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At Wednesday's White House press conference for President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, both leaders clearly had a lot on their minds—in addition to the matters at hand.
For Trump it was, of course, the Flynn imbroglio. For Netanyahu there were two things. One involves unfortunate, inane investigations to which he's being subjected in Israel, which could lead to an indictment. One investigation concerns alleged illicit receipt of gifts—cigars and champagne; the other concerns talks he held with a newspaper publisher—which mentioned possible shady deals that were never, however, acted upon.
In addition, Netanyahu is under heavy pressure from the right wing of his coalition—to renounce the two-state solution, to build settlements. At the press conference Netanyahu, in particular, sounded flustered and awkward at times, glancing for succor at his script, speaking without his usual assurance and aplomb.
On substance the two leaders' words, too, raised problems at times.
The Palestinian issue appears, unfortunately, to have returned to center stage. It's unfortunate because it remains an issue no more amenable to a solution that at any time in the past.
"The United States," Trump told the reporters, "will encourage a peace, and really a great peace deal." He also said, "I think the Palestinians have to get rid of some of that hate they're taught from a very young age. They have to acknowledge Israel. They have to do that."
The problem is that the Palestinians have "had to" do those things—stop hating; acknowledge the legitimacy of a Jewish political entity—since the Palestinian issue first arose almost a century ago.
They have "had to," but are no closer to doing so today than they were in the 1920s; meanwhile the remedy for an entire generation raised in hate—a reality that Netanyahu, in his flustered way, tried to emphasize—is no closer to being found by any of the putative wizards in the West.
Indeed, neither the president nor the prime minister mentioned Gaza—where a leader who is radical even by Hamas standards has taken the helm; as usual, it was not explained how a solution could be found when the Palestinians west of the Jordan are themselves divided into two mutually antagonistic entities. Trump and Netanyahu's words about a "regional deal" on the Palestinian issue, involving Arab states along with Israel, likewise fail to take into account intractable Palestinian reality.
Instead, Trump engaged in vague talk of "two states" and "one state," not explaining what a "one-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian issue would be—Israel granting citizenship to at least two million mostly intensely hostile Arabs?—while Netanyahu, desperate to avoid the term "two states," reiterated his insistence on Israeli security control and Palestinian recognition of Israel, but mainly appeared terrified of riling his right-wing critics at home.
On a matter vastly more important than the Palestinian issue, Trump's words—"My administration has already imposed new sanctions on Iran, and I will do more to prevent Iran from ever developing—I mean ever—a nuclear weapon"—were more encouraging to Israeli ears.
The words appeared to jibe with a report that the Trump administration is working to create a "NATO-like mutual defense pact" of moderate Arab states that would "share intelligence with Israel and the US to counter the rising threat of Iran."
Israel's role, according to an unnamed diplomat, "would likely be intelligence sharing, not training or boots on the ground. They'd provide intelligence and targets. That's what the Israelis are good at."
In other words, what sounds like a sophisticated plan—taking regional realities into account—to form a bulwark against Iranian expansionism that threatens to engulf the region in war.
It can be hoped that, in their hours-long powwow after the press conference, the U.S. president and Israeli prime minister focused much more on the Iranian issue, which is incomparably more urgent and can be resolved with determined action, than on the Palestinian issue, which is relatively minor and cannot—for now—be resolved.
If Trump, nonetheless, has delusions of grandeur on the Palestinian issue, expect Netanyahu to play along with his policy. It will be a relatively small price to pay for dealing with the Iranian menace.
Originally Published in FrontPageMag.


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By Charlie Carey
Culminating in crisp December skies, planets Jupiter and Saturn are coming together beginning Monday (Dec. 21) to form the rather rare Great Conjunction.
Happening roughly once every 20 years, the two biggest planets in the solar system will appear to pass each other. This year, however, is the closest they have come in about 400 years.
"From our vantage point, we'll be able to see Jupiter on the inside lane, approaching Saturn all month and finally overtaking it on Dec. 21," said Henry Throop, an astronomer in the Planetary Science Division at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Although appearing very close together from Earth, the two gas giants will still be hundreds of millions of miles away from each other.
Most visible just after sunset, it is purely coincidental that this astronomical sight also occurs on the winter solstice.
"Conjunctions like this could happen on any day of the year, depending on where the planets are in their orbits," said Throop. "The date of the conjunction is determined by the positions of Jupiter, Saturn, and the Earth in their paths around the Sun, while the date of the solstice is determined by the tilt of Earth's axis."
For those wanting to see this planetary phenomenon for themselves, NASA recommends finding a viewing point with an unobstructed view of the sky, such as a field or park.
Luckily for those in urban settings, Jupiter and Saturn are generally bright enough to be seen from most cities – so long as the sky is free of clouds.
Skywatchers, you're in for a once-in-a-lifetime treat! Jupiter & Saturn are doing a planetary dance that will result in the Great Conjunction on Dec 21, just after sunset. Find out:
— NASA (@NASA) December 20, 2020
🤩 When and where to look up
📷 How to photograph the conjunction
Visit: https://t.co/SdQSLex2Ex pic.twitter.com/DkaB5XyO9B
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
Want to support local journalism during the pandemic? Make a donation here.

subset: commoncrawl


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Even after state senators overwhelmingly approved a ban on certain gifts to state lawmakers, some of the same legislators kept accepting them.
On May 31, Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Modesto, and most of his colleagues voted to prevent themselves from receiving free concert, sports and theme park tickets from businesses that lobby the state. Yet in June, Cannella received tickets to the U.S. Open golf championship from AT&T, worth $420.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, also voted for the ban, then accepted $340 in Walt Disney World tickets. Sen. Curren Price, D-Los Angeles, another supporter of the ban, picked up $168 worth of Disneyland tickets courtesy of The Walt Disney Co.
Cannella said in an email that he supported the bill because "there is merit to restricting the types of gifts that can be given to the legislature."
"I can only speak for myself in that if I am given tickets to a sporting event, I am not influenced by those who provide them to me," he said. "I make decisions based upon what is in the best interest of my constituents and the people of California."
Padilla and Price did not respond to requests for comment.
After its near-unanimous approval in the Senate, SB 1426's author, Sen. Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, was optimistic about his bill [PDF].
"This is the furthest this legislation has ever gotten," he said in an interview earlier this month.
After years of trying to restrict gifts with bills that ended up dying in committee, Blakeslee thought he had finally written a passable bill by banning only those gifts with "no public interest, no public purpose and the types of gifts that are very difficult to defend," he said.
Nevertheless, the bill died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee last week without a vote. Committee consultant Chuck Nicol said the bill was held because it contained "significant General Fund administrative costs."
Indeed, the state ethics agency opposed the bill because it wouldn't pay for the costs to implement the new regulations. The Fair Political Practices Commission estimated that the rule changes would cost $200,000 to revise rule manuals, field questions and complaints, and conduct investigations, according to spokeswoman Tara Stock. Under current rules, gifts are capped at $420 per year from any one source.
But there's a simpler reason for why legislators buried the bill, said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California: "They like getting gifts."
"Just when you think that it's impossible to overstate the political tone deafness of the California state Legislature, they find a way to prove you wrong," he said.
"It's not clear whether members of the state Senate are more attuned to the voting public or if they passed it because they knew it would die in the Assembly," he said.
Axing the bill in committee meant that "nobody has to cast an embarrassing vote, but it's an extraordinary missed opportunity for a Legislature that's not held in particularly high regard."
Members of the Assembly committee that nixed the bill had their own free fun and recreation on the line.
AT&T treated two of them – Assemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose, and Assemblyman Ricardo Lara, D-South Gate – to a concert by popular Mexican pop-rock band Maná in April. The tickets, which AT&T doled out to other legislators as well, cost between $81 and $93.
Another committee member, Assembly Majority Leader Charles Calderon, D-City of Industry, went to the Universal Studios Islands of Adventure theme park in Florida in June, with tickets worth $278 provided by Comcast. The same month, he went to Disney World with free tickets from Disney worth $261. His son, Assembly candidate Ian Calderon, also got free tickets to both amusement parks.
Campos, Lara and Charles Calderon did not respond to requests for comment.
Blakeslee, for his part, isn't running for re-election. Disappointed after his legislation petered out, he said in a statement: "The public is paying attention and expects the Legislature to get its house in order. It is only a matter of time before this loophole is closed."
Story courtesy of our media partners at California Watch (A Project of the Center for Investigative Reporting)


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The makers of such famous treats as Twinkies and Drake's Devil Dogs will be cranking out the sugar-filled treats no more. Union officials representing some of the company's 18,500 workers and company executives are pointing fingers at each other in an effort to assign blame, but the fact remains that when businesses collapse everybody loses. You may not run a business the size of Hostess Brands, but your company has doubtless faced its share of troubles. Here's a look at the ones that brought Hostess down, others faced by business owners just like you, and some of the secrets that can help you carry on despite adversity.
Bridge Over Troubled Waters
The end. There are many factors that can lead to your business failing. While Hostess executives and union representatives blamed each other Friday. Everyone saw the writing on the wall: the company's failure has been a long time coming. When a business model no longer works for whatever reason, it's time for everyone to move on. Of course, businesses large and small face many challenges these days. Here are just a few thoughts entrepreneurs need to keep in mind. CNN Money
Uphill battle. Even businesses that persevere face challenges, says small business owner Rachel Strella. Small Business Saturday is coming up this weekend, and during the recent U.S. election there was a lot of lip service paid to small businesses, but Strella says the deck continues to be stacked against small business owners. Even though a higher average dollar amount is recovered from large corporations, the IRS audits small businesses more often. If that isn't "stacked", what is? Strella Social Media
Let the sun shine in. One problem that continues to vex the tech startup industry is the lack of effective immigration reform that would allow tech entrepreneurs to come to the U.S. to start businesses. Obviously, these emerging tech companies would create ecosystems wherein many other small businesses and entrepreneurs could flourish. Here, podcast host and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis rails about the problem and the need for a solution. Startup of the Week
Family feud. Regulations and government officials aren't the only challenges facing entrepreneurs. One of the challenges is, well…just being an entrepreneur. Growing a business can be tough on personal relationships, including your family. In this interview columnist and author Meg Cadoux Hirshberg, wife of Gary Hirshberg, founder of organic yogurt company Stonyfield Farms, talks about the personal side of the equation. Jonathan Fields
Evolutionary Entrepreneurship
Work smarter, not harder. The key to overcoming obstacles in your business is not always to work harder. Some entrepreneurs can work a bit too hard, and wind up losing their business and their health in the process. Just read this post for one entrepreneur's perspective on how working too hard will not guarantee a successful business…and could even land you in the hospital! Here are some further suggestions for how to work smarter instead of harder while retaining your business and your peace of mind. N2ITIV Solutions
Change your business model. One of the most important strategies to keep your company alive in lean times or flush is to be ready to evolve your business model as times change. Chris Brogan interviews media entrepreneur David Siteman Garland about how morphing your business is the key not only to keeping your business alive, but to keeping you satisfied as an entrepreneur. Always be ready to make course corrections when necessary. Human Business Works
Leverage connections and community. Small businesses and entrepreneurs are most successful when they learn to leverage the resources of their communities. Business consultant and blogger Adam Gottlieb explains how for years he helped small businesses do what they do best. "I have always been particularly passionate about small businesses, since small companies tend to reveal the unique character and qualities of their owners," Gottlieb says. BizSugar Blog


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When people look at "fracking"—the production of natural gas through hydraulic fracturing techniques–they see different things. Critics see polluted wells, exploding houses, and earthquakes—an environmental disaster in the making. These anti-frackers have a simple solution: ban it. In contrast, industry supporters see hydraulic fracturing as a safe technology that drillers have been using for decades without controversy and that now promises a new era of energy abundance. The pro-frackers, too, have a simple solution: get the government out of the way and drill baby, drill.
As an economist, I see something still different: a familiar pattern of negative externalities and missing market signals, to which the appropriate response is unlikely to be either prohibition or laissez-faire.
Global externalities
In economic jargon, negative externalities are effects of production or consumption that have an impact on third parties who have no voice on either the supply or the demand side of a market. Some of the externalities of hydraulic fracturing are global in nature, others local. We will deal with the global first and then turn to local issues, including water use, contamination of aquifers, and others.
The most important global externalities are emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) that feed into climate change. (Climate change deniers may skip to the next section.)The proper response to the negative externalities of energy production and use would be to introduce price signals proportional to the harm they cause. Doing so would put an end to the free lunch that producers and consumers have long enjoyed and would curb the resulting overconsumption.
As I have explained at length elsewhere, there are several ways to introduce the necessary price signal: A tax on GHG emissions, some kind of cap-and-trade system, or adequate measures to enforce the property rights of pollution victims through tort law are the most often mentioned. It is less important here to explore the pros and cons among these alternatives than it is to look at the general principles that lie behind all of them.
To begin with, price signals need to account for the differing GHG emissions from various fuels. For example, suppose the chosen policy is an emission tax of $100 per ton of CO2 equivalent. In order to apply the tax, we need to score various fuels according to their GHG emissions. Natural gas starts with an advantage, because burning an energy-equivalent quantity of gas produces about 40 to 45 percent less CO2 than coal and 25 to 30 percent less than oil.
If that were the whole story, it would imply that the tax per Btu would be much less on gas than other fossil fuels. Over time, the lower tax would lead to displacement of coal and, to some extent, oil, by natural gas. A recent study from MIT, "The Future of Natural Gas," gives detailed projections. Under the assumptions of the MIT study, a system that priced in GHG emissions would cause gas to displace coal completely for electric power and make substantial inroads against oil as a transportation fuel.
Emissions from combustion are not the whole story, however. Accurate scoring of fossil fuels needs to take a lifecycle approach, including emissions in extraction, storage, processing, and transportation as well as in final use. For example, lifecycle assessment of liquid motor fuels gives a substantially higher GHG score to gasoline and diesel fuel derived from bitumen (oil sands) than from conventional oil. The same approach is applicable to natural gas. Robert W. Howarth and colleagues have argued that when leakages of methane are taken into account, natural gas produced by hydraulic fracturing has a GHG score that is not only higher than conventional gas, but higher than conventional oil and in some cases, even higher than coal.
Other researchers, including the authors of the MIT study and another group from the Energy Institute of the University of Texas in Austin, do not dispute that lifecycle assessment is the right way to measure the GHG impact of various fuels. However, they respond that methane leakages, while a real risk, can be minimized through proper drilling practices. I am not the one to resolve such technical issues. Whoever is right, though, we end up with two conclusions about the correct policy response.
First, we must begin now to implement a coherent energy policy that prices in environmental risks. It is simply disgraceful to limp along with the current mishmash of policies, all of them in one way or another based on the myth of affordable energy. Some of those policies make matters worse for both energy independence and the environment (ethanol). Others sacrifice the environment in a largely illusory pursuit of energy security (Canadian oil sands). Still others of which achieve results but only at needlessly high costs (automobile mileage standards). None of them provides a framework in which we can properly balance the pros and cons of various ways of producing and conserving energy against one another.
Second, we need to act now on what we already know. If unresolved technical issues mean that we cannot yet assign a precise lifecycle score to unconventional natural gas, let's start with a policy that scores each fossil fuel according to carbon released in combustion, and move on from there. As additional data come in on methane leaks, on the land-use effects of ethanol production or on GHGs released in production of heavy oil, we can adjust the emission scores. Meanwhile, let's remember one thing: The fact that we can't measure something precisely is not evidence that its value is zero.
Local externalities
Climate change is far from the only environmental issue raised by hydraulic fracturing. The technology has the potential for causing a number of more localized externalities that are, for some people, a cause of even greater concern. The University of Texas study linked above provides a comprehensive list, including these effects:
• Groundwater contamination in the immediate neighbourhood of wells
• Contamination of aquifers on a wider, regional scale
• Excessive use of fresh water
• Health effects of undisclosed components of fracturing fluids
• Spills and treatment of waste fluids
• Blowouts, house explosions and flaming kitchen faucets
Both the MIT and Texas studies take all of these risks seriously. Unlike some fracking opponents, however, neither of them sees an outright ban as appropriate. Instead, they make three kinds of recommendations.
First, in a few cases, they recommend immediate action. For example, they favour immediate, mandatory disclosure of all chemical and other additives to the water used to carry out hydraulic fracturing, instead of allowing their composition to be protected as trade secrets as in the past.
Second, they recommend more research to establish the frequency and severity of environmental effects. Calls for further research can become a mere delaying tactic, but in this case, it does appear that the rapid growth of the industry has left the research community behind. One Australian politician, quoted in the Financial Times, describes the industry as "3,000 miles ahead of the regulators." To cite just one example, some recent research shows high concentrations of methane in drinking water near drilling sites. However, that research would be more useful to regulators if there were better baseline studies of methane concentrations before drilling began.
The third and broadest response of both the MIT and Texas studies is that the worst problems are due to departures from best practices. Undoubtedly, more work needs to be done to develop a catalogue of best practices, ideally with the participation of industry representatives, independent engineers, and the regrettably fragmented system of state regulators.
Compensation and valuation
Moving beyond the geological and engineering problems, what economic issues do local effects of hydraulic fracturing raise? In some cases they turn out to be similar to those raised by global effects, but in other ways, they are different.
The main similarity is that when producers are free to ignore negative externalities, whether local or global, the price of gas from hydraulic fracturing does not reflect its full opportunity cost. Underpricing of natural gas, in turn, leads both to excessive expansion of the market share of gas relative to other energy sources, and to excessive energy consumption in general. In that regard, any price-based energy policy at all would be an improvement over the current situation. Carbon taxes, cap and trade, or any other mechanism, even if motivated primarily by climate change, would at the same time slow the growth of demand and thereby mitigate local as well as global impacts. To repeat, there is no need to wait for more research to begin putting a price-based policy in place. We already know that the correct price is not zero. Fine-tuning can come later.
At the same time, local pollution raises new issues of compensation and valuation that remain in the background when discussing climate change, if they arise at all. It may be helpful to begin our discussion of compensation and valuation with an overview of the way externalities would be resolved in an ideal market-based system.
Ideally, we would resolve all negative externalities by private negotiation, as outlined by Ronald Coase in his famous article on social cost. For example, suppose a gas company wanted to drill a well in the middle of a North Dakota wheat farm. Assume that the farm is large enough that all local externalities can be contained within its boundaries. In that case, either the company offers the farmer a fair royalty on the gas, plus enough to compensate for spills, ground water pollution, and so on, or it does not get to drill.
This approach to resolving local externalities has three key features:
1. It generates a price signal to the producer through the compensation paid for harmful local impacts. The producer then passes the signal along to buyers of the gas.
2. It provides compensation to the parties harmed by the local externalities.
3. It solves the valuation problem. Since the amount of compensation is set by negotiation between the parties actually paying it and receiving it, the payment has to fall between the maximum the driller would willingly pay and the minimum the farmer would willingly accept, or no drilling will take place.
Use of a carbon tax or similar policy to control climate change falls short of this three-part ideal. It preserves only the first of these features, the price signal, but not the second, compensation, or third, valuation. That is probably inevitable. It is difficult to imagine any practicable scheme that would allow direct negotiations or payment of compensation between individual polluters and their individual victims on a global scale. When dealing with local externalities, however, we do need to consider paying compensation and obtaining the consent of those who bear the harm. There are several ways that could be done.
Sometimes the ideal of direct negotiations really works. It is commonplace for Kansas or North Dakota farmers to allow construction of wind turbines on their property in exchange for negotiated compensation. Wildlife organizations buy conservation easements from ranchers. These are real business deals, not something out of an economics journal or a work of libertarian science fiction.
In crowded areas, the numbers of parties involved and property rights that may be poorly defined or hard to enforce make completely voluntary resolution of externalities difficult. Even in such cases, though, practicable mechanisms are available that go at least part way toward resolving the issues of compensation and valuation.
One possibility is a court-administered compensation pool to which harmed parties can apply for restitution. The resolution of damages from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is a case in point. This approach may not be perfect, but it is better than letting the responsible parties escape the duty of compensation altogether, and it puts others on notice that pollution has a price.
Individual or class action lawsuits under tort law are another possibility. As discussed earlier, it may be possible to control the externalities of hydraulic fracturing by following best practices. If best practices are properly codified, courts can consider departures from them as evidence of negligence. That would increase the probability that plaintiffs will prevail. If the threat of compensation pools or class action suits makes fracking in densely populated or geologically sensitive areas prohibitively expensive, so be it. Not all resources are economically worth recovering when the full value of externalities is included in costs of production.
In still other cases, it may be possible for producers to negotiate with communities, rather than individuals, and offer compensation in the form of tax payments, support for local schools, or whatever. That is not quite the equivalent of voluntary negotiations with individuals, but it may be better than nothing both in terms of putting a price on pollution and providing at least indirect restitution to victims.
Finally, at least one of the local externalities of hydraulic fracturing, excessive use of fresh water, has a clear market-based solution. The solution is to price water properly in the first place. David Zetland's recent book The End of Abundance describes how proper water pricing can resolve what he calls the "water-energy nexus." Because the economic value of water varies greatly from place to place, the problem of water use can only be resolved locally, on a case-by-case basis.
The bottom line
The bottom line is that the environmental impacts of fracking are a real problem, but one to which neither prohibition nor laissez faire seems a sensible solution. Instead, we should look toward mitigation of impacts using economic tools that have been applied successfully in the case of other environmental harms. Three principles are especially important:
First, the controversy over hydraulic fracturing would be far easier to resolve against the background of a coherent national energy policy that prices in environmental effects. It is important to begin setting the framework for such a policy in place now, on the basis of what we already know, even if pricing and scoring are initially imprecise.
Second, although the existence of a price-based national energy policy would help to resolve local environmental impacts by reducing overall energy demand, it does not represent a complete solution. In the case of local harms, we also need to consider mechanisms for compensating victims and getting their input into the valuation process.
Third, we really don't yet know everything we would like to about the frequency and severity of negative externalities from hydraulic fracturing. We need more research on the extent to which environmental harms can be mitigated through best practices and how to integrate best practices into state, local, and federal regulations, as well as into tort law. However, the need for further research is not a justification for delay. We know enough to begin taking action now.
By. Ed Dolan
"This post originally appeared on Ed Dolan's Econ Blog at Economonitor.com, and is reprinted here with permission."


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That thing I did with this title? It's exactly what I hate to do. Let's just say, when it came to writing research papers and reports in high school, I always scored the lowest on the abstract portion.
See, I'm kind of a long-winded person. In case you couldn't tell. I have a hard enough time condensing all my rambling, probably-not-so-interesting thoughts into a reasonable blot post*, never mind trying to summarize all that is notable** about a recipe into a short phrase that fits onto a single line the width of my post space.
*But I'm trying. Really trying to embrace that whole "less is more" thing. It can only mean good things for both of us.
**It was torture leaving out the mint, cilantro, cucumber and lettuce. But I had to draw the line somewhere.
So anyway, this recipe. If I have any kind of influence on you (clearly, I'm a dreamer) you read this post last week, immediately went out and found yourself some kelp noodles, brought them home and half an hour later devoured them drenched in peanut sauce just like I did.
And then, just like I did, you decided there was no way you could go more than 3 days without them. Here's the solution: Make this. Then make it again. (I did, twice in 3 days, because I hated the first set of pictures they are THAT good and I couldn't wait any longer. Trust me, there were no complaints in this house.)
This served us well during the sweltering heat wave that made up the entire first three weeks of July. When the thought of hot food made me twitchy, but something "more than a salad" was craved. Seaweed noodles were the perfect stuffing for fresh shrimp rolls, providing an addicting little crunch and bulk (not to mention calcium – did you know a serving delivers 15% of your daily value!) For the rest of the fillings, I took note of the summer rolls we usually get from our local Vietnamese place – and added a little sumthin' sumthin' in the form of sweet mango. And that sauce? No way was that getting left out of the title. When you blend together something so good you just wanna clean the bowl with your tongue, it's absolutely imperative that you use it as part of the longest title ever. It's either that or bathing in it, or shouting it's praises to everyone you pass in the grocery store near the kelp noodles – hey, I don't judge.
Fresh Summer Rolls with Shrimp, Mango, Kelp Noodles, & Coconut-Peanut Curry Sauce
Yield: 8 rolls
Soft rice paper rolled with kelp noodles. mango, shrimp and fresh vegetables - and the most delicious sauce to dip them in.
1 package kelp noodles
1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 head red-leaf lettuce, leaves separated, washed and dried
1-2 small cucumbers, cut into matchsticks
1 small mango, peeled and cut into matchsticks
Fresh mint leaves and sprigs of cilantro
8 sheets of rice paper (available online, or in the Asian import section of your grocery store, or an Asian market)Sauce
1/2 cup light coconut milk
1 tablespoon creamy, all-natural peanutbutter
1 tablespoon coconut nectar (agave nectar or honey could be substituted)
1 teaspoon yellow curry powder
1 teaspoon unseasoned rice vinegar
1 teaspoon reduced sodium tamari (for gluten-free) or soy sauceDirections:
Place the kelp noodles in a large bowl and cover with hot water. Set aside for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the vegetables and shrimp:
- Separate the lettuce leaves, wash, and pat dry.
- Slice the cucumber and mango into matchsticks.
- Wash and separate mint and cilantro leaves.
- Steam the shrimp in a steamer basket over boiling water for two minutes. Slice the shrimp in half lengthwise, so that they will lie flatter in the rolls.To make the sauce, combine all ingredients in a small food processor or blender. Set aside.
When you are ready to assemble the rolls, drain the kelp noodles and have a bowl or shallow dish full of warm water nearby.
Working with one rice paper wrap at a time, immerse the wrap into the warm water for about 20 seconds. Place on work surface and gently pat the top side with a clean dishtowel to remove excess water. Layer a lettuce leave, a few pieces of cucumber and mango, some kelp noodles, mint and cilantro, and 3 shrimp halves on the bottom half of the rice paper. Carefully roll up, burrito style, folding the outer edges inside, and set aside. Repeat with remaining ingredients.
Serve immediately with sauce for dipping.
Cara Lyons, www.carascravings.com
Click here to print.


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DETROIT (AP) - A man who believes he knows where Jimmy Hoffa was buried says he's been interviewed three times by federal authorities since stepping forward in January.
Tony Zerilli tells Detroit TV station WDIV that the FBI has enough information for a search warrant to dig in Oakland County. He says he answered every question from agents and prosecutors.
The FBI declined to comment Monday.
Zerilli was convicted of organized crime as a reputed Mafia captain. He was in prison in 1975 when Hoffa disappeared from a Detroit-area restaurant but says he was informed about Hoffa's whereabouts after his release.
Hoffa was president of the Teamsters union until 1971. Zerilli has been promoting a book, "Hoffa Found." A website says the book will reveal details about Hoffa's death.


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It's a lot of new technology, but the SCTE will be there for you.
The race is on to develop the next-generation access signaling schemes for cable operators to keep up with Nielsen's Law growth in network capacities and speeds delivered to customers. With the announcement of the development of a DOCSIS 3.1 specification by CableLabs during a special SCTE Standards session at Cable-Tec Expo 2012, CableLabs and the SCTE have partnered in new and deeper ways to accelerate the deployment of DOCSIS 3.1. The SCTE will be there to help you get your networks ready for the next generation of DOCSIS, and even improve your existing DOCSIS deployments in the meantime.
The key technical improvements and benefits of proposed DOCSIS 3.1 technologies are: higher-order modulation for greater spectral efficiency, a new modulation format that is both more robust and more efficient, and a new coding scheme that approaches the Shannon limit for theoretical capacity over a noise-limited communications channel. While these improvements and benefits can be implemented with no change to existing cable networks, obtaining the highest capacities offered by DOCSIS 3.1 will require cable network operations personnel to further tighten plants and eliminate sources of impairments. To achieve the ultimate goal of 10 Gbps downstream and 1 Gbps upstream capacity, these improvements will have to be combined with greater RF spectrum in both the upstream and downstream. But, for now, let's focus on the key improvements and how to get our current networks ready for them.
How high will the order of modulation go? In Europe, a specification called DVB-C2, which proposed very similar technology to that proposed for DOCSIS 3.1, has been tested in the field to support 4096-QAM on the downstream in current cable networks. Going from 256-QAM on the downstream to 4096-QAM is a 50 percent increase in bits per symbol. But higher orders of modulation do require lower noise levels in the channel so that the modulation error ratio, or MER, is high enough to support the increased order of modulation. Thermal noise can be lowered by reducing the number of actives in the network, or by replacing older actives with newer ones that have lower noise figures. But common sources of broadband noise in the downstream channel, especially with the move to all-digital downstreams, are intermodulation distortion (IMD) products – i.e., our old friends CTB and CSO. When all of the downstream signals are digital, the slight non-linear behavior of normal cable networks causes the QAM pedestals to convolve with one another in the frequency domain and produce a raised noise floor that has dips in it every 6 MHz (U.S. systems). Those dips are the telltale signs of IMD and can be reduced using the same approaches we've always used to keep plants clean of IMD products.
But some noise is unavoidable, so we need more efficient coding schemes that reduce the required MER without the overhead of current FEC techniques, such as Reed-Solomon (RS) encoding. The answer is low-density parity check (LDPC) coding, which has been around since the 1960s, but until relatively recently had computing requirements that were beyond practicality. That changed in the late 2000s, when other standards, including Wi-Fi, began using LDPC coding to efficiently increase the order of modulation possible in a noise-limited channel. LDPC coding offers several dB better noise immunity than RS coding at similar channel efficiency, or greater spectral efficiency at the same MER.
Wi-Fi also uses the new modulation scheme being proposed for both the upstream and downstream of DOCSIS 3.1, namely orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, or OFDM. It is a multi-carrier modulation scheme (as opposed to single-carrier, or SC-QAM, in the current DOCSIS specification), but what is special about it is that the sub-carriers in OFDM can be squeezed right up against each other, without the need for guard bands because of their orthogonality. Freedom from 6 MHz channels means that wider RF blocks can be used, thereby eliminating guard bands and getting more bits per Hz of RF spectrum.
Similar to S-CDMA, OFDM is inherently more robust to impulse and burst noise since the sub-carriers of OFDM have much longer symbol durations than SC-QAM. Further, individual sub-carriers can use lower orders of modulation in the presence of upstream ingress, or can even be blanked without having to reduce the efficiency of other sub-carriers in the channel. Think of it as ingress cancellation on steroids, except that it can be implemented in a standardized way so that all chip implementations support it equally well.
It's a lot of new technology, but the SCTE will be there for you. We're already working on a new recommended practices document in a Special Working Group of our Engineering Committee that will tell you how to prepare your networks for next-generation access technologies like DOCSIS 3.1. We're also working on updating our DOCSIS training, including breaking out the DOCSIS component of IPEP into a separate certification. And we're working very closely with CableLabs to accelerate deployment of DOCSIS 3.1 so you get the benefits as soon as possible to keep your customers happy.
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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This is the planning page for the Text Layout Working Group's 2008 meeting (TLM 2008).
Venue and Date
There is discussion about having TLM 2008 in conjunction with the Libre Graphics Meeting in May, 2008 in Wrocław, Poland. (This venue is not yet confirmed).
Accomodations: TextLayout2008Accomodation Attendees: TextLayout2008Attendees
Draft Agenda
- HarfBuzz: * Development state * Documenting HarfBuzz
HarfBuzz and Graphite Integration * Where are we? * What needs to be done? Presentations
* New Font Tools: * Spiro * Font Industry * New Features in Fontforge * Compedium of 3rd-party Perl / Python / etc. scripts and tools for font creation
To Do List
Funding discussions with LF
- Room discussions with LGM - assuming LGM is venue
- Have adequate video equipment set up and tested before meeting begins this year. * Consider publication of videos on ?YouTube. This could be done essentially immediately after a morning or afternoon session if we had a "?YouTube Ready" kind of camera.


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• proclivity •
Pronunciation: prê-kli-vi-tee • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: A natural, innate preference for something, a long-standing inclination, a gentle desire for.
Notes: The plural of today's word requires replacing the Y with an I: proclivities. A proclivity is not exactly an inclination. A proclivity is a natural, innate preference, while an inclination is any disposition in favor of something. You may have a momentary inclination to skip lunch, but a proclivity is a long-standing preference that is part of your character.
In Play: Here is an example that distinguishes a proclivity from an inclination: "Sally has a proclivity for Harley Davidson bikers, but at the party last night she had a strong inclination to leave the one she married." Just remember that a proclivity is something that contributes to your personality: "Noreen has a proclivity to exaggerate the misbehavior of the people she talks about."
Word History: Today's word came to English via French from Latin proclivitas, the noun from proclivis "inclined". It is made up of pro "forward" + clivus "slope". The Latin root cliv- comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *klei- "to lean, bend", found also in various verbs containing -clinare with the same meanings. This root turns up in English words borrowed from Latin, such as recline, incline, and decline. The same root entered Old English with the same -n suffix in hleonian "to lean", Modern English lean. We also find it with an old suffix -d in Old English hlid "cover", today's lid.
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!


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(AP) - The zoo in Novosibirsk, Russia's third-largest city, is home to a unique animal - the liliger. That's a big cat breed where the father is a lion and the mother is a lion-tiger hybrid, called a liger.
The first liliger was born in the zoo last year and now there's a second litter of three, all of them females.
They were born in May, and now have grown up enough to start exploring their surroundings, showing an endearing clumsy energy.
Their mother, Zita, was born in the zoo in 2004. Their father, Sam, is an African lion.


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Survey: Religious Americans More Patriotic Than Non-Religious
IRD President Reminds Christians to Celebrate Independence Day 'Vigorously'
Although a new survey suggests that evangelical Christians are more patriotic than most other religious and non-religious groups, the president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy nevertheless reminds believers they should celebrate the 4th of July with zest.
"[On Thursday] America celebrates its 237th year as a republic, and Christians with all others should celebrate vigorously," said IRD president Mark Tooley in a statement released yesterday. "Christians should not so much be 'proud' as grateful for God's countless blessings and resolved to mend our nation's many failures to abide by His standards."
IRD stated that as the nation celebrates Independence Day, a new survey shows "religious Americans are more patriotic than the non-religious."
Two thirds of evangelicals are "extremely" proud to be American, compared to 56 percent of white mainline Protestants, 49 percent of minority Christians, 48 percent of Catholics, and 39 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans. The survey comes from the Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service.
Church-going is not factored in the survey, but evangelicals typically are among the most church-going, and likely data for church-going Catholics, mainline Protestants and others would show their patriotic levels nearly as high, IRD said.
Eighty-four percent of evangelicals believe God has "granted the U.S. a special role in history," versus 40 percent of the religiously unaffiliated. About three-quarters of evangelicals and Catholics (76 percent) believe that the world "would be better off if more countries adopted America's values and way of life."
Tooley added, "The United States began as a small, disconnected collection of 13 states, overwhelmingly agrarian, only 3 million people mostly living on the edge of poverty, dependent on foreign powers for most finished goods, and scandalously allowing human slavery. Across three centuries it became the world's most powerful and prosperous nation, the economic engine and breadbasket of the world, guardian against totalitarianism, and exponent of ordered liberty.
"The United States is and always has been a nation of sinners who have never fully lived up to the founding aspirations of justice and equality for all under God. Today it grapples with attacks on marriage and family, lack of protection for the unborn and unprecedented assaults on religious liberty, a founding premise for our nation.
"Every generation must fight anew for liberty. But as we wage these battles, spiritually and politically, we must thank God for His many blessings across 237 years and ask His help in aligning our country with His truth and love," he concluded.
Founded in 1981, IRD has been "a voice for transparency, for renewal, and for Christian orthodoxy," the organization states on its website. Theologian and IRD board member Thomas Oden said group members "are not presuming to create new doctrine but hold firmly to apostolic teaching in ways especially pertinent to current circumstances. The theology is orthodox, reliable, stable, beautiful, familiar, and glorious. By it the church has been blessed by God for two thousand years."
IRD explains, "Our historic ties with renewal efforts in the mainline denominations along with our connection to the broader evangelical movement give us a unique and comprehensive perspective on Protestant American church life and social witness."


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Texas Weight Loss - Houston Kirby
Lose weight the healthy way – without starving yourself!
It can seem like a difficult task to lose weight. It can be overwhelming to choose the right weight loss products and advice when there are so many options. With over 15 years of experience, Texas Weight Loss is here to help you lose weight fast. Our personalized step-by-step plans include a low-carb diet and recommended weight loss supplements to burn belly fat. We also offer monthly follow-ups to help you adjust as you go.
To learn more about our medical weight loss methods or to begin your virtual weight loss program, we welcome you to contact one of our 6 locations throughout Houston, San Antonio, or Austin, TX. We look forward to supporting you on your weight loss journey.
Houston ( (listen); HEW-stən) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in 2020. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the seat and largest city of Harris County and the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, which is the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the second-most populous in Texas after Dallas–Fort Worth. Houston is the southeast anchor of the greater megaregion known as the Texas Triangle.Comprising a land area of 640.4 square miles (1,659 km2), Houston is the ninth-most expansive city in the United States (including consolidated city-counties). It is the largest city in the United States by total area whose government is not consolidated with a county, parish, or borough. Though primarily in Harris County, small portions of the city extend into Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, bordering other principal communities of Greater Houston such as Sugar Land and The Woodlands.
Boulevard Oaks, Braeburn, Braeswood Place, Briarforest, Brooke Smith, Carverdale, Central Northwest, Central Southwest, Cloverland, East Little York / Homestead, El Dorado/ Oates Prarie, First Ward, Fondren Gardens, Fort Bend Houston, Fourth Ward


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Along the waterfront is Riverwalk Landing—a fine blend of riverfront dining, outdoor recreation, boutique shops, and events—all with a beautiful view of the York River. Treat yourself to ice cream from Ben & Jerry's or simply relax as you take in the sights and sounds of the bustling Riverwalk.
River DineSavor dining at one-of-a-kind restaurants, many with a waterview or grab an ice cream cone and enjoy it as you stroll by the river or sit on the beach.
River ShopSample specialty waterfront shops designed in the spirit of Colonial architecture that offers clothing, jewelry, quilts, art, patriotic items, home decor, and more.
River ViewEnjoy a mile-long pedestrian walk along the York River from the Yorktown Battlefield to the American Revolution Museum of Yorktown.


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If you're thinking about hiring to build your business, you might be wondering how much you need to know about human resources. The care and keeping of your employees can take up some time out of your usual routine, but doing it well can ensure a strong future for your growing company.
While you might not be ready to hire an HR specialist for your business, you should be prepared to handle a few key aspects of human resource management.
Planning employment needs
What staffing needs can you anticipate for your business in the next six months? What about next year or three years from now? Does your business need seasonal help during busy periods? Even solopreneurs should think about support needs before your business needs to grow.
Focus on specific tasks you need help with rather than trying to recruit a jack-of-all-trades. And be sure to reevaluate job descriptions periodically to make sure your plans match up with reality.
Recruiting and hiring
When it's time to bring in help — whether a 1099 contractor or a formal employee — hiring the right person is a task that takes great care. From reviewing resumes to checking I-9 documents, it's important to take your time to make sure you're committing to the best employee for your venture.
Managing salaries and benefits
First things first: Having employees means following federal and state employment laws. Your region may require certain pay rates or benefits, like sick time, to be provided to employees.
Beyond the minimum required support for employees, robust benefits packages can help you foster happy, engaged staff members.
Evaluating employee performance
Criticism can be hard to hear, but yearly or quarterly performance reports can help your employees — and yourself — grow. Developing a strong, competent staff can only help your business reach its goals. Regular check-ins can help your team work more efficiently and help spur innovation.
Written feedback is more likely to be adhered to than verbal discussions, so be sure to keep records of these meetings for reference.
Communicating with staff members
When communicating with staff, use the same consideration you would with your external communications. Be consistent, and don't get hung up on boring legalese. Instead, focus on clear language that's fair and steady throughout memos, announcements and requests.
By anticipating human resource management tasks before you hire your first employee, you'll be better prepared to tackle all the related tasks when the time comes. A SCORE mentor can also help you navigate the details of human resources.


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TRIPOLI (AFP) - The Libyan parliament ousted Prime Minister Ali Zeidan Tuesday after a tanker laden with crude oil from a rebel-held terminal broke through a naval blockade and escaped to sea.
The no-confidence motion was approved by 124 of the 194 members of the General National Congress, four more than the majority required, MPs said.
Mr Zeidan, an independent elected with the support of liberals, has proved incapable of bringing to heel the myriad of former rebel militia that have carved out their own fiefdoms since the 2011 uprising that toppled the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi. The premier was himself briefly abducted by former rebel militia in the heart of the capital last October.
In a new humiliation for his government, a North Korean-flagged tanker laden that had taken on a cargo of oil from a rebel-held terminal in the east slipped the warships deployed to intercept it and escaped to sea earlier Tuesday. The Morning Glory, which docked in Al-Sidra Saturday and is reported to have taken on at least 234,000 barrels of crude, is the first vessel to have loaded oil from a rebel-held terminal since the challenge against the Tripoli authorities erupted last July.
Mr Zeidan's government had threatened armed action, even an air strike, to prevent the tanker getting away with the oil bought from the rebels' self-declared autonomous regional government without the authorisation of the state-owned Libyan National Oil Corp. But bad weather prevented the small naval vessels - mostly fast patrol boats - from following the huge ship out into the Mediterranean from Al-Sidra, MPs said. "The oil tanker took advantage of poor weather conditions to head for the open sea. The ships that were surrounding it were not in a position to follow," one MP told AFP.
MPs voiced anger at the failure of Zeidan's government to make good on its threat to stop the tanker by force if necessary. "The situation in the country has become unacceptable. Even those MPs who used to support the prime minister no longer have any alternative," MP Suad Gannur told AFP.
Warships had deployed to block the Morning Glory after Culture Minister Amin al-Habib warned Sunday that the tanker would be "turned into a pile of metal" if it tried to leave port.
The GNC now has two weeks to agree on a replacement prime minister. Defence Minister Abdullah al-Thani was named caretaker premier.
Mr Zeidan had warned that the country faced chaos if he were ousted without a consensus on his replacement. The government has said a task force composed of both regular troops and ex-rebel militia is being formed to bring the rebel ports back under central government control within a week.
But analysts warn that any resort to force risks plunging Libya back into civil war and wreaking major damage to the country's oil infrastructure.
The standoff between Tripoli and the eastern rebels has already slashed Libyan oil exports from 1.5 million barrels per day to just 250,000, dealing a massive blow to the North African country's key revenue earner.
The former rebels who seized control of eastern export terminals last July are demanding the restoration of the autonomy that Cyrenaica enjoyed for the first 12 years after Libyan independence in 1951.
They insist that all oil sales they make will be transparent but that revenues from eastern exports should be kept by the region.
They have made several previous attempts to make shipments through their own oil company but the Morning Glory is the first to have successfully taken on crude.
Washington said Sunday it was "deeply concerned" over the loading of "illicitly obtained" oil.
"This action is counter to law and amounts to theft from the Libyan people," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. "The oil belongs to the Libyan National Oil Company and its joint venture partners."


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A combination of complex rules and the resurgence of debt markets is keeping US wind developers from seeking federal loan guarantees for projects under a programme many hoped would aid project financing.
The loan guarantee programme, part of President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package signed into law in February 2009, is designed to give federal financial backing to several categories of projects. The part of the programme that offers guarantees for transmission projects and facilities using innovative renewable energy technologies has been oversubscribed, but the part targeting projects using commercially proven technologies, which most wind projects do, is not going to plan. By mid-February this year, the US Department of Energy (DOE) had received just eight applications - and only four of those were for wind energy projects.
"There has not been an overall embracing of the programme," Julia Pettit, an associate at law firm Stoel Rives, told delegates at a recent conference on wind power finance and investment in San Diego, California.
Part of the problem is the additional regulatory requirements that come with the guarantee. Projects must go through a federal environmental review, which can mean months of delay and uncertainty. "It always takes a while to work through the process, and that element of uncertainty unsettles a lot of people," said Edward Einowski, a partner with Stoel Rives.
John Calaway, director of wind development at California-based Pattern Energy, agreed. His company is considering applying for a loan guarantee for a 138MW project in Nevada, but it is located on federal land and will have to go through the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) process anyway. "To introduce the Nepa requirements on projects that don't already have to go through it is absolutely out of the question in my mind," he said.
Projects receiving federal loan guarantees also have to comply with the Davis-Bacon Wage Act, which requires that contractors pay the bulk of wages in the region where the construction is taking place. Most contractors already do that, said Einowski. But the real challenge is the record keeping required to prove that they are compliant, he says, which can add as much as 10% to the cost of the base contract for building a wind farm.
The programme is not designed to make projects easier to finance. To qualify, projects have to already have a credit rating at least equivalent to BB from Standard & Poor's or a Ba2 from Moody's, and have passed the lender's credit test without the guarantee being factored in. "The reality is once you get it, more than likely you probably didn't need it," said Hunter Armistead, executive director of Pattern Energy.
Changes in the bank loan market since the stimulus package was introduced at the height of the global financial crisis have also lessened the need for developers and their lenders to take on the task of seeking federal assistance.
"The commercial banks are coming around so quickly, I think they are going to overtake the DOE programme," said Ciaran O'Brien, chief financial officer of St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group.
Kerri Fox, head of structured finance in North America for Spanish bank BBVA, agrees. "I don't think the programme is doing what people thought it was going to be doing," she said. "I think, when it was announced last February, the purpose behind it was to add liquidity into the market and provide capital where banks were not lending.
"Now you have a very different environment. You've got a situation where you can get a wind deal financed using the banks."
One advantage the loan guarantee programme does offer over the banks, however, is cheaper money. Fox estimated that developers who have the financial might of the federal government backstopping them can shave 150-200 basis points off the interest rate they will pay on the 80% of total project debt the guarantee covers.
Savings versus risk
"For every sponsor it's a cost-benefit analysis," she said. "What is the actual cost saving, particularly in an environment where bank interest rates are continuing to fall? And is that cost saving worth it when you compare it to the execution risk, the additional time, the transaction costs and the uncertainty of whether you are going to get your project done when you intended?"
The transaction fees alone may be enough to deter applications, said Morten Lund, a partner with Stoel Rives. There is an application fee of $50,000, an upfront facility fee of 0.5% of the guaranteed amount and an annual maintenance fee of $10,000-$25,000. "You'd have to shave more than a few points off the rate to make it worth your time," he added.
Ultimately, experts predict that it will be the very large projects, such as Caithness Energy's planned 845MW Shepherds Flat project in Oregon, that stand to gain from the programme.
Fox agreed: "It makes sense that a deal of that size would be running though the loan guarantee programme because the amount of debt that's needed is such that you are not going to be able to put on long-tenor debt at attractive pricing. For a deal that is 100 or 200MW, the programme doesn't make sense."
And although the bank market is coming back, said Chip Carstensen, managing director at Nord/LB New York, it still does not have the lending capacity to cover projects as large as Shepherds Flat. But a DOE loan guarantee would allow individual banks to put more into a deal without any additional risk. "You have the benefit of increased liquidity," added Matthew Ptak, vice-president at German bank BayernLB. "In our case we generally take positions of $25-75 million in renewable energy transactions. We think we can scale that up by a factor of four for DOE-supported transactions."


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Every year is an exciting one within the Entertainment world. Figuring out who you should be watching and keeping track of can be difficult. Here are some of the most exciting celebrities to keep your eye on in 2013.
Jennifer Aniston
Even if you're "Team Jolie" Anniston is someone to keep an eye on. There are few actresses who can pull of smart, edgy and be the charming girl next door type all at the same time. Anniston is one of them. Over the last few years she's gone from supporting actress to lead actress and has since added the titles of Director and Producer to her resume. She was given a star on the Walk of Fame in 2012 and has a number of projects in the queue for 2013. Maybe this year she'll find her "Blind Side."
Ed Sheeran
He may only be 22, but Ed Sheeran is definitely making a name for himself in the music scene. He started out as an independent musician playing gigs almost every day until his indie album caught the attention Asylum/Atlantic Records. Now he's signed with the label and was named The British Breakthrough Artist of the Year in 2012. He's a great inspiration for people in the indie scene who have dreams of going mainstream.
Kim Kardashian
Yes, we know that she's Kanye's Baby Mama but we're hoping that beyond watching her adjust to new motherhood 2013 will be the year we finally figure out why, exactly, she's famous.
Louis CK
His sitcom has been wildly successful for several seasons; he's won Emmys and has one of the most successful comedy specials of all time (thanks to his selling it independently). With his sitcom, Louie, on hiatus this season nobody is quite sure what he has up his sleeve for 2013 but we're willing to bet that it is going to be phenomenal.
Katie Holmes
She's finally free of Tom Cruise and hopefully that means she can start taking on film and television projects again. We're hoping that her career really takes off now that the two have split. It happened for Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz and Mimi Rogers (all former or near-former Mrs. Cruises), there's no reason to believe it won't happen for the most memorable cast member of Dawson's Creek. We can't wait to see what projects she takes on this year!
Justin Timberlake
The mega pop-star took his turn in a Clint Eastwood vehicle in 2012 and has more in store for 2013. In addition to the traditional entertainment projects, Timberlake is also spearheading the MySpace revival effort. The site is due to reopen hopefully soon and if Timberlake can bring it back to life he'll be able to add "Internet Mogul" to his resume which will make him a…quadruple threat? We've lost track of how many threats he is.
Justin Bieber
Isn't every year a year to keep an eye on Justin Bieber?
2013 is certainly going to be an interesting year—not just for these celebrities but for those of us who are keeping track of them!


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Fox Responds To Gen. Dempsey Debunking Benghazi "Stand Down" Myth With A False Poll Question
Written by Zachary Pleat
Fox & Friends aired a flawed poll question which falsely asserted that President Obama abandoned Americans under attack in Benghazi, Libya, in reaction to General Martin Dempsey reaffirming that no "stand down" order was issued to forces during the attacks. The false allegation that troops were told to stand down has been repeatedly pushed by Fox News.
On June 13, Fox & Friends aired a graphic showing results to a Fox News poll question that asked why "President Obama did not order US troops to help Americans in Benghazi." The show aired the results to the poll question after playing part of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dempsey's congressional testimony in which he said no "stand down" order was given:
Contrary to what Fox polled, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta explained in a February 7 Senate hearing that President Obama ordered him to "do whatever you need to do in be able to protect our people there" on the night of the Benghazi attacks. Following that conversation, and before the attacks were over, Panetta ordered two anti-terrorism security teams stationed in Spain to deploy to Libya and another special operations team to deploy to the region. Unfortunately, the forces arrived after the attacks were over.
In May, several Fox News hosts pushed the similar claim that there had been a "stand down" order given to a small team of special forces troops stationed at the Tripoli embassy the night of the attacks. Special Report anchor Bret Baier cited Gregory Hicks, then-Deputy Chief of Mission, when he said that "special forces in Tripoli were told to stand down and not get on a C-130 that was going to go from Tripoli to Benghazi." Sean Hannity suggested that it was President Obama who "made a decision and told" troops in Tripoli "to stand down while Americans were under fire and getting killed in Benghazi." On May 9, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy made a similar accusation.
But Gen. Dempsey, responding to a question from Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) during his June 12 congressional testimony, explained that the forces present in Tripoli were not told to "stand down," which he said would mean being told not to do anything -- they were told to help with casualties coming from the Benghazi attacks:
GEN. DEMPSEY: [T]here were two different groups- - there were six people not all working for the same command. Two of them were working with Joint Special Operations Command, they were co-located with another agency of government in Tripoli. And four were working under the direct line of authority of Special Operations Command Europe, or Africa, AFRICOM -- AFSOC. And it was the four you're speaking about, the other two went, the other four -- by the time they'd contacted their command center in Stuttgart, they were told that the individuals in Benghazi were on their way back and that they would be better used at the Tripoli Airport -- because one of them was a medic -- that they would be better used to receive the casualties coming back from Benghazi and that if they had gone, they would have simply passed each other in the air, and that's the answer I received.
SEN. AYOTTE: Ok, so --
GEN. DEMPSEY: They weren't told to stand down. A stand down means don't do anything. They were told to -- that the mission they were asked to perform was not in Benghazi but was at Tripoli Airport.


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"I saw all these American beers and it was a new beer world for me. When I started in the brewing [industry], people used to say, 'Oh, the Americans are just like chemists and pharmacists. There are only a few breweries; it's terrible beer.' But I remember I was very impressed with the beers of Sierra Nevada. Very, very nice beers. That's when I found Cascade hops, and I thought it should be easy to match the American citrusy Cascade hops with Bavarian-style weissbier. So we started to brew Edel-Weisse with them."A little later he added:
"Five years ago when we started this transatlantic project [Hopfen-Weisse, with Brooklyn Brewing] I would say nobody was very interested in different beer styles, in American beer and Belgian beer. But now, more and more people talk about beer, they like to taste different beer styles, and they're really interested in beers. For us, it's a very interesting new movement."And then a little later, this, which was kind of shocking:
"Some American versions of classic beer styles are more interesting than the European originals. Marzen? I found exciting American marzens that are more interesting than European originals. Every two years I go to the US for judging in the World Beer Cup. Mostly I had the Bavarian dunkles and marzen and German-style lager. And then, when I see the results, I am wondering because the winners are American breweries."Obviously, influences ricochet around the planet and it's hard to ignore the fact that Americans are basically brewing European beer styles. Americans constantly tap the riches of foreign countries to enrich our own culture--and food and beverage have always been ground zero for reappropriation. (In the case of the dunkles Hans-Peter judged, you could say we were just trying to out-Bavaria the Bavarians.) But it's also not true to say that all the influence is going only one direction, anymore. Even when we're talking about Germany.
He looked slightly exasperated after he said this, and I said, "but you were the judge!" and he laughed. It prompted him to tell the story of an occasion when he got in a discussion at the judging table with some American judges about what the qualities of a Bavarian dunkles should be. "And the winner of the discussion was me. And the result, the gold and silver medals went to American breweries."


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OAK BROOK, Ill. – Researchers may have discovered one reason that African Americans are at increased risk for heart attacks and other cardiovascular events.
According to a new study published online in the journal Radiology, African Americans have increased levels of non-calcified plaque, which consists of buildups of soft deposits deep in the walls of the arteries that are not detected by some cardiac tests. Non-calcified plaque is more vulnerable to rupturing and causing a blood clot, which could lead to a heart attack or other cardiovascular event.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, African American adults are more likely to be diagnosed with coronary heart disease and are at greater risk of death from heart disease than white adults. In 2007, African American men were 30 percent more likely than non-Hispanic white men to die from heart disease.
"For a long time, physicians have searched for explanations as to why African Americans have higher rates of heart disease and higher cardiac death rates, but less coronary artery calcium than Caucasians," said U. Joseph Schoepf, M.D., professor of radiology and medicine and director of cardiovascular imaging at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. "We show that one possible explanation for the discrepancy may be found in the higher rate of less stable, non-calcified plaque in the heart vessels of African Americans."
Calcium scoring with CT is a common screening tool for patients at risk for cardiovascular disease, because increased levels of calcified plaque in the coronary arteries generally correlates with a greater risk of heart attack or other cardiovascular event. However, calcium scoring does not detect non-calcified plaque.
For the study, researchers compared 301 patients who underwent both calcium scoring with CT and contrast-enhanced coronary CT angiography (cCTA). cCTA provides a more comprehensive picture of the arteries, including the presence of non-calcified and mixed plaques.
The study group comprised 50 percent each of African American and white patients, 33 percent of whom were male (mean age 55).
Calcium scoring revealed that calcified plaque was much more prevalent in the coronary arteries of white patients than in the African Americans (45 percent, versus 26 percent). The cCTA revealed that, compared with the white patients, many more African American patients had non-calcified plaque (64 percent, versus 41 percent), and in greater amounts. The median volume of non-calcified plaque among the African American patients was 2.2 milliliters (mL), compared with 1.4 mL among white patients.
Based on these results, the researchers suggest that the value of calcium scoring as a screening tool for African Americans should be reexamined.
"The results of coronary artery calcium scoring studies are to be treated with caution in African Americans, because they may not reflect the true extent of cardiovascular disease," Dr. Schoepf said.
While cCTA does expose patients to ionizing radiation, according to Dr. Schoepf, the effective dose of this procedure has been considerably reduced over the past few years, making it a viable screening option, if other prerequisites of a successful screening test are also met.
"For African American patients, coronary CT angiography may be a more appropriate screening tool for cardiovascular risk," he said.


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Unequal Protection: Protecting Corporate Liars
How Corporations Became 'People' - and How You Can Fight Back"
Back in 2002, when I wrote this book, most Americans thought the Boston Tea Party was a revolt against "excess taxes" and that "corporate personhood" was something the Supreme Court conferred on companies back in 1886. This book blew up both myths, pointing out that the Boston Tea Party was a revolt against the British government giving the East India Company the largest corporate tax cut in history (so they could unfairly compete with small colonial tea merchants) — basically a revolt against the Wal-Mart-ization of the colonies — and that the Supreme Court did not rule that corporations are persons and thus entitled to rights under the Bill of Rights in 1886 (it was a corrupt scam by a bribed SCOTUS justice and Court Clerk). In the 20 years since Unequal Protection first came out, this "new" knowledge is now widespread. With permission from the publisher, Berrett-Koehler, I'll be sharing most of the book (the most recent updated edition) with you, one chapter at a time (and not always in order), over the next dozen or so Sundays. If you find it useful, forward or use parts of it in normal "fair use" fashion with my enthusiastic assent.
The first direct shot across the bow of the doctrine of a corporation's "right to lie" by using its "personhood" to claim First Amendment "free speech" rights came in April 1998, when Mark Kasky, a California political activist, noticed that Nike was engaged in what he considered to be a deceptive greenwashing campaign. Kasky had long been a runner and wore Nike shoes, so he was particularly distressed when he saw Nike's communications director, Lee Weinstein, publish a letter in the San Francisco Examiner in December 1997 that said, in part, "Consider that Nike established the sporting goods industry's first code of conduct to ensure our workers know and can exercise their rights."2
This letter was just a small part, it turned out, of a national campaign by Nike to convince the American public that it was making sure that its contractors and subcontractors were treating their employees in Asia well. The year before, Steve Miller, Nike's sports marketing director, pledged in a letter to athletic program directors and presidents of U.S. universities that Nike's manufac turers complied with "government regulations regarding minimum wage and overtime as well as occupational health and safety, environmental regulations, workers' insurance, and equal opportunity provisions."3
What Nike wasn't mentioning, but which was leaked to the press in 1997, was a 1996 audit of one of the company's overseas factories (this one in Vietnam) by Ernst & Young. The audit, which Nike had commissioned but then tried to keep secret, documented how workers in the Vietnamese factory were exposed to cancer-causing solvents like acetone and toluene in ways that would have been flatly illegal in the United States and were not protected from deafening levels of noise; it also raised a series of questions on other workplace issues. As Mother Jones documented in a February 2001 article ("Greenwashing on Trial" by Josh Richman), "another Nike-funded study found evidence of physical and verbal abuse and sexual harassment at nine of its contract factories in Indonesia."4
Kasky was outraged that Nike held itself out as the model corporate citizen. He told filmmaker Lori Cheatle (for her movie This Land Is Your Land, which also features Naomi Klein, Thomas Frank, Jim Hightower, and me, along with seven others): "The Nike code of conduct stated that they maintained the highest standards of health, worker safety, and compensation, and they used that to market their products. So I felt very upset when I realized that a lot of the representations they were making might not be true."
He and a lot of people in California were buying Nike products under false assumptions or misrepresentations, so he called an attorney and decided to take the company to court.
Kasky went to attorney Alan Caplan (of the "Joe Camel" cigarette lawsuit fame), and together they invoked a rather unique California law that allowed individuals to behave as if they were the state's attorney general and sue companies for fraudulent or other illegal practices, producing what would ultimately become the Supreme Court case Kasky v. Nike.
The Daily Take: Why Fox News has the Right to Lie to Us
In 1999 the case was dismissed by San Francisco Superior Court Judge David Garcia, who suggested that Nike's right to lie—to "free speech"—was protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Kasky and Caplan appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, where, in March 2000, that court ruled against Kasky again, with Justice Douglas Swager arguing that Nike was only promoting its products, as any company would, could, and should be able to do in a world of corporate "persons" endowed with free-speech rights.
His comment specifically noted that Nike's use of inaccurate letters to the editors in newspapers across America, letters telling untruths to university presidents, and other false statements to the press were "within the core area of expression protected by the First Amendment."
Undeterred, Kasky carried his suit to the California Supreme Court, which ruled in May 2002 (by one vote, 4 to 3) that Nike had violated the California laws against unfair competition and false advertising. The Supreme Court justices didn't, however, challenge the notion that First Amendment protections didn't extend to commercial "speech" by corporations; instead they suggested that such rights should be limited to the commercial interests of the corporation and that the action of Nike in this case "bears only a tangential relation to commercial transactions."
At that point Nike decided that, rather than pay the fine and change its business practices, it would take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a very curious thing happened.
The Supreme Court typically gets more than ten thousand requests every year to hear cases. It has a small army of clerks and lawyers (usually including clerks for the justices—Samuel Alito chooses not to have his clerks participate—known as the "cert pool") who filter through them to find the ones that have reasonable merit and which the justices may be interested in hearing. The Court as a whole then considers the thousand or so that survive the culling process, further reducing the caseload for the year to a number typically around one hundred total cases (it takes the votes of four justices to grant certiorari, allowing the case to be argued before the Court).
After the Court has gone through all this work to whittle down its case-load, each case comes before the justices in two ways. First, both parties to the case file their own legal briefs or arguments in writing. Second, interested parties—"friends" of either side (by virtue of association or concern for the issue behind the case)—file Friend of the Court, or amicus curiae, briefs, adding their voices to the arguments. Then the justices hear oral arguments, which these days are limited to thirty minutes for each side, after which each justice and his or her staff retire to their offices to consider the arguments, more carefully look over the amicus briefs, and correspond with other justices about each case.
Eventually—typically over a period of a few months—a consensus emerges or a vote is taken, and on each case the Court decides who wins or loses. The justices then write agreements or dissents with or from the majority opinion, and when all is ready for the public they announce their decision.
Except in the Kasky case.
The Court did agree to hear the case, in the 2003 session. The justices heard the oral arguments on June 26. They accepted the amicus briefs—including filings from companies that included ABC, Inc.; the American Society of Newspaper Editors; the Associated Press; Forbes, Inc.; Fox Entertainment Group; Gannett Company; the Hearst Corporation; the McClatchy Company; the National Association of Broadcasters; the National Broadcasting Company (NBC); National Public Radio, Inc.; the New York Times Company; Newsweek, Inc.; PR Newswire; the Seattle Times Company; Time, Inc.; Tribune Company; U.S. News & World Report; and the Washington Post Company—all agreeing with Nike.
ExxonMobil, Bank of America, and Microsoft filed their own three-company brief on behalf of Nike, and similar separate filings came from the National Association of Manufacturers, Pfizer, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among others.
Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a brief defending Nike's right to "free speech" as a "person" in America. The legal department of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) filed a brief defending Nike's "right to lie" (it is true that as persons we have a "right to lie" except in particular cases such as when under oath). Even the very liberal New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote an impassioned op-ed supporting Nike's right to deceive the public. All three mistakenly believed that corporations had had First Amendment rights since 1886, and all three were strong advocates of the First Amendment. And the AFL-CIO, of course, was a corporation itself, albeit a unique nonprofit form of incorporation.
There was also a loud public debate on the issue. Citizen activist groups picketed the Supreme Court, decrying corporate personhood and the entire idea that constitutional protections like free speech should be granted to corporations instead of being the exclusive province of humans, while the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post (among others) ran shrill editorials warning of dire consequences for the future of capitalism and democracy if corporations weren't finally and fully granted the constitutional right of free speech.
The Court then heard the oral arguments, in which Kasky's lawyers, Alan Caplan and Philip Neumark, revisited the series of very specific lies that they asserted Nike had told the American public in their original lawsuit. They said that Nike:
In order to maintain and/or increase its sales, made misrepresentations by the use of false statements and/or material omissions of fact, including but not limited to the following:
(a) claims that workers who make NIKE products are protected from and not subjected to corporal punishment and/or sexual abuse;
(b) claims that NIKE products are made in accordance with applicable governmental laws and regulations governing wages and hours;
(c) claims that NIKE products are made in accordance with applicable laws and regulations governing health and safety conditions;
(d) claims that NIKE pays average line-workers double-the-minimum wage in Southeast Asia;
(e) claims that workers who produce NIKE products receive free meals and health care;
(f) claims that the GoodWorks International (Andrew Young) report proves that NIKE is doing a good job and "operating morally"; and
(g) claims that NIKE guarantees a "living wage" for all workers who make NIKE products.5
Nike, for its part, argued that when it hired former UN ambassador and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young to check them out, he found that everything was hunky dory: "Although some news organizations concluded that some allegations against Nike had merit, former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young concluded in an independent review commissioned by Nike that the charges were largely false."6
Further, Nike's lawyers said that when the California Supreme Court concluded that it was okay for Marc Kasky to use the consumer protection laws to hold Nike accountable for what it said to the public, it was way too broad a use of the laws against fraud or deception in commerce. Nike's lawyers wrote: "The California court's conclusion that government may regulate all statements of fact by commercial entities that could influence consumers sweeps far too broadly…"
Nike's lawyers also didn't like the law in California that let an individual act as if he were the attorney general: "The private attorney general provisions of the UCL and FAL thus violate the First Amendment because they omit not only any requirement that the plaintiff have suffered harm, but also any other meaningful constraint on the ability of private plaintiffs to bring lawsuits…" which could impose a "crushing burden" on a multibillion-dollar corporation like Nike.
And, finally, calling implicitly on the doctrine that a corporation is a person protected by the Bill of Rights, Nike argued: "Even if petitioner's [Nike's] statements could be characterized as 'commercial speech,' the legal regime approved by the California Supreme Court violates the First Amendment." In other words, "We're a company, which is the same as a person, and so we have the First Amendment right to say whatever we want, just like anybody else. To say that we have to only say things that are accurate violates our First Amendment right of free speech."
All of this was laid before the Court. There were multiple dimensions to the case, but at its heart was the issue of whether a corporate "person" had the same "right to lie," guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitu tion, as you and me. If I can tell my wife that she looks great in a dress that I really think is ugly (but know she loves), Nike had the right to tell Americans that it was treating its workers well (even though it wasn't and knew it).
But something caught in the Court's throat. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, with six of his colleagues, decided that the Court had made a big mistake when it granted a writ of certiorari, the declaration that the case was legitimate and appropriate for the Court to hear.
Remember that it was Rehnquist who, in the earlier First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti case (mentioned in chapter 1), had said that he disagreed with what he believed was the decision of the Supreme Court in 1886, that corporations were persons. And, interestingly, the attorneys who crafted the amicus brief on behalf of Marc Kasky took special pains to point out—with the hope that Rhenquist would read it and have a "EUREKA!" moment—that the Court had actually never created corporate personhood in 1886.
Quoting from the first edition of this very book, Kasky's attorneys wrote directly to Rehnquist in their brief:
Indeed, the initial grant of "personhood" under the Fourteenth Amendment to corporations was, to a certain extent, a judicial mistake. Corporate person-hood is generally attributed to the Court's decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., 118 U.S. 394 (1886), although the Court in that case specifically declined to address the issue. In Santa Clara County, Santa Clara County sued the Southern Pacific Railroad Company for failure to pay taxes, and the railroad presented the Court with six defenses, including the argument that corporations were persons under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because one of the other five defenses was successful, the Court had no occasion to decide the question of corporate personhood and specifically declined to do so:
If these [other] positions are tenable, there will be no occasion to consider the grave questions of constitutional law upon which the case was determined below; for, in that event, the judgment can be affirmed upon the ground that the assessment cannot properly be the basis of a judgment against the defendant.
As the judgment can be sustained upon this [other] ground, it is not necessary to consider any other questions raised by the pleadings and the facts found by the court.
Id. at 411, 416. Indeed, in a companion case, Justice Field in a concurring opinion lamented that the "tax cases from California" did not "decide the important constitutional questions involved." County of San Bernardino v. Southern Pac. R. Co., 118 U.S. 417, 422 (1886) (Field, J., concurring).
Nevertheless, it appears that the court reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis, included a headnote stating, "The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." See Thom Hartmann, Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights 107 (2002) (quoting J.C. Bancroft Davis, 118 United States Reports: Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at October Term 1885 and October Term 1886 394 (Banks & Brothers Publishers).7
In other places in the brief, its authors took special pains to point out how Santa Clara had been misinterpreted over the years. (One sentence, for example, begins, "Notwithstanding the mistaken 'personification' of corporations in Santa Clara, the Court's subsequent rulings reveal that this Court has not consistently applied the implications…")
Every step along the way helped telegraph to Rehnquist that his dislike of what he thought had been decided in 1886 in Santa Clara was a good gut instinct because he was right. Corporations aren't persons, and the Court had not said they were in 1886!
Nobody knows what happened when this bombshell hit Rehnquist's desk, as the Court is notoriously secretive. But something big happened because Rehnquist leapt into action—and that action was to decide not to decide the Kasky case. Inexplicably, astoundingly, and virtually without precedent, Rehnquist and most of his colleagues issued a very, very terse statement.
The single sentence the Court issued said only: "The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted."
In other words, "When we decided to listen to these arguments and look over this case, granting it legal certification before us, we screwed up. Therefore we're tossing out the certification and going to pretend we never even heard this case or read its briefs."
While this dismissal represented the thinking of the majority of the Court, Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer were incensed. Breyer wrote: "In my view…the questions presented directly concern the freedom of Americans to speak about public matters in public debate, no jurisdictional rule prevents us from deciding those questions now, and delay itself may inhibit the exercise of constitutionally protected rights of free speech without making the issue significantly easier to decide later on."
But regardless of Breyer's or O'Connor's concern that the Court was kicking the can down the road, the case came to a halt, and Kasky and Nike settled out of court almost immediately when the California courts granted Kasky the legal right to access Nike's internal files (known as a grant of discovery). The amount of money Nike paid Kasky's lawyers to stop at that point and not pursue discovery, rather than legally riffle through Nike's internal papers, was never disclosed, and Kasky, for his part, agreed with the decision to stop discovery when Nike made a seven-figure gift to an organization that worked to help sweatshop workers around the world.
The world was safe for corporate liars (although California's citizens were still free to go after them in a limited fashion). Corporate personhood hadn't been challenged. And the weird coalition of liberals (Bob Herbert and the ACLU) and conservatives (NBC, ABC, the Chamber of Commerce, and others) who worried that ending a corporation's right to call on the First Amendment would be a disaster for America all breathed a sigh of relief.
Until 2010.
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After 30 years in Congress, Democrat Barney Frank is retiring. A leading liberal voice and one of the first openly gay congressmen, the 71-year-old from Massachusetts says he's leaving, in part, because his district has just been redrawn. He would likely face a grueling re-election campaign.
As NPR's Tovia Smith reports, Frank also says he feels like he's accomplished a lot, and wants to do other things.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: Frank says he wanted to retire two years ago, but felt an obligation to stay in Congress and fight for financial reform and for cuts in military spending. Now that his district has been redrawn and some of the Democratic strongholds he's represented for decades have been replaced by more conservative towns, Frank says he'd be bogged down trying to sell himself to hundreds of thousands of new voters, and unable to focus on his work in Washington.
REPRESENTATIVE BARNEY FRANK: With the new district, I couldn't do that because I would have to spend all the time campaigning. So the new district took away the obligation I felt to run.
SMITH: Frank says he'd having an especially difficult time selling himself to voters knowing it was only for one more term, anyway. At 71, he says he has other things he wants to do - like writing, teaching, and speaking out on public policy, freed up from political constraints.
FRANK: One of the advantages, to me, of not running for office is I don't even have to pretend to try to be nice to people I don't like.
FRANK: Some of you may not think I've been good at it, but I've been trying.
SMITH: Frank is known for not suffering fools gladly, and for being what friends call a pit bull. Indeed, even at his press conference today, he snapped at a reporter for what he called her attempt at a "gotcha," and didn't hold back when confronted by a local Republican party activist.
TOM MOUNTAIN: ...which led to our financial meltdown.
FRANK: I was opposed to that.
MOUNTAIN: You were responsible for that, sir.
FRANK: No. I'm trying to have a rational conversation with you. I was clearly mistaken.
SMITH: In Congress, Frank has proven both piercing and pithy - zinging one-liners, for example, in his fight for stricter regulation and more consumer protections in the banking industry, as he did here on MSNBC in 2010, fighting for the legislation that became the Dodd-Frank Act.
FRANK: In the financial area, the problem was, the government wasn't there. The government - the cop went off the beat when they were doing all these abuses, when they were making mortgage loans that shouldn't have been made.
SMITH: Frank has also been a staunch advocate for gay rights ever since he became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay, in 1987. Frank Sainz is president of the Human Rights Campaign. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: NPR incorrectly referred to the Human Rights Campaign official. His name is Fred Sainz, and he is vice president of communications and marketing.]
FRED SAINZ: That is perhaps his legacy, in that he really did break through a lavender ceiling.
SMITH: Frank was equally bold and unabashed in his fight-back 25 years ago from a personal scandal involving a live-in boyfriend who was working as a prostitute. He not only survived but grew to become a leader of his party. President Obama today called him a fierce advocate for those who needed a voice, and said the House will not be the same without him.
New York congressman Steve Israel is head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
REPRESENTATIVE STEVE ISRAEL: Barney Frank has never shied away from anything in his entire life. He is a lion of the House Democratic Caucus, and there's no question that his voice will be missed.
SMITH: Israel says he expects Democrats to hold Frank's seat, but Republicans today were cheering the news, hoping it'll help them claim another seat long held by Democrats - like Scott Brown did when he won the Senate seat that used to be held by Ted Kennedy.
MOUNTAIN: It is an early Christmas present. We are ecstatic. His seat is very winnable. That was proven by Scott Brown, and we are going to win it.
SMITH: It will, no doubt, be a bruising campaign. Frank says today's brand of personal attacks and nasty politics are part of what makes him relieved to be retiring.
Tovia Smith, NPR News, Newton, Massachusetts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.