters—in this case, Illinois. Does the president-elect get to fly around in a special plane, like an Air Force One-elect? Not really. Bush gets to keep his exclusive seat aboard Air Force One until inauguration day. The Obama team may use Transition Act funds to charter a plane or hire cars. When does the president-elect start getting intelligence briefings? Right away. Key CIA officials met on Wednesday to discuss the transition, and on Thursday National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell will give Obama his first briefing. After an initial lay-of-the-land chat, the CIA will provide Obama with critical overnight intelligence and clue him in to any ongoing covert operations. As Obama puts together his administration, the Joint Staff transition team—which includes representatives from the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy—will prepare briefings on developments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mechanics of managing the military, and disaster management. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-06,23587295 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:53:14 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23584422-Explainer-Is-Free-Coffee-Against-the-Law Slate Magazine Podcast Slate Magazine Podcast Slate Magazine Podcast tag:odeo.com,2008-11-05,23584422 Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:36:04 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23577713-Explainer-Voting-From-the-Hospital Voting From the Hospital I got hit by a car over the weekend. Can I still cast a ballot on Election Day? By Nina Shen Rastogi Over the three days leading up to Election Day, close to a million Americans are likely to have been admitted to hospital emergency rooms. Many of those will end up confined to a bed throughout the course of the presidential election polling on Tuesday. Since the deadline for applying for mail-in absentee ballots was last week in most states, are these sick and injured people disenfranchised, too? No, but they'll need to get an "emergency absentee ballot." Like everything election-related, the process for obtaining one varies from state to state and sometimes from county to county. In New York, for example, you need to send a representative (like your spouse or your mom) to the Board of Elections with a regular absentee-ballot application—available online—along with a letter, signed by you, explaining your situation. Your proxy can then bring you an emergency... Voting From the Hospital I got hit by a car over the weekend. Can I still cast a ballot on Election Day? By Nina Shen Rastogi Over the three days leading up to Election Day, close to a million Americans are likely to have been admitted to hospital emergency rooms. Many of those will end up confined to a bed throughout the course of the presidential election polling on Tuesday. Since the deadline for applying for mail-in absentee ballots was last week in most states, are these sick and injured people disenfranchised, too? No, but they'll need to get an "emergency absentee ballot." Like everything election-related, the process for obtaining one varies from state to state and sometimes from county to county. In New York, for example, you need to send a representative (like your spouse or your mom) to the Board of Elections with a regular absentee-ballot application—available online—along with a letter, signed by you, explaining your situation. Your proxy can then bring you an emergency ballot, which must be returned to the board office by 9 p.m. on Election Day. The process is more onerous in Virginia. There, you have to request an application first, then return a signed version and have it verified by local election officials before you can get your bandaged hands on a ballot. A designated representative must watch you complete your ballot and fill out a witness statement to that effect before ferrying the whole package over to the registrar's office by close of polls. (You'll also need a doctor's note.) Pennsylvania makes you or your representative go to court if your accident occurred after 5 p.m. on the Friday before elections. In West Virginia and Nevada, on the other hand, the mountain comes to Mohammed: In those states, you can request to have election commissioners dispatched to the hospital to collect your ballot. Kentucky's laws allow for a hospitalized voter's spouse to get an emergency ballot, too. A few states—Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Texas—and the District of Columbia have jumped into the digital age and offer downloadable emergency-ballot applications. However, these documents must still be printed out and submitted by mail or in person. If you can manage to get yourself into an ambulance or family member's car, you may be able to vote curbside at your registered polling place. To find out what the rules are in your county, check with your secretary of state or your local election office. Voting From the Hospital I got hit by a car over the weekend. Can I still cast a ballot on Election Day? By Nina Shen Rastogi Over the three days leading up to Election Day, close to a million Americans are likely to have been admitted to hospital emergency rooms. Many of those will end up confined to a bed throughout the course of the presidential election polling on Tuesday. Since the deadline for applying for mail-in absentee ballots was last week in most states, are these sick and injured people disenfranchised, too? No, but they'll need to get an "emergency absentee ballot." Like everything election-related, the process for obtaining one varies from state to state and sometimes from county to county. In New York, for example, you need to send a representative (like your spouse or your mom) to the Board of Elections with a regular absentee-ballot application—available online—along with a letter, signed by you, explaining your situation. Your proxy can then bring you an emergency ballot, which must be returned to the board office by 9 p.m. on Election Day. The process is more onerous in Virginia. There, you have to request an application first, then return a signed version and have it verified by local election officials before you can get your bandaged hands on a ballot. A designated representative must watch you complete your ballot and fill out a witness statement to that effect before ferrying the whole package over to the registrar's office by close of polls. (You'll also need a doctor's note.) Pennsylvania makes you or your representative go to court if your accident occurred after 5 p.m. on the Friday before elections. In West Virginia and Nevada, on the other hand, the mountain comes to Mohammed: In those states, you can request to have election commissioners dispatched to the hospital to collect your ballot. Kentucky's laws allow for a hospitalized voter's spouse to get an emergency ballot, too. A few states—Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Texas—and the District of Columbia have jumped into the digital age and offer downloadable emergency-ballot applications. However, these documents must still be printed out and submitted by mail or in person. If you can manage to get yourself into an ambulance or family member's car, you may be able to vote curbside at your registered polling place. To find out what the rules are in your county, check with your secretary of state or your local election office. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-04,23577713 Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:35:29 -0800 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23558823-Explainer-McCain-s-Secret-Polls McCain's Secret Polls Why do a campaign's internal numbers look so different from the public data? By Jacob Leibenluft Most public polls find Barack Obama with double-digit leads in Iowa and Pennsylvania, but members of the McCain campaign cite internal numbers showing a tight race. A campaign might have its own reasons for releasing numbers that favor its cause, but is there any other reason why internal polls might differ from the ones produced for the public? Not really. In general, media organizations and private campaign pollsters compile their numbers in the same way. But there are a few key differences. First, a newspaper or TV station might be more likely find their respondents with random-digit dialing—calling any phone number that works and then asking whoever picks up whether he or she is registered to vote. Campaign pollsters often save time by pulling their samples from a list of all registered voters. In theory, the pollsters who use the voter files run the risk of mis... McCain's Secret Polls Why do a campaign's internal numbers look so different from the public data? By Jacob Leibenluft Most public polls find Barack Obama with double-digit leads in Iowa and Pennsylvania, but members of the McCain campaign cite internal numbers showing a tight race. A campaign might have its own reasons for releasing numbers that favor its cause, but is there any other reason why internal polls might differ from the ones produced for the public? Not really. In general, media organizations and private campaign pollsters compile their numbers in the same way. But there are a few key differences. First, a newspaper or TV station might be more likely find their respondents with random-digit dialing—calling any phone number that works and then asking whoever picks up whether he or she is registered to vote. Campaign pollsters often save time by pulling their samples from a list of all registered voters. In theory, the pollsters who use the voter files run the risk of missing voters whose information isn't up-to-date, but a study by two Yale professors (PDF) using data from the 2002 elections suggested that these samples were actually a little more accurate than those collected via random phone calls. Still, the difference between the two methods probably wouldn't affect the outcome all that much, particularly given all the challenges in figuring out who counts as a "likely" voter, anyway. Campaign polls may differ more in their specific focus. At the state level, public polls tend to look primarily at the "top-line" numbers—which candidate is winning overall. An internal poll may ask more questions about voters' demographics, their political leanings, and how they feel about the issues or the candidates. So even if the top-line numbers suggest that a candidate is losing, a campaign pollster could find data that suggest a shift in the race is imminent. A memo released by McCain's pollster Bill McInturff this week falls into that category: McInturff never mentions national head-to-head numbers but, instead, argues that McCain is gaining support among rural voters, non-college-educated men, and "Wal-Mart women." (Internal polls sometimes go on to test a campaign message—for example, by giving a series of statements about the candidates and seeing how voters react. A pollster following ethical standards is obligated to say so if their results are skewed by those messages.) Even if public polls and internal polls were conducted in exactly the same way, the results we hear about might still be different for a simple reason: Campaigns like to release only good news. Given that there will be a certain amount of random noise from poll to poll, the same methodology could produce several polls with different outcomes. In that case, a media organization would release all the numbers, while the campaign pollster might leak only the data that show his candidate winning. Two different analyses (PDF) using data from the early 2000s found a bias of a few percentage points among partisan polls that had been released to the public—although it's worth noting that outside pollsters can also have a so-called "house effect," favoring one party or another throughout a given year. McCain's Secret Polls Why do a campaign's internal numbers look so different from the public data? By Jacob Leibenluft Most public polls find Barack Obama with double-digit leads in Iowa and Pennsylvania, but members of the McCain campaign cite internal numbers showing a tight race. A campaign might have its own reasons for releasing numbers that favor its cause, but is there any other reason why internal polls might differ from the ones produced for the public? Not really. In general, media organizations and private campaign pollsters compile their numbers in the same way. But there are a few key differences. First, a newspaper or TV station might be more likely find their respondents with random-digit dialing—calling any phone number that works and then asking whoever picks up whether he or she is registered to vote. Campaign pollsters often save time by pulling their samples from a list of all registered voters. In theory, the pollsters who use the voter files run the risk of missing voters whose information isn't up-to-date, but a study by two Yale professors (PDF) using data from the 2002 elections suggested that these samples were actually a little more accurate than those collected via random phone calls. Still, the difference between the two methods probably wouldn't affect the outcome all that much, particularly given all the challenges in figuring out who counts as a "likely" voter, anyway. Campaign polls may differ more in their specific focus. At the state level, public polls tend to look primarily at the "top-line" numbers—which candidate is winning overall. An internal poll may ask more questions about voters' demographics, their political leanings, and how they feel about the issues or the candidates. So even if the top-line numbers suggest that a candidate is losing, a campaign pollster could find data that suggest a shift in the race is imminent. A memo released by McCain's pollster Bill McInturff this week falls into that category: McInturff never mentions national head-to-head numbers but, instead, argues that McCain is gaining support among rural voters, non-college-educated men, and "Wal-Mart women." (Internal polls sometimes go on to test a campaign message—for example, by giving a series of statements about the candidates and seeing how voters react. A pollster following ethical standards is obligated to say so if their results are skewed by those messages.) Even if public polls and internal polls were conducted in exactly the same way, the results we hear about might still be different for a simple reason: Campaigns like to release only good news. Given that there will be a certain amount of random noise from poll to poll, the same methodology could produce several polls with different outcomes. In that case, a media organization would release all the numbers, while the campaign pollster might leak only the data that show his candidate winning. Two different analyses (PDF) using data from the early 2000s found a bias of a few percentage points among partisan polls that had been released to the public—although it's worth noting that outside pollsters can also have a so-called "house effect," favoring one party or another throughout a given year. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-31,23558823 Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:01:46 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23550840-Explainer-Must-Obama-Prove-He-s-a-Natural-Born-Citizen Must Obama Prove He's a Natural-Born Citizen? The flimsy rules on eligibility standards for presidential candidates. By Christopher Beam A federal judge in Pennsylvania this week threw out a lawsuit that challenged Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidency by claiming he's not a U.S. citizen. A California judge tossed out a similar lawsuit in September, after a member of the state's American Independent Party claimed John McCain was not a "natural-born citizen." Do presidential candidates have to prove their eligibility for office before they get on the ballot? No. Ballot access rules vary by state, but in general, you don't have to prove eligibility unless someone challenges it. Article II of the U.S. Constitution requires that a presidential candidate be a "natural born citizen"—in other words, a citizen born in this country (as opposed to a naturalized citizen born overseas). You also have to be at least 35 and have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years. But none of the 50 ... Must Obama Prove He's a Natural-Born Citizen? The flimsy rules on eligibility standards for presidential candidates. By Christopher Beam A federal judge in Pennsylvania this week threw out a lawsuit that challenged Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidency by claiming he's not a U.S. citizen. A California judge tossed out a similar lawsuit in September, after a member of the state's American Independent Party claimed John McCain was not a "natural-born citizen." Do presidential candidates have to prove their eligibility for office before they get on the ballot? No. Ballot access rules vary by state, but in general, you don't have to prove eligibility unless someone challenges it. Article II of the U.S. Constitution requires that a presidential candidate be a "natural born citizen"—in other words, a citizen born in this country (as opposed to a naturalized citizen born overseas). You also have to be at least 35 and have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years. But none of the 50 states asks for birth certificates or long-term residency documents to prove that a candidate qualifies for a spot on the ballot. (Obama released a copy of his birth certificate, anyway.) Instead, they take the major parties' word for it. In presidential primary elections, most states put "generally recognized candidates" on the ballot automatically. California, for example, recognizes candidates who qualify for federal matching funds, appear in public-opinion polls, "campaign actively" in California, and appear on other states' ballots. Presidential electors usually do have to affirm their eligibility—by demonstrating that they are over 18, registered voters, and state residents. The candidates themselves face no such requirements. Third-party candidates, however, do have to show some ID. In Maryland, anyone who wants to get on the presidential primary ballot but isn't "generally recognized" (as vaguely defined by the state) has to sign a Certificate of Candidacy affirming, "I meet the qualification for the above mentioned office as set forth in applicable law." Illinois, too, requires independent candidates to affirm that they are "legally qualified … to hold such office." Violation is considered perjury. (If you really want to burnish your cred, Illinois has an optional loyalty oath.) Eligibility requirements are different for state and local offices. Candidates for the House of Representatives must be at least 25 years old. Senators have to be 30. Residency requirements vary: In Virginia, congressmen have to live in their district; in California, they don't. Most states require candidates to affirm that they meet the requirements. Virginia, for example, asks House candidates to swear that they're 25, they live in their district, they've never been convicted of a felony, and they've been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years. How do you challenge a candidate's eligibility for president or any other office? You have two options: report them to your secretary of state or take them to court. Some Secretary of State offices have investigation units that handle fraud, and investigations can lead to felony charges. Taking candidates to court is trickier. For one thing, you need "standing"—proof that the candidate's actions harm you. A federal judge ruled recently that ordinary citizens don't qualify for standing, and Congress would have to pass a law to change that. Political parties, on the other hand, might have a better chance in court, since they would clearly get hurt if an ineligible opponent won. Must Obama Prove He's a Natural-Born Citizen? The flimsy rules on eligibility standards for presidential candidates. By Christopher Beam A federal judge in Pennsylvania this week threw out a lawsuit that challenged Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidency by claiming he's not a U.S. citizen. A California judge tossed out a similar lawsuit in September, after a member of the state's American Independent Party claimed John McCain was not a "natural-born citizen." Do presidential candidates have to prove their eligibility for office before they get on the ballot? No. Ballot access rules vary by state, but in general, you don't have to prove eligibility unless someone challenges it. Article II of the U.S. Constitution requires that a presidential candidate be a "natural born citizen"—in other words, a citizen born in this country (as opposed to a naturalized citizen born overseas). You also have to be at least 35 and have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years. But none of the 50 states asks for birth certificates or long-term residency documents to prove that a candidate qualifies for a spot on the ballot. (Obama released a copy of his birth certificate, anyway.) Instead, they take the major parties' word for it. In presidential primary elections, most states put "generally recognized candidates" on the ballot automatically. California, for example, recognizes candidates who qualify for federal matching funds, appear in public-opinion polls, "campaign actively" in California, and appear on other states' ballots. Presidential electors usually do have to affirm their eligibility—by demonstrating that they are over 18, registered voters, and state residents. The candidates themselves face no such requirements. Third-party candidates, however, do have to show some ID. In Maryland, anyone who wants to get on the presidential primary ballot but isn't "generally recognized" (as vaguely defined by the state) has to sign a Certificate of Candidacy affirming, "I meet the qualification for the above mentioned office as set forth in applicable law." Illinois, too, requires independent candidates to affirm that they are "legally qualified … to hold such office." Violation is considered perjury. (If you really want to burnish your cred, Illinois has an optional loyalty oath.) Eligibility requirements are different for state and local offices. Candidates for the House of Representatives must be at least 25 years old. Senators have to be 30. Residency requirements vary: In Virginia, congressmen have to live in their district; in California, they don't. Most states require candidates to affirm that they meet the requirements. Virginia, for example, asks House candidates to swear that they're 25, they live in their district, they've never been convicted of a felony, and they've been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years. How do you challenge a candidate's eligibility for president or any other office? You have two options: report them to your secretary of state or take them to court. Some Secretary of State offices have investigation units that handle fraud, and investigations can lead to felony charges. Taking candidates to court is trickier. For one thing, you need "standing"—proof that the candidate's actions harm you. A federal judge ruled recently that ordinary citizens don't qualify for standing, and Congress would have to pass a law to change that. Political parties, on the other hand, might have a better chance in court, since they would clearly get hurt if an ineligible opponent won. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-30,23550840 Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:58:22 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23545675-Explainer-Will-Early-Voting-Skew-Exit-Polls Will Early Voting Skew Exit Polls? No. By Juliet Lapidos More than 30 states allow no-excuse early voting, either by mail or in person, and this year one-third of the electorate is expected to cast a ballot before Election Day. (That's up from 22 percent four years ago.) Will all these trigger-happy ballot casters screw up exit polls on Nov. 4? Nope. In states with lots of early voters—like Georgia, where one-fifth of registered voters have already recorded their decisions—the same outfit that conducts exit polls for the National Election Pool starts telephone surveys about a week before Election Day. Phone numbers are generated by computer with random-digit dialing, but only respondents who have already voted, or who plan to ahead of time, are questioned fully. Then analysts merge the data collected by phone with results from interviews conducted at polling stations, keeping the early/day-of ratio pegged to that of the actual vote total. Estimates from absentee polls have been quit... Will Early Voting Skew Exit Polls? No. By Juliet Lapidos More than 30 states allow no-excuse early voting, either by mail or in person, and this year one-third of the electorate is expected to cast a ballot before Election Day. (That's up from 22 percent four years ago.) Will all these trigger-happy ballot casters screw up exit polls on Nov. 4? Nope. In states with lots of early voters—like Georgia, where one-fifth of registered voters have already recorded their decisions—the same outfit that conducts exit polls for the National Election Pool starts telephone surveys about a week before Election Day. Phone numbers are generated by computer with random-digit dialing, but only respondents who have already voted, or who plan to ahead of time, are questioned fully. Then analysts merge the data collected by phone with results from interviews conducted at polling stations, keeping the early/day-of ratio pegged to that of the actual vote total. Estimates from absentee polls have been quite accurate historically. Oregon, for example, has had a vote-by-mail system in place since 1998, and pollsters haven't found big discrepancies between official results and survey answers. This year, some may worry that a Bradley effect will show up on telephone interviews but not in exit polls, since the latter are more anonymous. (For an exit poll, you just fill out a piece of paper and drop it in a box.) That would be the case only if the Bradley effect turned out to be real, something hotly contested during this campaign, and if the effect were the result of a conscious decision to dissemble rather than an unconscious one. Will Early Voting Skew Exit Polls? No. By Juliet Lapidos More than 30 states allow no-excuse early voting, either by mail or in person, and this year one-third of the electorate is expected to cast a ballot before Election Day. (That's up from 22 percent four years ago.) Will all these trigger-happy ballot casters screw up exit polls on Nov. 4? Nope. In states with lots of early voters—like Georgia, where one-fifth of registered voters have already recorded their decisions—the same outfit that conducts exit polls for the National Election Pool starts telephone surveys about a week before Election Day. Phone numbers are generated by computer with random-digit dialing, but only respondents who have already voted, or who plan to ahead of time, are questioned fully. Then analysts merge the data collected by phone with results from interviews conducted at polling stations, keeping the early/day-of ratio pegged to that of the actual vote total. Estimates from absentee polls have been quite accurate historically. Oregon, for example, has had a vote-by-mail system in place since 1998, and pollsters haven't found big discrepancies between official results and survey answers. This year, some may worry that a Bradley effect will show up on telephone interviews but not in exit polls, since the latter are more anonymous. (For an exit poll, you just fill out a piece of paper and drop it in a box.) That would be the case only if the Bradley effect turned out to be real, something hotly contested during this campaign, and if the effect were the result of a conscious decision to dissemble rather than an unconscious one. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-29,23545675 Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:40:33 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23541344-Explainer-How-Bad-Are-Electronic-Voting-Machines How Bad Are Electronic Voting Machines? Do they really fail one out of five times? By Nina Shen Rastogi Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of State last week calling for paper ballots to be provided in any precinct where half the voting machines fail on Election Day. The complaint asserts that 10 percent to 20 percent of the direct-recording electronic voting machines used in Pennsylvania are likely to fail on Nov. 4. The machines will be used in 34 percent of counties around the United States. Are they really so bad that they fail one out of five times? No. The 10 percent to 20 percent figure cited in the Pennsylvania lawsuit is somewhat misleading. The low estimate comes from an opinion piece published by the National Academy of Engineering last year. According to the author, Michael Ian Shamos, "it has been reported anecdotally" that 10 percent of the machines fail "in some respect" on Election Day. That means the machine required some technic... How Bad Are Electronic Voting Machines? Do they really fail one out of five times? By Nina Shen Rastogi Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of State last week calling for paper ballots to be provided in any precinct where half the voting machines fail on Election Day. The complaint asserts that 10 percent to 20 percent of the direct-recording electronic voting machines used in Pennsylvania are likely to fail on Nov. 4. The machines will be used in 34 percent of counties around the United States. Are they really so bad that they fail one out of five times? No. The 10 percent to 20 percent figure cited in the Pennsylvania lawsuit is somewhat misleading. The low estimate comes from an opinion piece published by the National Academy of Engineering last year. According to the author, Michael Ian Shamos, "it has been reported anecdotally" that 10 percent of the machines fail "in some respect" on Election Day. That means the machine required some technical intervention, not that it was necessarily taken out of service. The high estimate of 20 percent comes from a 2005 study (PDF) conducted by the state of California as part of a top-to-bottom review of its voting systems. In that paper, the authors were testing only one of the six machines used in Pennsylvania—the Diebold (now Premier) AccuVote TSX, a machine whose software has since been updated. Furthermore, 14 of the 34 documented failures were printer jams, which won't be a problem in Pennsylvania since the state doesn't produce paper voting receipts. The fact is that no one really knows how often electronic voting machines fail. The Election Assistance Commission—an independent governmental agency charged with establishing election standards—doesn't collect comprehensive statistics on failure rates. (Various nonprofits, such as Election Protection and VotersUnite!, do collect individual complaints.) However, according to federal standards set in 2002, machines may fail as often as once in 163 hours and still make certification. If the chance of a failure were randomly distributed throughout that 163-hour period, a given machine would have up to around an 8 percent chance of breaking down during regular use on Election Day. But these standards define "failure" quite broadly—a software glitch that causes the machine to freeze up for 10 or more seconds, for example, would count. (Individual states don't have to follow the federal guidelines, though many of them do.) How Bad Are Electronic Voting Machines? Do they really fail one out of five times? By Nina Shen Rastogi Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of State last week calling for paper ballots to be provided in any precinct where half the voting machines fail on Election Day. The complaint asserts that 10 percent to 20 percent of the direct-recording electronic voting machines used in Pennsylvania are likely to fail on Nov. 4. The machines will be used in 34 percent of counties around the United States. Are they really so bad that they fail one out of five times? No. The 10 percent to 20 percent figure cited in the Pennsylvania lawsuit is somewhat misleading. The low estimate comes from an opinion piece published by the National Academy of Engineering last year. According to the author, Michael Ian Shamos, "it has been reported anecdotally" that 10 percent of the machines fail "in some respect" on Election Day. That means the machine required some technical intervention, not that it was necessarily taken out of service. The high estimate of 20 percent comes from a 2005 study (PDF) conducted by the state of California as part of a top-to-bottom review of its voting systems. In that paper, the authors were testing only one of the six machines used in Pennsylvania—the Diebold (now Premier) AccuVote TSX, a machine whose software has since been updated. Furthermore, 14 of the 34 documented failures were printer jams, which won't be a problem in Pennsylvania since the state doesn't produce paper voting receipts. The fact is that no one really knows how often electronic voting machines fail. The Election Assistance Commission—an independent governmental agency charged with establishing election standards—doesn't collect comprehensive statistics on failure rates. (Various nonprofits, such as Election Protection and VotersUnite!, do collect individual complaints.) However, according to federal standards set in 2002, machines may fail as often as once in 163 hours and still make certification. If the chance of a failure were randomly distributed throughout that 163-hour period, a given machine would have up to around an 8 percent chance of breaking down during regular use on Election Day. But these standards define "failure" quite broadly—a software glitch that causes the machine to freeze up for 10 or more seconds, for example, would count. (Individual states don't have to follow the federal guidelines, though many of them do.) tag:odeo.com,2008-10-28,23541344 Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:21:44 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23535910-Explainer-Explainer-Goes-in-the-Tank Explainer Goes in the Tank An unbiased etymology. By Juliet Lapidos A new study on media coverage of the presidential race suggests "that the press is in the tank for Barack Obama," the Boston Globe reported yesterday. Is a "top medical journal in the tank for Obama?" reads a recent Portfolio headline. John McCain, according to a story in Thursday's Guardian, "didn't even give the press a chance, trashing it on the assumption that it would be in the tank for Obama." How did in the tank come to mean supportive (when you really ought to be impartial)? Aquatics by way of pugilism. In the 19th century, Americans called swimming pools "tanks" and thus "go into the tank" was synonymous with "to dive." As far back as the 1920s, the phrase go into the tank became associated with intentionally losing a boxing match by diving onto the canvas and pretending you've been knocked out—a sense perfectly illustrated by this sentence from a 1928 New York Times article: "Pansy came out of jail and his... Explainer Goes in the Tank An unbiased etymology. By Juliet Lapidos A new study on media coverage of the presidential race suggests "that the press is in the tank for Barack Obama," the Boston Globe reported yesterday. Is a "top medical journal in the tank for Obama?" reads a recent Portfolio headline. John McCain, according to a story in Thursday's Guardian, "didn't even give the press a chance, trashing it on the assumption that it would be in the tank for Obama." How did in the tank come to mean supportive (when you really ought to be impartial)? Aquatics by way of pugilism. In the 19th century, Americans called swimming pools "tanks" and thus "go into the tank" was synonymous with "to dive." As far back as the 1920s, the phrase go into the tank became associated with intentionally losing a boxing match by diving onto the canvas and pretending you've been knocked out—a sense perfectly illustrated by this sentence from a 1928 New York Times article: "Pansy came out of jail and his manager, thinking him 'all washed up,' signed him up to 'take a dive,' or, more technically, 'to go into the tank' for a bird named Sailor Gray." (For more on the pugilistic origins of into the tank, see William Safire's April column on the subject.) By the mid-20th century, go into the tank, in the sense of rolling over for someone in a rigged contest, extended into political usage. Thus in 1960, syndicated columnist Bob Ruark set up a boxing metaphor to describe the run-up to that year's presidential conventions: "I am having a tiny touch of difficulty with the American news lately, having gotten it slightly mixed up with the prize-fighting business. But if I read it right, the presidential nomination conventions have been bagged in advance … with all the other competitors rigged to go into the tank for Jolting Jack Kennedy and Richard the Ripper Nixon." While taking a dive still refers to self-sabotage, the meaning of go into the tank gradually shifted toward working on someone's behalf, often with the hint of backroom deals or at least inappropriate devotion. As such, people weren't as likely to go into the tank as they were to be found there after the fact; i.e., they'd simply be in the tank. In a 1987 Boston Globe article by David Nyhan on the Robert Bork nomination process, we get: "Will he be in the tank for Reagan? Ted Kennedy says yes, Bork says no. I'm afraid Bork hasn't convinced me." And, also from the Globe's David Nyhan, a 1983 example of the phrase applied to a journalist: "It turns out [George] Will coached Reagan in debate, privately advised him on issues, regularly praised his presidency in print and on TV, and only rarely uttered the bare minimum of criticism that decency and appearance require. As a result of the recent commotion, Will bears the Scarlet Letter of having been in the tank for Reagan." Explainer Goes in the Tank An unbiased etymology. By Juliet Lapidos A new study on media coverage of the presidential race suggests "that the press is in the tank for Barack Obama," the Boston Globe reported yesterday. Is a "top medical journal in the tank for Obama?" reads a recent Portfolio headline. John McCain, according to a story in Thursday's Guardian, "didn't even give the press a chance, trashing it on the assumption that it would be in the tank for Obama." How did in the tank come to mean supportive (when you really ought to be impartial)? Aquatics by way of pugilism. In the 19th century, Americans called swimming pools "tanks" and thus "go into the tank" was synonymous with "to dive." As far back as the 1920s, the phrase go into the tank became associated with intentionally losing a boxing match by diving onto the canvas and pretending you've been knocked out—a sense perfectly illustrated by this sentence from a 1928 New York Times article: "Pansy came out of jail and his manager, thinking him 'all washed up,' signed him up to 'take a dive,' or, more technically, 'to go into the tank' for a bird named Sailor Gray." (For more on the pugilistic origins of into the tank, see William Safire's April column on the subject.) By the mid-20th century, go into the tank, in the sense of rolling over for someone in a rigged contest, extended into political usage. Thus in 1960, syndicated columnist Bob Ruark set up a boxing metaphor to describe the run-up to that year's presidential conventions: "I am having a tiny touch of difficulty with the American news lately, having gotten it slightly mixed up with the prize-fighting business. But if I read it right, the presidential nomination conventions have been bagged in advance … with all the other competitors rigged to go into the tank for Jolting Jack Kennedy and Richard the Ripper Nixon." While taking a dive still refers to self-sabotage, the meaning of go into the tank gradually shifted toward working on someone's behalf, often with the hint of backroom deals or at least inappropriate devotion. As such, people weren't as likely to go into the tank as they were to be found there after the fact; i.e., they'd simply be in the tank. In a 1987 Boston Globe article by David Nyhan on the Robert Bork nomination process, we get: "Will he be in the tank for Reagan? Ted Kennedy says yes, Bork says no. I'm afraid Bork hasn't convinced me." And, also from the Globe's David Nyhan, a 1983 example of the phrase applied to a journalist: "It turns out [George] Will coached Reagan in debate, privately advised him on issues, regularly praised his presidency in print and on TV, and only rarely uttered the bare minimum of criticism that decency and appearance require. As a result of the recent commotion, Will bears the Scarlet Letter of having been in the tank for Reagan." tag:odeo.com,2008-10-27,23535910 Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:59:17 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23525251-Explainer-What-s-Street-Money What's "Street Money"? Or "walking-around money"? Or "get-out-the-vote money"? By Christopher Beam Philadelphia Democrats are anxious that the Obama campaign won't be handing out "street money" for the general election. "Honestly, they'd be crazy not to do it," said one ward leader. What's street money, and who gets it? It's cash that's given to help get people to the polls. The money can go toward perks like coffee and doughnuts for door knockers, gas for volunteers to chauffeur elderly voters, or pocket money for kids who distribute fliers and sample ballots on Election Day. Also known as "walking-around money" or "get-out-the-vote money," it's most common in poor areas of Philadelphia; Chicago; Newark, N.J.; Baltimore; Los Angeles; and other big cities. Both parties use street money, but it's more common among Democrats, who tend to be better represented in the areas that rely on it. Some street money comes from party fundraisers, like the Philadelphia Democratic Party's biannual... What's "Street Money"? Or "walking-around money"? Or "get-out-the-vote money"? By Christopher Beam Philadelphia Democrats are anxious that the Obama campaign won't be handing out "street money" for the general election. "Honestly, they'd be crazy not to do it," said one ward leader. What's street money, and who gets it? It's cash that's given to help get people to the polls. The money can go toward perks like coffee and doughnuts for door knockers, gas for volunteers to chauffeur elderly voters, or pocket money for kids who distribute fliers and sample ballots on Election Day. Also known as "walking-around money" or "get-out-the-vote money," it's most common in poor areas of Philadelphia; Chicago; Newark, N.J.; Baltimore; Los Angeles; and other big cities. Both parties use street money, but it's more common among Democrats, who tend to be better represented in the areas that rely on it. Some street money comes from party fundraisers, like the Philadelphia Democratic Party's biannual Jefferson-Jackson dinner. But most of it comes directly from the candidates. Everyone from the presidential nominee to congressmen and state representatives are expected to chip in. (The top of the ticket usually contributes the most.) In Philadelphia, the candidate sends a check to the chairman of the city's Democratic Party, who then divides the money up among the 69 ward leaders, who in turn divvy up their cash among the 50 or so committee people in each ward. In 2004, John Kerry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Philadelphia street money, and ward leaders received checks for as much as $8,000. Individual volunteers can generally expect anywhere from $10 to $200, depending on the location and the type of work they're doing. The practice is legal everywhere—it's protected by the First Amendment—but some states have tougher restrictions than others. In Philadelphia, committee people can hand out cash for any reason, as long as they're not paying someone for their vote. (The U.S. Code prohibits vote purchasing.) In New Jersey, campaign officials have to pay the workers in checks and their names, addresses, and amounts paid must be submitted to the Election Law Enforcement Commission. Presidential campaigns are always required to report the money to the Federal Elections Commission. Street money has its detractors, but most politicians accept it as a reality. During the primaries, Hillary Clinton's campaign gave $38,000 to an Ohio state legislator, who distributed the money to "get-out-the-vote" workers in Cleveland, plus tens of thousands of dollars to people in Houston and other Texas towns near the Mexican border. Obama did not provide street money then but might change his mind for the general election. In 2000, Jon Corzine paid volunteers $75 each to increase turnout for his Senate campaign. Walter Mondale described showing up to a Philadelphia Democratic committee meeting in 1980, only to have someone stand up and demand, "Where's the money?" Abuses do occur. In Kentucky, a practice called "vote hauling"—paying people to drive sympathetic voters to the polls—often translates into vote buying. Street money can also be used to suppress votes. In 1993, Republican operative Ed Rollins bragged to reporters that he had given half a million dollars in "walking-around money" to black ministers and Democratic activists in New Jersey, and in return they persuaded voters to stay home. (When the Justice Department launched an investigation, Rollins said he had been lying.) What's "Street Money"? Or "walking-around money"? Or "get-out-the-vote money"? By Christopher Beam Philadelphia Democrats are anxious that the Obama campaign won't be handing out "street money" for the general election. "Honestly, they'd be crazy not to do it," said one ward leader. What's street money, and who gets it? It's cash that's given to help get people to the polls. The money can go toward perks like coffee and doughnuts for door knockers, gas for volunteers to chauffeur elderly voters, or pocket money for kids who distribute fliers and sample ballots on Election Day. Also known as "walking-around money" or "get-out-the-vote money," it's most common in poor areas of Philadelphia; Chicago; Newark, N.J.; Baltimore; Los Angeles; and other big cities. Both parties use street money, but it's more common among Democrats, who tend to be better represented in the areas that rely on it. Some street money comes from party fundraisers, like the Philadelphia Democratic Party's biannual Jefferson-Jackson dinner. But most of it comes directly from the candidates. Everyone from the presidential nominee to congressmen and state representatives are expected to chip in. (The top of the ticket usually contributes the most.) In Philadelphia, the candidate sends a check to the chairman of the city's Democratic Party, who then divides the money up among the 69 ward leaders, who in turn divvy up their cash among the 50 or so committee people in each ward. In 2004, John Kerry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Philadelphia street money, and ward leaders received checks for as much as $8,000. Individual volunteers can generally expect anywhere from $10 to $200, depending on the location and the type of work they're doing. The practice is legal everywhere—it's protected by the First Amendment—but some states have tougher restrictions than others. In Philadelphia, committee people can hand out cash for any reason, as long as they're not paying someone for their vote. (The U.S. Code prohibits vote purchasing.) In New Jersey, campaign officials have to pay the workers in checks and their names, addresses, and amounts paid must be submitted to the Election Law Enforcement Commission. Presidential campaigns are always required to report the money to the Federal Elections Commission. Street money has its detractors, but most politicians accept it as a reality. During the primaries, Hillary Clinton's campaign gave $38,000 to an Ohio state legislator, who distributed the money to "get-out-the-vote" workers in Cleveland, plus tens of thousands of dollars to people in Houston and other Texas towns near the Mexican border. Obama did not provide street money then but might change his mind for the general election. In 2000, Jon Corzine paid volunteers $75 each to increase turnout for his Senate campaign. Walter Mondale described showing up to a Philadelphia Democratic committee meeting in 1980, only to have someone stand up and demand, "Where's the money?" Abuses do occur. In Kentucky, a practice called "vote hauling"—paying people to drive sympathetic voters to the polls—often translates into vote buying. Street money can also be used to suppress votes. In 1993, Republican operative Ed Rollins bragged to reporters that he had given half a million dollars in "walking-around money" to black ministers and Democratic activists in New Jersey, and in return they persuaded voters to stay home. (When the Justice Department launched an investigation, Rollins said he had been lying.) tag:odeo.com,2008-10-24,23525251 Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:14:58 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23522090-Explainer-Hey-That-s-My-Lunar-Uranium Hey, That's My Lunar Uranium! Can India claim natural resources on the moon? By Jacob Leibenluft India launched an unmanned lunar orbiter Wednesday morning, marking the nation's first mission to the moon. The orbiter will, among other tasks, attempt to identify possible uranium deposits on the moon. Can India claim whatever uranium it finds up there? No. The Outer Space Treaty—which was signed in 1967 and has been ratified by almost every country with a space program—is very clear that "outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation." (That's why the American flag placed on the moon by Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong was a symbolic gesture rather than an effort to claim the moon as U.S. territory.) So even if the mission—which is being conducted with the cooperation of NASA and other national space agencies—manages to find some uranium deposits, no country would be able to claim ownership. For that matter, it's highly questionable... Hey, That's My Lunar Uranium! Can India claim natural resources on the moon? By Jacob Leibenluft India launched an unmanned lunar orbiter Wednesday morning, marking the nation's first mission to the moon. The orbiter will, among other tasks, attempt to identify possible uranium deposits on the moon. Can India claim whatever uranium it finds up there? No. The Outer Space Treaty—which was signed in 1967 and has been ratified by almost every country with a space program—is very clear that "outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation." (That's why the American flag placed on the moon by Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong was a symbolic gesture rather than an effort to claim the moon as U.S. territory.) So even if the mission—which is being conducted with the cooperation of NASA and other national space agencies—manages to find some uranium deposits, no country would be able to claim ownership. For that matter, it's highly questionable whether there are any property rights at all in space. As for those deeds for lunar land you can buy online, the legal consensus suggests they'll never hold up in court. If a country—or a private company—were to try opening a mine on the moon, it would be stepping onto uncertain legal ground. The Outer Space Treaty is silent on the question of extracting natural resources in space, and legal experts differ over what language mandating "free access" to all areas of space might mean for mining. Likewise, the treaty prohibits "harmful contamination," and this restriction might cause thorny legal issues if extensive mining operations were thought to raise environmental concerns. Another international agreement, the so-called Moon Treaty, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1979, is a good deal clearer. It states that "the moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind" and specifies that those resources should only be exploited under the oversight of a new international regime. But the Moon Treaty was never accepted by any of the traditional space powers, like the United States or Russia. India is among the 17 countries that have signed the Moon Treaty, but it never fully ratified the agreement. Some space-law experts contend that there may be a precedent for mining: Both the Americans and the Soviets took moon rocks back to Earth, and no one objected. More probably, any attempts to extract uranium or the potential energy source helium-3 would spur a new round of international talks. In that case, countries might look to agreements surrounding the high seas or Antarctica for guidance. In the case of Antarctica, rules on land use are determined by the few dozen nations that have signed onto a special Antarctic Treaty. In the 1990s, those countries agreed to ban mining on the continent until at least 2048. By contrast, the International Seabed Authority was set up in 1994 to administer claims by companies seeking to mine in deep-sea areas that lie hundreds of miles offshore; the United States, however, hasn't ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty that would make it part of that organization. Hey, That's My Lunar Uranium! Can India claim natural resources on the moon? By Jacob Leibenluft India launched an unmanned lunar orbiter Wednesday morning, marking the nation's first mission to the moon. The orbiter will, among other tasks, attempt to identify possible uranium deposits on the moon. Can India claim whatever uranium it finds up there? No. The Outer Space Treaty—which was signed in 1967 and has been ratified by almost every country with a space program—is very clear that "outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation." (That's why the American flag placed on the moon by Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong was a symbolic gesture rather than an effort to claim the moon as U.S. territory.) So even if the mission—which is being conducted with the cooperation of NASA and other national space agencies—manages to find some uranium deposits, no country would be able to claim ownership. For that matter, it's highly questionable whether there are any property rights at all in space. As for those deeds for lunar land you can buy online, the legal consensus suggests they'll never hold up in court. If a country—or a private company—were to try opening a mine on the moon, it would be stepping onto uncertain legal ground. The Outer Space Treaty is silent on the question of extracting natural resources in space, and legal experts differ over what language mandating "free access" to all areas of space might mean for mining. Likewise, the treaty prohibits "harmful contamination," and this restriction might cause thorny legal issues if extensive mining operations were thought to raise environmental concerns. Another international agreement, the so-called Moon Treaty, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1979, is a good deal clearer. It states that "the moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind" and specifies that those resources should only be exploited under the oversight of a new international regime. But the Moon Treaty was never accepted by any of the traditional space powers, like the United States or Russia. India is among the 17 countries that have signed the Moon Treaty, but it never fully ratified the agreement. Some space-law experts contend that there may be a precedent for mining: Both the Americans and the Soviets took moon rocks back to Earth, and no one objected. More probably, any attempts to extract uranium or the potential energy source helium-3 would spur a new round of international talks. In that case, countries might look to agreements surrounding the high seas or Antarctica for guidance. In the case of Antarctica, rules on land use are determined by the few dozen nations that have signed onto a special Antarctic Treaty. In the 1990s, those countries agreed to ban mining on the continent until at least 2048. By contrast, the International Seabed Authority was set up in 1994 to administer claims by companies seeking to mine in deep-sea areas that lie hundreds of miles offshore; the United States, however, hasn't ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty that would make it part of that organization. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-23,23522090 Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:47:50 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23516954-Explainer-And-Down-the-Stretch-They-Come-%E2%80%A6 And Down the Stretch They Come … Why do polls always tighten right before an election? By Brian Palmer With the election just two weeks away, some polls show the gap closing between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. That fits with the conventional wisdom that presidential elections tend to tighten up in the days before an election. Is end-game narrowing in the polls a real phenomenon? Yes. In 10 of the 15 presidential elections from 1944- 2000, the candidate who was leading in the polls on Labor Day saw his margin shrink by the time of the final poll. (This includes Thomas Dewey, who managed to lose to Harry Truman in 1948 despite never trailing in the polls.) If you average together all 15 of those contests, the Labor Day spread was cut in half by Election Day—although the early leader won the popular vote in every case except Dewey-Truman. In other words, while last-minute poll tightening is far from death and taxes, it is a real phenomenon. Researchers offer differing explanati... And Down the Stretch They Come … Why do polls always tighten right before an election? By Brian Palmer With the election just two weeks away, some polls show the gap closing between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. That fits with the conventional wisdom that presidential elections tend to tighten up in the days before an election. Is end-game narrowing in the polls a real phenomenon? Yes. In 10 of the 15 presidential elections from 1944- 2000, the candidate who was leading in the polls on Labor Day saw his margin shrink by the time of the final poll. (This includes Thomas Dewey, who managed to lose to Harry Truman in 1948 despite never trailing in the polls.) If you average together all 15 of those contests, the Labor Day spread was cut in half by Election Day—although the early leader won the popular vote in every case except Dewey-Truman. In other words, while last-minute poll tightening is far from death and taxes, it is a real phenomenon. Researchers offer differing explanations for why this might happen. While some point to buyer's remorse or cold feet, there is no statistical evidence to support these claims. Others point to the decreasing margins, as well as a reduced variation among end-game polls, to suggest that voters are drifting back toward their initial biases and preferences. In this model, voters are more likely to think independently in August than in November. If a candidate makes a newsworthy gaffe in August, a large number of uncommitted or weakly committed voters move to his opponent, resulting in a surge in the polls. But months of appeals from the candidates to underlying voter allegiances has a real effect: When a voter's inner Democrat or Republican is awakened, they come home to their party's candidate. So the same gaffe in November would sway substantially fewer voters than it did before, and tightening poll margins reflect the number of committed partisans on either side. Another theory attributes poll tightening to simple mathematics. Let's say that 10 percent of each candidate's supporters decided to switch sides in the final weeks of the campaign. That same percentage would reflect a larger exodus from the candidate who started with more voters—leading to a tightening of the race. Similarly, if undecided voters broke evenly in the final days, they'd add proportionally more support to the losing candidate—and again the poll margin would narrow. But few observers believe this can account for all of the observed tightening. A related phenomenon is that the final poll, on average, overstates the actual margin of victory. From 1944-2000, the final polls predicted a margin 2.2 percent larger than the eventual outcome in the national vote. Given the short period between the final poll and the election, this is not likely the result of changing voter preferences. Rather, many believe that voters hesitate to declare their support for a losing candidate to a pollster, a tendency known as the "spiral of silence." And Down the Stretch They Come … Why do polls always tighten right before an election? By Brian Palmer With the election just two weeks away, some polls show the gap closing between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. That fits with the conventional wisdom that presidential elections tend to tighten up in the days before an election. Is end-game narrowing in the polls a real phenomenon? Yes. In 10 of the 15 presidential elections from 1944- 2000, the candidate who was leading in the polls on Labor Day saw his margin shrink by the time of the final poll. (This includes Thomas Dewey, who managed to lose to Harry Truman in 1948 despite never trailing in the polls.) If you average together all 15 of those contests, the Labor Day spread was cut in half by Election Day—although the early leader won the popular vote in every case except Dewey-Truman. In other words, while last-minute poll tightening is far from death and taxes, it is a real phenomenon. Researchers offer differing explanations for why this might happen. While some point to buyer's remorse or cold feet, there is no statistical evidence to support these claims. Others point to the decreasing margins, as well as a reduced variation among end-game polls, to suggest that voters are drifting back toward their initial biases and preferences. In this model, voters are more likely to think independently in August than in November. If a candidate makes a newsworthy gaffe in August, a large number of uncommitted or weakly committed voters move to his opponent, resulting in a surge in the polls. But months of appeals from the candidates to underlying voter allegiances has a real effect: When a voter's inner Democrat or Republican is awakened, they come home to their party's candidate. So the same gaffe in November would sway substantially fewer voters than it did before, and tightening poll margins reflect the number of committed partisans on either side. Another theory attributes poll tightening to simple mathematics. Let's say that 10 percent of each candidate's supporters decided to switch sides in the final weeks of the campaign. That same percentage would reflect a larger exodus from the candidate who started with more voters—leading to a tightening of the race. Similarly, if undecided voters broke evenly in the final days, they'd add proportionally more support to the losing candidate—and again the poll margin would narrow. But few observers believe this can account for all of the observed tightening. A related phenomenon is that the final poll, on average, overstates the actual margin of victory. From 1944-2000, the final polls predicted a margin 2.2 percent larger than the eventual outcome in the national vote. Given the short period between the final poll and the election, this is not likely the result of changing voter preferences. Rather, many believe that voters hesitate to declare their support for a losing candidate to a pollster, a tendency known as the "spiral of silence." tag:odeo.com,2008-10-22,23516954 Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:24:01 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23513409-Explainer-The-Purell-Defense The Purell Defense Can hand sanitizers really affect your blood-alcohol level? By Nina Shen Rastogi Rep. Vito Fossella of New York was convicted in a Virginia court on Friday on charges of drunken driving. A second hearing will be held to determine whether Fossella's blood-alcohol content at the time of his arrest was above 0.15, which would require a five-day jail term. Defense attorneys claimed that Fossella had used Purell several times on the day he was arrested and that the ethanol in the hand sanitizer affected his blood-alcohol reading later that night. Can hand sanitizer applied to the skin really affect a breath alcohol test? Probably not. A 2006 study among Australian health care workers tested this very question. Twenty workers applied Avangard—a hand sanitizer with 70 percent ethanol (compared with Purell's 62 percent)—30 times during one hour, mimicking the usage in intensive-care units. One to two minutes after the final exposure, six of the workers did show a slight b... The Purell Defense Can hand sanitizers really affect your blood-alcohol level? By Nina Shen Rastogi Rep. Vito Fossella of New York was convicted in a Virginia court on Friday on charges of drunken driving. A second hearing will be held to determine whether Fossella's blood-alcohol content at the time of his arrest was above 0.15, which would require a five-day jail term. Defense attorneys claimed that Fossella had used Purell several times on the day he was arrested and that the ethanol in the hand sanitizer affected his blood-alcohol reading later that night. Can hand sanitizer applied to the skin really affect a breath alcohol test? Probably not. A 2006 study among Australian health care workers tested this very question. Twenty workers applied Avangard—a hand sanitizer with 70 percent ethanol (compared with Purell's 62 percent)—30 times during one hour, mimicking the usage in intensive-care units. One to two minutes after the final exposure, six of the workers did show a slight bump in breath-ethanol levels—between 0.001 percent and 0.0025 percent, about the same effect as one-tenth of a beer on an average-size male. Ten to 13 minutes after the final application, however, all the health care workers' breath-ethanol levels had returned to zero. In Fossella's case, a period of several hours separated his Purell usage and his breathalyzer test: He claimed to have used the hand sanitizer during the afternoon of April 30 and wasn't pulled over until just after midnight. It's also very unlikely that alcohol would have remained on Fossella's hands and thus affected the Intoxilyzer 5000's analysis. Except for the trace amounts that get absorbed by the skin, the ethanol in the sanitizer would have dissipated once the liquid itself evaporated. Drinking Purell is another story entirely, however. At 62 percent ethanol or roughly 120 proof, the sanitizer is about as alcoholic as some stronger kinds of rums and whiskeys. But even so, Fossella would have had to have drunk enough Purell to make himself sick in order for traces of it to remain in his blood around midnight. In recent years, defense attorneys have questioned the reliability of breath-alcohol analyzers themselves. Some have claimed, for example, that fluctuations in voltage levels can affect readings. In Tuscon, Ariz., breath tests in more than 100 cases involving the Intoxilyzer 8000 were thrown out this year because the machine's manufacturer, Kentucky-based CMI, would not release the Intoxilyzer's software source code. Last month, CMI settled with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety and agreed to release the code for the Intoxilyzer 5000 model after the department filed a federal lawsuit to obtain it. Bonus Explainer: Can putting too much Purell on your skin get you drunk? Maybe. There have been cases of small children becoming intoxicated after prolonged skin exposure to alcohol—a 2-year-old girl in Germany lost consciousness after ethanol-soaked bandages were applied to damaged skin and left overnight. (Her blood-alcohol level reached a whopping 0.8.) A similar case in Italy involved a 1-month-old who developed "unexplained lethargy" after having had alcohol-soaked gauze pads applied to her umbilical stump for several days. Adult cases are extremely rare, but during the SARS epidemic, a 45-year-old Taiwanese woman died after soaking in a 40 percent ethanol bath for 12 hours in the hopes that it would rid her of the infection. The Purell Defense Can hand sanitizers really affect your blood-alcohol level? By Nina Shen Rastogi Rep. Vito Fossella of New York was convicted in a Virginia court on Friday on charges of drunken driving. A second hearing will be held to determine whether Fossella's blood-alcohol content at the time of his arrest was above 0.15, which would require a five-day jail term. Defense attorneys claimed that Fossella had used Purell several times on the day he was arrested and that the ethanol in the hand sanitizer affected his blood-alcohol reading later that night. Can hand sanitizer applied to the skin really affect a breath alcohol test? Probably not. A 2006 study among Australian health care workers tested this very question. Twenty workers applied Avangard—a hand sanitizer with 70 percent ethanol (compared with Purell's 62 percent)—30 times during one hour, mimicking the usage in intensive-care units. One to two minutes after the final exposure, six of the workers did show a slight bump in breath-ethanol levels—between 0.001 percent and 0.0025 percent, about the same effect as one-tenth of a beer on an average-size male. Ten to 13 minutes after the final application, however, all the health care workers' breath-ethanol levels had returned to zero. In Fossella's case, a period of several hours separated his Purell usage and his breathalyzer test: He claimed to have used the hand sanitizer during the afternoon of April 30 and wasn't pulled over until just after midnight. It's also very unlikely that alcohol would have remained on Fossella's hands and thus affected the Intoxilyzer 5000's analysis. Except for the trace amounts that get absorbed by the skin, the ethanol in the sanitizer would have dissipated once the liquid itself evaporated. Drinking Purell is another story entirely, however. At 62 percent ethanol or roughly 120 proof, the sanitizer is about as alcoholic as some stronger kinds of rums and whiskeys. But even so, Fossella would have had to have drunk enough Purell to make himself sick in order for traces of it to remain in his blood around midnight. In recent years, defense attorneys have questioned the reliability of breath-alcohol analyzers themselves. Some have claimed, for example, that fluctuations in voltage levels can affect readings. In Tuscon, Ariz., breath tests in more than 100 cases involving the Intoxilyzer 8000 were thrown out this year because the machine's manufacturer, Kentucky-based CMI, would not release the Intoxilyzer's software source code. Last month, CMI settled with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety and agreed to release the code for the Intoxilyzer 5000 model after the department filed a federal lawsuit to obtain it. Bonus Explainer: Can putting too much Purell on your skin get you drunk? Maybe. There have been cases of small children becoming intoxicated after prolonged skin exposure to alcohol—a 2-year-old girl in Germany lost consciousness after ethanol-soaked bandages were applied to damaged skin and left overnight. (Her blood-alcohol level reached a whopping 0.8.) A similar case in Italy involved a 1-month-old who developed "unexplained lethargy" after having had alcohol-soaked gauze pads applied to her umbilical stump for several days. Adult cases are extremely rare, but during the SARS epidemic, a 45-year-old Taiwanese woman died after soaking in a 40 percent ethanol bath for 12 hours in the hopes that it would rid her of the infection. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-21,23513409 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 07:45:09 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23508910-Explainer-Why-Do-We-Tax-Corporations Why Do We Tax Corporations? Wouldn't it be easier just to tax individuals? By Christopher Beam Barack Obama and John McCain have butted heads recently over whose tax plan would benefit "Joe the Plumber" and whose would benefit large corporations. John McCain has proposed cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Obama says he would close corporate tax loopholes but would not lower the rate. Why do we tax corporations in the first place—why not just tax the shareholders individually? Because the alternative would be even worse. There are several reasons why we have a corporate income tax in addition to the personal income tax. The first is a basic idea of taxation called the benefit principle—that people pay for the government services they consume. If you're a frequent driver, the gas tax means that you end up subsidizing roads. If you spend a lot of time in national parks, an entry fee makes sure you help pay for their upkeep. And if you're a business that benef... Why Do We Tax Corporations? Wouldn't it be easier just to tax individuals? By Christopher Beam Barack Obama and John McCain have butted heads recently over whose tax plan would benefit "Joe the Plumber" and whose would benefit large corporations. John McCain has proposed cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Obama says he would close corporate tax loopholes but would not lower the rate. Why do we tax corporations in the first place—why not just tax the shareholders individually? Because the alternative would be even worse. There are several reasons why we have a corporate income tax in addition to the personal income tax. The first is a basic idea of taxation called the benefit principle—that people pay for the government services they consume. If you're a frequent driver, the gas tax means that you end up subsidizing roads. If you spend a lot of time in national parks, an entry fee makes sure you help pay for their upkeep. And if you're a business that benefits from legal protections and police protections and financial regulations, you're expected to pay money to support the system. Another reason to tax corporations directly is simplicity. It's a lot easier to collect taxes from a single entity than thousands of individual shareholders. Plus, if something goes wrong, it's easier to fix. Say a company reported earnings of $1 million one year, only to discover a year later that it had actually made $2 million. Currently, the IRS can go back to the company and collect taxes owed. But if all the income was distributed to individuals, the IRS would have to deal with them all separately. Another problem with eliminating the corporate tax: It would create bad incentives. Say a company wants to set aside 50 percent of its income for reinvestment and give the rest to shareholders. If the reinvestment money weren't taxed—if the government taxed only the money that went to the individuals—then the company would have an incentive to hoard it all and never pay shareholders. Also—some would say most important—taxing corporations directly can be more profitable for the government. Economists argue that under the current system, individual shareholders get taxed twice—first under the corporate income tax and again under the personal income tax. This allows state and federal governments to collect more money than they would otherwise. "Why tax just once when you can tax twice?" says Dan Mitchell of the libertarian Cato Institute. To fix this "double taxation" problem, some economists propose "integration"—the fusing of the corporate and personal income taxes. One solution is to scrap the corporate income tax and instead have shareholders pay taxes based on how many shares they own. (This would basically treat shareholders like small business owners, who report income according to their stake in the partnership.) The fancy word for this is "dividend imputation," and it's used in Australia and some European countries. Another solution is to keep the corporate income tax but give shareholders a tax credit based on how much corporate tax has already been paid. That way, you're not paying tax on the same income twice. Other economists suggest abolishing corporate taxes entirely. One alternative is the flat tax, promoted most famously by Steve Forbes in 1996. This proposal would tax everyone's income at the same rate. Another option is the value-added tax, which taxes every stage of the production process of goods, which then gets passed on to the consumer. And lastly, there's the national sales tax, which would simply tax everything at the register. These ideas have their downsides—the flat tax would hurt the working poor, while some argue the national sales tax would create a black market for every good and service you can imagine. Why Do We Tax Corporations? Wouldn't it be easier just to tax individuals? By Christopher Beam Barack Obama and John McCain have butted heads recently over whose tax plan would benefit "Joe the Plumber" and whose would benefit large corporations. John McCain has proposed cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Obama says he would close corporate tax loopholes but would not lower the rate. Why do we tax corporations in the first place—why not just tax the shareholders individually? Because the alternative would be even worse. There are several reasons why we have a corporate income tax in addition to the personal income tax. The first is a basic idea of taxation called the benefit principle—that people pay for the government services they consume. If you're a frequent driver, the gas tax means that you end up subsidizing roads. If you spend a lot of time in national parks, an entry fee makes sure you help pay for their upkeep. And if you're a business that benefits from legal protections and police protections and financial regulations, you're expected to pay money to support the system. Another reason to tax corporations directly is simplicity. It's a lot easier to collect taxes from a single entity than thousands of individual shareholders. Plus, if something goes wrong, it's easier to fix. Say a company reported earnings of $1 million one year, only to discover a year later that it had actually made $2 million. Currently, the IRS can go back to the company and collect taxes owed. But if all the income was distributed to individuals, the IRS would have to deal with them all separately. Another problem with eliminating the corporate tax: It would create bad incentives. Say a company wants to set aside 50 percent of its income for reinvestment and give the rest to shareholders. If the reinvestment money weren't taxed—if the government taxed only the money that went to the individuals—then the company would have an incentive to hoard it all and never pay shareholders. Also—some would say most important—taxing corporations directly can be more profitable for the government. Economists argue that under the current system, individual shareholders get taxed twice—first under the corporate income tax and again under the personal income tax. This allows state and federal governments to collect more money than they would otherwise. "Why tax just once when you can tax twice?" says Dan Mitchell of the libertarian Cato Institute. To fix this "double taxation" problem, some economists propose "integration"—the fusing of the corporate and personal income taxes. One solution is to scrap the corporate income tax and instead have shareholders pay taxes based on how many shares they own. (This would basically treat shareholders like small business owners, who report income according to their stake in the partnership.) The fancy word for this is "dividend imputation," and it's used in Australia and some European countries. Another solution is to keep the corporate income tax but give shareholders a tax credit based on how much corporate tax has already been paid. That way, you're not paying tax on the same income twice. Other economists suggest abolishing corporate taxes entirely. One alternative is the flat tax, promoted most famously by Steve Forbes in 1996. This proposal would tax everyone's income at the same rate. Another option is the value-added tax, which taxes every stage of the production process of goods, which then gets passed on to the consumer. And lastly, there's the national sales tax, which would simply tax everything at the register. These ideas have their downsides—the flat tax would hurt the working poor, while some argue the national sales tax would create a black market for every good and service you can imagine. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-20,23508910 Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:47:45 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23497658-Explainer-What-s-With-All-the-Quinnipiac-University-Polls What's With All the "Quinnipiac University" Polls? How an obscure school in Connecticut turned into a major opinion research center. By Juliet Lapidos A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found Obama ahead in four battleground states: Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. These results were published on Pollster.com, by the Associated Press, and in the Denver Post, among other news outlets. How does an obscure university in Connecticut maintain a major national polling service? Easy access to a willing labor pool. The grunt work of surveys—conducting telephone interviews—is performed primarily by Q-Pac students on work-study, or those who major in a subject that dovetails with polling, like political science, communications, or psychology. For their efforts, the students are compensated $9.50 an hour. Then a small team of experts (mostly former journalists) analyze the survey results and communicate them to the press. The university foots the whole bill, funding the... What's With All the "Quinnipiac University" Polls? How an obscure school in Connecticut turned into a major opinion research center. By Juliet Lapidos A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found Obama ahead in four battleground states: Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. These results were published on Pollster.com, by the Associated Press, and in the Denver Post, among other news outlets. How does an obscure university in Connecticut maintain a major national polling service? Easy access to a willing labor pool. The grunt work of surveys—conducting telephone interviews—is performed primarily by Q-Pac students on work-study, or those who major in a subject that dovetails with polling, like political science, communications, or psychology. For their efforts, the students are compensated $9.50 an hour. Then a small team of experts (mostly former journalists) analyze the survey results and communicate them to the press. The university foots the whole bill, funding the center like an academic department. Quinnipiac started conducting local surveys in 1988 as an outgrowth of a marketing class. In 1994, the university hired a CBS News election-night analyst to expand the relatively casual polling services into a full-time operation. It did this, at least in part, to make a name for itself. (And the "Q-Poll," as it's called by those in the know, does attract publicity. A 2007 New York Times article on the university's basketball coach noted that Quinnipiac is "best known for its polling institute.") Q-Pac started polling New Jersey in 1996 and Pennsylvania in 2002; now it partners with the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to conduct surveys in swing states. (The two papers donate money to a scholarship fund for journalism students rather than paying for services directly.) Quinnipiac wasn't the first university to get in on the survey game. Marist College (of Marist poll fame) in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., started enlisting students to conduct polls on local elections in the late 1970s and national ones in the 1980s. At the time, much of the opinion research on elections came from the campaigns, so the media cottoned to Marist as a source of independent information. The Marist poll, unlike the Q-Poll, taps into funding sources outside the college. (Trivia: John Lahey, the current president of Quinnipiac who presided over the creation of Q-Pac's survey operations, was actually vice president at Marist beforehand.) It's not uncommon for schools to have polling operations. Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., has an Institute of Public Opinion that conducts political surveys. And at dozens of colleges, students engage in less glamorous survey work—like telephone research for the state health department or the DMV—principally as an educational opportunity. Polling isn't exclusive to little-known schools, either. There's a Princeton University Survey Research Center, which was founded with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. What's With All the "Quinnipiac University" Polls? How an obscure school in Connecticut turned into a major opinion research center. By Juliet Lapidos A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found Obama ahead in four battleground states: Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. These results were published on Pollster.com, by the Associated Press, and in the Denver Post, among other news outlets. How does an obscure university in Connecticut maintain a major national polling service? Easy access to a willing labor pool. The grunt work of surveys—conducting telephone interviews—is performed primarily by Q-Pac students on work-study, or those who major in a subject that dovetails with polling, like political science, communications, or psychology. For their efforts, the students are compensated $9.50 an hour. Then a small team of experts (mostly former journalists) analyze the survey results and communicate them to the press. The university foots the whole bill, funding the center like an academic department. Quinnipiac started conducting local surveys in 1988 as an outgrowth of a marketing class. In 1994, the university hired a CBS News election-night analyst to expand the relatively casual polling services into a full-time operation. It did this, at least in part, to make a name for itself. (And the "Q-Poll," as it's called by those in the know, does attract publicity. A 2007 New York Times article on the university's basketball coach noted that Quinnipiac is "best known for its polling institute.") Q-Pac started polling New Jersey in 1996 and Pennsylvania in 2002; now it partners with the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to conduct surveys in swing states. (The two papers donate money to a scholarship fund for journalism students rather than paying for services directly.) Quinnipiac wasn't the first university to get in on the survey game. Marist College (of Marist poll fame) in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., started enlisting students to conduct polls on local elections in the late 1970s and national ones in the 1980s. At the time, much of the opinion research on elections came from the campaigns, so the media cottoned to Marist as a source of independent information. The Marist poll, unlike the Q-Poll, taps into funding sources outside the college. (Trivia: John Lahey, the current president of Quinnipiac who presided over the creation of Q-Pac's survey operations, was actually vice president at Marist beforehand.) It's not uncommon for schools to have polling operations. Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., has an Institute of Public Opinion that conducts political surveys. And at dozens of colleges, students engage in less glamorous survey work—like telephone research for the state health department or the DMV—principally as an educational opportunity. Polling isn't exclusive to little-known schools, either. There's a Princeton University Survey Research Center, which was founded with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-17,23497658 Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:28:16 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23494486-Explainer-596-Trillion $596 Trillion! How can the derivatives market be worth more than the world's total financial assets? By Jacob Leibenluft Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin issued a call on Tuesday for regulation of the "over the counter" derivatives market, which has an estimated size of about $596 trillion. By contrast, the value of the world's financial assets—including all stock, bonds, and bank deposits—was pegged at $167 trillion last year by McKinsey. How can the derivatives market be larger than the entire world's financial wealth? Because the same assets might be involved in several different derivatives. A derivative is a financial instrument whose value depends on something else—a share of stock, an interest rate, a foreign currency, or a barrel of oil, for example. One kind of derivative might be a contract that allows you to buy oil at a given price six months from now. But since we don't yet know how the price of oil will change, the value of that contract can be very hard to estimate. (In contrast,... $596 Trillion! How can the derivatives market be worth more than the world's total financial assets? By Jacob Leibenluft Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin issued a call on Tuesday for regulation of the "over the counter" derivatives market, which has an estimated size of about $596 trillion. By contrast, the value of the world's financial assets—including all stock, bonds, and bank deposits—was pegged at $167 trillion last year by McKinsey. How can the derivatives market be larger than the entire world's financial wealth? Because the same assets might be involved in several different derivatives. A derivative is a financial instrument whose value depends on something else—a share of stock, an interest rate, a foreign currency, or a barrel of oil, for example. One kind of derivative might be a contract that allows you to buy oil at a given price six months from now. But since we don't yet know how the price of oil will change, the value of that contract can be very hard to estimate. (In contrast, it's relatively easy to add together the value of every share being traded on the stock market.) As a result, financial experts have to make an educated guess about the total amount at stake in all these contracts. One method simply adds up the value of the assets the derivatives are based on. In other words, if my contract allows me to buy 50 barrels of oil and the current price is $100, its "notional value" is said to be $5,000—since that's the value of the assets from which my contract derives. If you make that same calculation for every derivative and add those numbers together, you get something around $596 trillion—the "notional value" of the world's over-the-counter derivatives at the end of 2007, according to the Bank of International Settlements. ("Over the counter" derivatives refer to contracts that are negotiated between two parties rather than through an exchange.) But the "notional value" isn't usually a very good representation of what a contract might really be worth to the parties involved, or how much risk they are taking. (And it isn't easily compared with other measures of financial wealth—after all, owning the right to buy $5,000 worth of oil isn't the same as actually owning $5,000 of oil.) Within that $596 trillion are derivatives that effectively relate to the same assets—if you have a contract to buy euros in January and I have one to buy euros in April, we may end up buying the same currency, but its notional value will get counted twice. Moreover, in many instances, the "notional amount" is just a benchmark that never even changes hands—as in the case of the interest-rate swap, by far the most common type of derivative. Likewise, because derivatives are often used to hedge risks, there's a good probability that many contracts in the system essentially cancel one another out. An alternative way to measure the size of the derivatives market is to calculate the instruments' market value—which refers to how much they would be worth if the contracts had to be settled today. Gross market value of all outstanding derivatives was $14.5 trillion at the end of 2007, less than one-fortieth of the $596 trillion estimate. (That number shrinks to about $3.3 trillion once you take into account contracts that directly offset one another.) Still, the concept of "notional value" is not entirely irrelevant. For one, growth in the notional value of all derivatives—which has gone up about fourfold in the last five years—does give a reasonable indication of how fast the market is expanding. And for credit default swaps, a derivative at the center of the current financial crisis, the growth has been especially large—with the total notional amount rising from just $2.69 trillion in 2003 to $54.6 trillion this year. $596 Trillion! How can the derivatives market be worth more than the world's total financial assets? By Jacob Leibenluft Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin issued a call on Tuesday for regulation of the "over the counter" derivatives market, which has an estimated size of about $596 trillion. By contrast, the value of the world's financial assets—including all stock, bonds, and bank deposits—was pegged at $167 trillion last year by McKinsey. How can the derivatives market be larger than the entire world's financial wealth? Because the same assets might be involved in several different derivatives. A derivative is a financial instrument whose value depends on something else—a share of stock, an interest rate, a foreign currency, or a barrel of oil, for example. One kind of derivative might be a contract that allows you to buy oil at a given price six months from now. But since we don't yet know how the price of oil will change, the value of that contract can be very hard to estimate. (In contrast, it's relatively easy to add together the value of every share being traded on the stock market.) As a result, financial experts have to make an educated guess about the total amount at stake in all these contracts. One method simply adds up the value of the assets the derivatives are based on. In other words, if my contract allows me to buy 50 barrels of oil and the current price is $100, its "notional value" is said to be $5,000—since that's the value of the assets from which my contract derives. If you make that same calculation for every derivative and add those numbers together, you get something around $596 trillion—the "notional value" of the world's over-the-counter derivatives at the end of 2007, according to the Bank of International Settlements. ("Over the counter" derivatives refer to contracts that are negotiated between two parties rather than through an exchange.) But the "notional value" isn't usually a very good representation of what a contract might really be worth to the parties involved, or how much risk they are taking. (And it isn't easily compared with other measures of financial wealth—after all, owning the right to buy $5,000 worth of oil isn't the same as actually owning $5,000 of oil.) Within that $596 trillion are derivatives that effectively relate to the same assets—if you have a contract to buy euros in January and I have one to buy euros in April, we may end up buying the same currency, but its notional value will get counted twice. Moreover, in many instances, the "notional amount" is just a benchmark that never even changes hands—as in the case of the interest-rate swap, by far the most common type of derivative. Likewise, because derivatives are often used to hedge risks, there's a good probability that many contracts in the system essentially cancel one another out. An alternative way to measure the size of the derivatives market is to calculate the instruments' market value—which refers to how much they would be worth if the contracts had to be settled today. Gross market value of all outstanding derivatives was $14.5 trillion at the end of 2007, less than one-fortieth of the $596 trillion estimate. (That number shrinks to about $3.3 trillion once you take into account contracts that directly offset one another.) Still, the concept of "notional value" is not entirely irrelevant. For one, growth in the notional value of all derivatives—which has gone up about fourfold in the last five years—does give a reasonable indication of how fast the market is expanding. And for credit default swaps, a derivative at the center of the current financial crisis, the growth has been especially large—with the total notional amount rising from just $2.69 trillion in 2003 to $54.6 trillion this year. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-16,23494486 Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:34:28 -0700 no Slate's Explainer Podcast Explainer