Actionable advice in case of nuclear explosion

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/science/16terror.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Suppose the unthinkable happened, and terrorists struck New York or another big city with an atom bomb. What should people there do? The government has a surprising new message: Do not flee. Get inside any stable building and don’t come out till officials say it’s safe.

 The advice is based on recent scientific analyses showing that a nuclear attack is much more survivable if you immediately shield yourself from the lethal radiation that follows a blast, a simple tactic seen as saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Even staying in a car, the studies show, would reduce casualties by more than 50 percent; hunkering down in a basement would be better by far.

Debt doubling.

From USA Today (yeah, I know).

In praise of the Chicago 16th manual of style

I think I'll have to buy a copy

Chicago's examples could be recondite or mischievously witty or of a weirdly resonant blandness. You could be boning up on the proper use of brackets (section 5.129) and be hit with quotes like this:

During a prolonged visit to Australia, Glueck and an assistant (James Green, who was later to make his own study of a flightless bird [the kiwi] in New Zealand) spent several difficult months observing the survival behavior of cassowaries and emus.

You'd feel an urge to procrastinate, to follow these intrepid antipodean emu watchers, but alas: The sadistic authors of the fourteenth knew that less is more.

Where did these fragments come from? What did they mean? Sometimes there would be a message just for me. On late nights while I waited for proofs to materialize, I would think of the poem disguised as 5.136, which asks the reader to "consider the range of expressiveness achieved by the following changes in punctuation":

Go home.

Go home!

Go home?

Go home?!

Detroit's last gunshop

Short, but interesting.

http://www2.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=13488

Cool real life Noir.

From Vanity Fair where I've actually seen a large number of interesting stories.

After a woman living in a hotel in Florida was raped, viciously beaten, and left for dead near the Everglades in 2005, the police investigation quickly went cold. But when the victim sued the Airport Regency, the hotel’s private detective, Ken Brennan, became obsessed with the case: how had the 21-year-old blonde disappeared from her room, unseen by security cameras? The author follows Brennan’s trail as the P.I. worked a chilling hunch that would lead him to other states, other crimes, and a man nobody else suspected.

leaked diplomatic communications

I'm a bit surprised at how low key the initial coverage seems to be (perhaps b/c it's a weekend).  It seems like this has the potential to be the story of the decade.

Some initial thoughts: WSJ and Chris Good with some snippets.  Interesting: Saudi Arabia and Bahrain both urged taking out Iran.

It would be amusing if the state dept had allowed this to happen as a way to very convincingly disseminate misinformation.  But since we're not a in spy novel, the probability is epsilon, where "epsilon" is a mispelling of "zero."

If they are right that this is (again) the work for 23 y/o Pfc Manning, it's a resounding demonstration that any secure system is as weak as it's weakest link.  Why the hell were these available, unencrypted, to one guy who clearly didn't need them?    Given his openly gay persona, perhaps not the best marketing move given the current dismantling of DADT.

Business and Obama.

From Politico:

“These weren’t issues that got the president any votes or political leverage,” said one insider to the conversations. “These were issues that demonstrated that this administration doesn’t get it. It’s like talking to your dog.”

UN might be cause of cholera in Haiti

Good intentions perhaps, but not too insightful about the effects of effluent in drinking water.

Chinese thought bubble: "We are the masters now"

Interesting article by Niall Ferguson, perhaps best summed up by a simple picture:




Hat tip: The Browser.

Taliban leader involved in months of secret talks = fake

NY times:

 KABUL, Afghanistan — For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.

But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.        

 “It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”        

Under: just don't get it. Vapid Iran twitter diplomacy

From Claire Berlinski:

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/RT-Happy-Birthday-Raisuli-It-Would-be-Great-if-You-Released-Perdicaris

I've been working on an article all week about Turkey's bafflingly supine diplomatic position toward Iran. Now I read this.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's spokesman sent a birthday greeting to the president of Iran, who turned 54 this week.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley urged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to send American hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer home.

In a tweet sent Thursday on Ahmadinejad's birthday, Crowley said, "What a gift that would be."

Let me get this straight. Our Secretary of State has wished the president of a regime that kidnapped American citizens a happy birthday, asked him nicely to give them back, and thinks Twitter is the appropriate medium for this communication? Could this all be true?

I can't believe I've been working all week on a piece arguing that Turkey doesn't seem to grasp what it's dealing with.

CA + business = FAIL

CA is the absolute worst state for business, as rated by 600 CEOs.  Texas comes out as the best.
http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications::Article&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=59FD13C5177B40B0B2D3EBA9E4384572&AudID=F242408EE36A4B18AABCEB1289960A07

 

Yet more evidence for what a shithole NJ is.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/11/15/brian-aitkens-mistake

Moving, has legally-owned handguns locked in trunk, sentenced to 7 years.

Cool hack: stuxnet virus destroys nuke centrifuges by jacking motors up and down

 http://volokh.com/2010/11/19/is-israel-behind-the-stuxnet-cyberattack-on-iran/

The new forensic work narrows the range of targets and deciphers the worm’s plan of attack. Computer analysts say Stuxnet does its damage by making quick changes in the rotational speed of motors, shifting them rapidly up and down.

How Detroit does strip clubs

Writer is a bit of an effete prig, but color is interesting: http://nplusonemag.com/postcard-from-detroit

A larger collection of Detroit writings: http://thebrowser.com/topics/front-line-detroit

How much taxation is too much?

A good metric from Bainbridge:

Michael Kinsley tells us that "although I favor Obama’s tax increase, I could not defend [a top marginal tax rate of] 90 cents on the dollar." Why not? Once you accept the liberal view of taxes, why not go all the way to a top rate of 100%? It's the Alice Trillin tax. She argued that, over a certain level, the government gets everything.

Good J Brown Vs Whitman Article at Reason

 http://reason.com/archives/2010/10/20/sacramento-ber-alles

neat: DNA day = $99 to get DNA mapped at 23andme.com

They look for disease and racial markers and other things.

They are reputable.  Sergey Brin (google co-founder) used to find that he was predisposed for parkinsons; also married their co-founder.

https://www.23andme.com/

famous filmmakers direct super bowl

Pretty damn funny:http://slatev.com/player.html?id=64790979001

hat tip: MR

More Haiti

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/02/haiti_three_weeks_later.html