by Phil Plait
The scoop: Believing that intelligent extraterrestrial life -- better known as alien life -- exists is one thing.
Believing that they have visited Earth in our short time on the planet is another. Astronomer, author and blogger Phil Plait explains.
When I give public talks, I can almost guarantee that during the Q&A I'll get asked: Do I believe in aliens and UFOs?
My answer usually gets a laugh: "Yes, and no."
As far as aliens go, I suspect pretty strongly that there's life in space. We know of over 300 planets orbiting other stars, and we've only just started looking. In our Milky Way Galaxy alone there are probably literally billions of planets. Life on Earth got started pretty rapidly, relatively speaking, after the crust cooled and liquid water formed, so we know it's not tough for life to get its start... and it's entirely possible there is microbial life inside icy moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn.
So thinking aliens exist has a pretty decent scientific basis. But them coming here is an entirely different beast.
There are tens of thousands of UFOs reported every year. That's one of the reasons a lot of people think aliens are visiting us: there's no way that there could be that many reports if some of them weren't real!
But that's bad reasoning. In fact, the vast majority of reported UFOs are mundane things in the sky. The planet Venus is incredibly bright; most people don't believe me when I point it out to them. They think it's a nearby airplane, or some other bright earthbound object.
Not only that, but if you're driving, it appears to follow you through the trees because it's so far away. If it's low to the horizon, turbulent air makes it flicker and change color. Does this sound familiar? How many UFO reports have you heard that say a huge object (people often mistake brightness for size) was following someone in their car, and it was rapidly changing color?
Yup. Venus.
Manmade satellites pass overhead several times an hour, and some brighten tremendously as a solar panel or mirrored surface catches the sun. Meteors blaze across the sky, ice crystals refract sunlight and moonlight, atmospheric effects make a distant object appear distorted and weirdly shaped. All of these have been mistaken for alien spacecraft.
So I know that most people misinterpret what they see. But there's something else too. If alien spaceships are really out there abducting us and playing chicken with our airplanes, then you'd expect that people who spend more time looking at the sky would see more of them. And who spends lots of time looking up?
Amateur astronomers. They are dedicated observers, out every night peering at the sky. If The Truth Is Out There, then amateur astronomers would be reporting far and away the vast majority of UFOs.
But they don't. Why not? Because they understand the sky! They know when a twinkling light is Venus, or a satellite, or a military flare, or a hot air balloon, and so they don't report it.
That, to me, is the killer argument that aliens aren't visiting us. If they were, the amateur astronomers would spot them.
Of course, you might say "But just because they don't see UFOs doesn't mean they aren't real. It just takes one to prove aliens are coming here!" That might be correct, but remember, we started off thinking they're coming here because so many UFOs are reported! Once you realize that the overwhelming majority of UFO cases are just everyday things, then that "it just takes one" argument gets a whole lot weaker.
But I'll surprise you, though: I agree. It really only does just take one. But that one better have good proof! Something better than a single eyewitness, a badly sketched object, a fuzzy photograph, or out-of-focus video (heck, with digital effects the way they are today, you can't even trust video that's crystal clear). It needs a sample of non-terrestrial metal. An actual alien. Some incontrovertible evidence that is impossible to deny.
But we never get that. Why not? I think it's because we're not being visited. When Klaatu comes and lands on the White House lawn, I'll be willing to change my mind. But until then, well, keep watching the skies. Learn what's up there, and what isn't. You might someday spot the genuine article.
But even if you don't, you get to discover what's really up there... and there's treasure aplenty in the sky to be had, even by us folks stuck here on planet Earth.
Phil Plait is an astronomer, lecturer and author who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope for 10 years. He is the creator of the Bad Astronomy blog and president of the James Randi Educational Foundation.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Dark Energy to Erase Big Bang's Fading Signal
Irene Klotz, Discovery News
When astronomers in the distant future cast their eyes around the cosmos, they will come to the conclusion that our galaxy is alone in the universe.
Even with the most sensitive detectors, future scientists will not be able to observe the leftover radiation from the Big Bang explosion, study the motion of distant galaxies to conclude that space is expanding or even see distant objects.
In the future, the force astronomers now known as dark energy, will stretch the universe beyond detection, with objects receding faster than the speed of light.
"Nothing can move through space faster than the speed of light, but space can do whatever the hell it wants as far as we know," Arizona State University cosmologist Lawrence Krauss said last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.
Even without dark energy, there are regions of space moving away from us faster than the speed of light, Krauss added.
"When that happens, they carry objects with them, like a surfer on a wave. The light from those objects cannot reach us. So, eventually the universe will disappear before our eyes," Krauss said.
Scientists have some time to figure it out. Based on the currently understood estimates of inflation, the new dark ages won't occur for another 50 billion years or so. The sun would have long since died, likely taking Earth along with it, but civilizations could be living elsewhere in the galaxy.
"It's perfectly reasonable to expect that there will be civilizations not that different than our own that could arise, but they will live in an empty, dark universe," Krauss said.
Scientists are on a quest for what may be the smoking gun for this inflationary view of the universe -- gravitational waves, which might have been imprinted as polarity in the background radiation left over by the Big Bang explosion.
"I think we'll know in 10 years time whether we can detect gravitational waves," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Alan Guth.
In April, the European Space Agency plans to launch its Planck telescope which will study cosmic background radiation. Physicists also may get some clues from experiments conducted in the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, which will be used to produce subatomic particles that may represent conditions in the extreme, high-energy environment of space.
"We live at a very interesting time, namely the only time in which we can empirically verify that we live in a very interesting time," Krauss said.
When astronomers in the distant future cast their eyes around the cosmos, they will come to the conclusion that our galaxy is alone in the universe.
Even with the most sensitive detectors, future scientists will not be able to observe the leftover radiation from the Big Bang explosion, study the motion of distant galaxies to conclude that space is expanding or even see distant objects.
In the future, the force astronomers now known as dark energy, will stretch the universe beyond detection, with objects receding faster than the speed of light.
"Nothing can move through space faster than the speed of light, but space can do whatever the hell it wants as far as we know," Arizona State University cosmologist Lawrence Krauss said last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.
Even without dark energy, there are regions of space moving away from us faster than the speed of light, Krauss added.
"When that happens, they carry objects with them, like a surfer on a wave. The light from those objects cannot reach us. So, eventually the universe will disappear before our eyes," Krauss said.
Scientists have some time to figure it out. Based on the currently understood estimates of inflation, the new dark ages won't occur for another 50 billion years or so. The sun would have long since died, likely taking Earth along with it, but civilizations could be living elsewhere in the galaxy.
"It's perfectly reasonable to expect that there will be civilizations not that different than our own that could arise, but they will live in an empty, dark universe," Krauss said.
Scientists are on a quest for what may be the smoking gun for this inflationary view of the universe -- gravitational waves, which might have been imprinted as polarity in the background radiation left over by the Big Bang explosion.
"I think we'll know in 10 years time whether we can detect gravitational waves," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Alan Guth.
In April, the European Space Agency plans to launch its Planck telescope which will study cosmic background radiation. Physicists also may get some clues from experiments conducted in the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, which will be used to produce subatomic particles that may represent conditions in the extreme, high-energy environment of space.
"We live at a very interesting time, namely the only time in which we can empirically verify that we live in a very interesting time," Krauss said.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Hong Kong stocks up on Citi report, China measures
Associated Press
Hong Kong's main index surged nearly 4 percent Monday amid reports the U.S. government might take a bigger stake in troubled banking giant Citigroup.
The blue-chip Hang Seng benchmark closed up 475.93 points, or 3.8 percent, at 13,175.10.
Expectations of further government stimulus measures to help China's real estate industry also buoyed shares.
The Wall Street Journal said late Sunday that New York-based Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ) was negotiating to increase the U.S. government's stake in the teetering lender to as much as 40 percent.
"People are taking it as a positive sign," said Francis Lun, general manager of Fulbright Securities Ltd. "It shows the government will not allow a major bank to fail again. They've learned their lesson with Lehman Brothers (nyse: LEHMQ - news - people ) that the ramifications are so great, sometimes no amount of money can rebuild confidence."
Gains were widespread, with developers rising sharply.
Top Hong Kong developer Sun Hung Kai added 3.7 percent, while Cheung Kong (other-otc: CHEUY.PK - news - people ) advanced 4.4 percent. Sino Land was up 5.3 percent.
Hong Kong's main index surged nearly 4 percent Monday amid reports the U.S. government might take a bigger stake in troubled banking giant Citigroup.
The blue-chip Hang Seng benchmark closed up 475.93 points, or 3.8 percent, at 13,175.10.
Expectations of further government stimulus measures to help China's real estate industry also buoyed shares.
The Wall Street Journal said late Sunday that New York-based Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ) was negotiating to increase the U.S. government's stake in the teetering lender to as much as 40 percent.
"People are taking it as a positive sign," said Francis Lun, general manager of Fulbright Securities Ltd. "It shows the government will not allow a major bank to fail again. They've learned their lesson with Lehman Brothers (nyse: LEHMQ - news - people ) that the ramifications are so great, sometimes no amount of money can rebuild confidence."
Gains were widespread, with developers rising sharply.
Top Hong Kong developer Sun Hung Kai added 3.7 percent, while Cheung Kong (other-otc: CHEUY.PK - news - people ) advanced 4.4 percent. Sino Land was up 5.3 percent.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Al-Qaeda founder launches fierce attack on Osama bin Laden
By David Blair in Cairo
Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, who goes by the nom de guerre Dr Fadl, helped bin Laden create al-Qaeda and then led an Islamist insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s.
But in a book written from inside an Egyptian prison, he has launched a frontal attack on al-Qaeda's ideology and the personal failings of bin Laden and particularly his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Twenty years ago, Dr Fadl became al-Qaeda's intellectual figurehead with a crucial book setting out the rationale for global jihad against the West.
Today, however, he believes the murder of innocent people is both contrary to Islam and a strategic error. "Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers," writes Dr Fadl.
The terrorist attacks on September 11 were both immoral and counterproductive, he writes. "Ramming America has become the shortest road to fame and leadership among the Arabs and Muslims. But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy's buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours?" asks Dr Fadl. "That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11."
He is equally unsparing about Muslims who move to the West and then take up terrorism. "If they gave you permission to enter their homes and live with them, and if they gave you security for yourself and your money, and if they gave you the opportunity to work or study, or they granted you political asylum," writes Dr Fadl, then it is "not honourable" to "betray them, through killing and destruction".
In particular, Dr Fadl focuses his attack on Zawahiri, a key figure in al-Qaeda's core leadership and a fellow Egyptian whom he has known for 40 years. Zawahiri is a "liar" who was paid by Sudan's intelligence service to organise terrorist attacks in Egypt in the 1990s, he writes.
The criticisms have emerged from Dr Fadl's cell in Tora prison in southern Cairo, where a sand-coloured perimeter wall is lined with watchtowers, each holding a sentry wielding a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Torture inside Egyptian jails is "widespread and systematic", according to Amnesty International.
Zawahiri has alleged that his former comrade was tortured into recanting. But the al-Qaeda leader still felt the need to compose a detailed, 200-page rebuttal of his antagonist.
The fact that Zawahiri went to this trouble could prove the credibility of Dr Fadl and the fact that his criticisms have stung their target. The central question is whether this attack on al-Qaeda's ideology will sway a wider audience in the Muslim world.
Fouad Allam, who spent 26 years in the State Security Directorate, Egypt's equivalent of MI5, said that Dr Fadl's assault on al-Qaeda's core leaders had been "very effective, both in prison and outside".
He added: "Within these secret organisations, leadership is very important. So when someone attacks the leadership from inside, especially personal attacks and character assassinations, this is very bad for them."
A western diplomat in Cairo agreed with this assessment, saying: "It has upset Zawahiri personally. You don't write 200 pages about something that doesn't bother you, especially if you're under some pressure, which I imagine Zawahiri is at the moment."
Dr Fadl was a central figure from the very outset of bin Laden's campaign. He was part of the tight circle which founded al-Qaeda in 1988 in the closing stages of the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. By then, Dr Fadl was already the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, an extremist movement which fought the Cairo regime until its defeat in the 1990s.
Dr Fadl fled to Yemen, where he was arrested after September 11 and transferred to Egypt, where he is serving a life sentence. "He has the credibility of someone who has really gone through the whole system," said the diplomat. "Nobody's questioning the fact that he was the mentor of Zawahiri and the ideologue of Egyptian Islamic Jihad."
Terrorist movements across the world have a history of alienating their popular support by waging campaigns of indiscriminate murder. This process of disintegration often begins with a senior leader publicly denouncing his old colleagues. Dr Fadl's missives may show that al-Qaeda has entered this vital stage.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Jobless hit with bank fees on benefits
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, AP Business Writer
For hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs during the recession, there's a new twist to their financial pain: Even as they're collecting unemployment benefits, they're paying bank fees just to get access to their money.
Thirty states have struck such deals with banks that include Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., JP Morgan Chase and US Bancorp, an Associated Press review of the agreements found. All the programs carry fees, and in several states the unemployed have no choice but to use the debit cards. Some banks even charge overdraft fees of up to $20 — even though they could decline charges for more than what's on the card.
"It's a racket. It's a scam," said Rachel Davis, a 38-year-old dental technician from St. Louis who was laid off in October. Davis was given a MasterCard issued through Central Bank of Jefferson City and recently paid $6 to make two $40 withdrawals.
The banks say their programs offer convenience. They also provide at least one way to tap the money at no charge, such as using a single free withdrawal to get all the cash at once from a bank teller. But the banks benefit from human nature, as people end up treating the cards like all the other plastic in their wallets.
The fees are raising questions from lawmakers who just recently voted to infuse banks with taxpayer money to keep them afloat.
Steven Adamske, spokesman for the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, said he wasn't aware of the debit card programs before he was contacted by the AP, but was concerned about card holder fees.
"Our hope ... would be that banks who are getting federal assistance would forgo these kinds of fees as we're trying to help everyone in society deal with this recession," Adamske said.
Some banks, depending on the agreement negotiated with each state, also make money on the interest they earn after the state deposits the money and before it's spent. The banks and credit card companies also get roughly 1 percent to 3 percent off the top of each transaction made with the cards.
Neither banks nor credit card companies will say how much money they are making off the programs, or what proportion of the revenue comes from user versus merchant fees or interest. It's difficult to estimate the profits because they depend on how often recipients use their cards and where they use them.
But the potential is clear.
In Missouri, for instance, 94,883 people claimed unemployment benefits through debit cards from Central Bank. Analysts say a recipient uses a card an average of six to 10 times a month. If each cardholder makes three withdrawals at an out-of-network ATM, at a fee of $1.75, the bank would collect nearly $500,000. If half of the cardholders also dial customer service three times in any given week (the first time is free; after that, it's 25 cents a call), the bank's revenue would jump to more than $521,000. That would yield $6.3 million a year.
Rachel Storch, a Democratic state representative, received a wave of complaints about the fees from autoworkers laid off from a suburban St. Louis Chrysler plant. She recently urged Gov. Jay Nixon to review the state's contract with Central Bank with an eye toward reducing the fees.
"I think the contract is unfair and potentially illegal to unemployment recipients," she said.
Central Bank did not return two messages seeking comment.
Glenn Campbell, a spokesman for Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., said the congressman would support a review of the debit card programs nationwide.
Another 10 states — including the unemployment hot spots of California, Florida and South Carolina — are considering such programs or have signed contracts. The remainder still use traditional checks or direct deposit.
With the national unemployment rate now at 7.6 percent, the market for bank-issued unemployment cards is booming. In 2003, states paid only $4 million of unemployment insurance through debit cards. By 2007, it had ballooned to $2.8 billion, and by 2010 it will likely rise to $10.5 billion, according to a study conducted by Mercator Advisory Group, a financial industry consulting firm.
The economic stimulus plan signed by President Barack Obama this week will increase federal unemployment benefits by $40 billion this year. Subsequently, there will be more money from which banks can collect fees. The U.S. Department of Labor allows the fees as long as states create a way for recipients to get their money for free, spokeswoman Suzy Bohnert said.
"Beyond that, the individual decides how to manage his drawdowns using the debit card," she said in an e-mail.
A typical contract looks like the agreement between Citigroup and the state of Kansas, which took effect in November. The state expects to save $300,000 a year by wiring payments to Citigroup instead of printing and mailing checks.
Citigroup's bill to the state: zero. The bank collects its revenue from fees paid by merchants and the unemployed.
"If you use your card the right way, you're not going to pay fees at all," said Paul Simpson, Citigroup's global head of public sector, health care and wholesale cards.
But that's not always practical.
Arthur Santa-Maria, a laid-off engineer who lives just outside Albuquerque, N.M., said he didn't pay any fees the first time he was laid off, for several months in 2007. His unemployment benefits were paid by paper checks. He found a new job last year but was laid off again last fall.
This time, he was issued a Bank of America debit card — a "prepaid" card in industry lingo — but he was surprised to learn he had to pay fees to get his money. He asked the bank to waive them. It said no. That's when Santa-Maria called back to ask how to check his account online. He logged on and saw that the call cost him a half dollar. To avoid more fees, Santa-Maria found a Bank of America ATM at a strip mall and withdrew $80 at no charge. When he got back to his car, he decided to take out the rest of his money — $250 — and deposit it in his bank account.
Afterward, Santa-Maria logged on to his account and saw a charge of $1.50 for two withdrawals in one day.
"They're trying to use my money to make money," Stanta-Maria said. "I just see banks trying to make that 50 cents or a buck and a half when I should be given the service for free."
New Mexico authorities bargained with Bank of America to get lower fees for unemployment recipients, said Carrie Moritomo, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Workforce Solutions. The state saves up to $1.5 million annually by switching from checks to debit cards.
Bank of America spokeswoman Britney Sheehan pointed out that the fees charged in New Mexico are similar to those charged in the 29 other states with unemployment debit cards. The bank believes "the fee schedule is reasonable and consistent with similar programs," she said.
Banks could issue unemployment debit cards with no fees for cardholders, but that would likely mean that states would have to pay more of the administrative costs, said Mark Harrington, director of marketing for Citigroup's prepaid card services. If a state demanded no cardholder fees and could pay the difference, Citigroup might enter such a contract.
"We would be open to that," Harrington said. "We're not looking to structure any programs where we would lose money, but we're definitely flexible."
Simpson noted that the cards can save money for jobless workers who have no bank accounts. In the past, these people had to use corner check-cashing shops that charged fees as high as 2 percent, or $6 for a $300 check. Now, they can swipe their cards at McDonald's, Wal-Mart or elsewhere for free.
Kenna Gortler, a laid-off paper mill worker in Oregon, said her union is advising members to avoid the debit cards and sign up to get their benefits through direct deposit. More than 300 of her fellow workers have lost their jobs at the mill in the last three months, and horror stories about ATM fees and overdraft charges are starting to filter back to others who are just now signing up for their benefits.
"It's discouraging," Gortler said. "People have limited funds and they don't need to be giving money to the banks. They need to be keeping that money to feed their families and pay bills."
For hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs during the recession, there's a new twist to their financial pain: Even as they're collecting unemployment benefits, they're paying bank fees just to get access to their money.
Thirty states have struck such deals with banks that include Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., JP Morgan Chase and US Bancorp, an Associated Press review of the agreements found. All the programs carry fees, and in several states the unemployed have no choice but to use the debit cards. Some banks even charge overdraft fees of up to $20 — even though they could decline charges for more than what's on the card.
"It's a racket. It's a scam," said Rachel Davis, a 38-year-old dental technician from St. Louis who was laid off in October. Davis was given a MasterCard issued through Central Bank of Jefferson City and recently paid $6 to make two $40 withdrawals.
The banks say their programs offer convenience. They also provide at least one way to tap the money at no charge, such as using a single free withdrawal to get all the cash at once from a bank teller. But the banks benefit from human nature, as people end up treating the cards like all the other plastic in their wallets.
The fees are raising questions from lawmakers who just recently voted to infuse banks with taxpayer money to keep them afloat.
Steven Adamske, spokesman for the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, said he wasn't aware of the debit card programs before he was contacted by the AP, but was concerned about card holder fees.
"Our hope ... would be that banks who are getting federal assistance would forgo these kinds of fees as we're trying to help everyone in society deal with this recession," Adamske said.
Some banks, depending on the agreement negotiated with each state, also make money on the interest they earn after the state deposits the money and before it's spent. The banks and credit card companies also get roughly 1 percent to 3 percent off the top of each transaction made with the cards.
Neither banks nor credit card companies will say how much money they are making off the programs, or what proportion of the revenue comes from user versus merchant fees or interest. It's difficult to estimate the profits because they depend on how often recipients use their cards and where they use them.
But the potential is clear.
In Missouri, for instance, 94,883 people claimed unemployment benefits through debit cards from Central Bank. Analysts say a recipient uses a card an average of six to 10 times a month. If each cardholder makes three withdrawals at an out-of-network ATM, at a fee of $1.75, the bank would collect nearly $500,000. If half of the cardholders also dial customer service three times in any given week (the first time is free; after that, it's 25 cents a call), the bank's revenue would jump to more than $521,000. That would yield $6.3 million a year.
Rachel Storch, a Democratic state representative, received a wave of complaints about the fees from autoworkers laid off from a suburban St. Louis Chrysler plant. She recently urged Gov. Jay Nixon to review the state's contract with Central Bank with an eye toward reducing the fees.
"I think the contract is unfair and potentially illegal to unemployment recipients," she said.
Central Bank did not return two messages seeking comment.
Glenn Campbell, a spokesman for Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., said the congressman would support a review of the debit card programs nationwide.
Another 10 states — including the unemployment hot spots of California, Florida and South Carolina — are considering such programs or have signed contracts. The remainder still use traditional checks or direct deposit.
With the national unemployment rate now at 7.6 percent, the market for bank-issued unemployment cards is booming. In 2003, states paid only $4 million of unemployment insurance through debit cards. By 2007, it had ballooned to $2.8 billion, and by 2010 it will likely rise to $10.5 billion, according to a study conducted by Mercator Advisory Group, a financial industry consulting firm.
The economic stimulus plan signed by President Barack Obama this week will increase federal unemployment benefits by $40 billion this year. Subsequently, there will be more money from which banks can collect fees. The U.S. Department of Labor allows the fees as long as states create a way for recipients to get their money for free, spokeswoman Suzy Bohnert said.
"Beyond that, the individual decides how to manage his drawdowns using the debit card," she said in an e-mail.
A typical contract looks like the agreement between Citigroup and the state of Kansas, which took effect in November. The state expects to save $300,000 a year by wiring payments to Citigroup instead of printing and mailing checks.
Citigroup's bill to the state: zero. The bank collects its revenue from fees paid by merchants and the unemployed.
"If you use your card the right way, you're not going to pay fees at all," said Paul Simpson, Citigroup's global head of public sector, health care and wholesale cards.
But that's not always practical.
Arthur Santa-Maria, a laid-off engineer who lives just outside Albuquerque, N.M., said he didn't pay any fees the first time he was laid off, for several months in 2007. His unemployment benefits were paid by paper checks. He found a new job last year but was laid off again last fall.
This time, he was issued a Bank of America debit card — a "prepaid" card in industry lingo — but he was surprised to learn he had to pay fees to get his money. He asked the bank to waive them. It said no. That's when Santa-Maria called back to ask how to check his account online. He logged on and saw that the call cost him a half dollar. To avoid more fees, Santa-Maria found a Bank of America ATM at a strip mall and withdrew $80 at no charge. When he got back to his car, he decided to take out the rest of his money — $250 — and deposit it in his bank account.
Afterward, Santa-Maria logged on to his account and saw a charge of $1.50 for two withdrawals in one day.
"They're trying to use my money to make money," Stanta-Maria said. "I just see banks trying to make that 50 cents or a buck and a half when I should be given the service for free."
New Mexico authorities bargained with Bank of America to get lower fees for unemployment recipients, said Carrie Moritomo, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Workforce Solutions. The state saves up to $1.5 million annually by switching from checks to debit cards.
Bank of America spokeswoman Britney Sheehan pointed out that the fees charged in New Mexico are similar to those charged in the 29 other states with unemployment debit cards. The bank believes "the fee schedule is reasonable and consistent with similar programs," she said.
Banks could issue unemployment debit cards with no fees for cardholders, but that would likely mean that states would have to pay more of the administrative costs, said Mark Harrington, director of marketing for Citigroup's prepaid card services. If a state demanded no cardholder fees and could pay the difference, Citigroup might enter such a contract.
"We would be open to that," Harrington said. "We're not looking to structure any programs where we would lose money, but we're definitely flexible."
Simpson noted that the cards can save money for jobless workers who have no bank accounts. In the past, these people had to use corner check-cashing shops that charged fees as high as 2 percent, or $6 for a $300 check. Now, they can swipe their cards at McDonald's, Wal-Mart or elsewhere for free.
Kenna Gortler, a laid-off paper mill worker in Oregon, said her union is advising members to avoid the debit cards and sign up to get their benefits through direct deposit. More than 300 of her fellow workers have lost their jobs at the mill in the last three months, and horror stories about ATM fees and overdraft charges are starting to filter back to others who are just now signing up for their benefits.
"It's discouraging," Gortler said. "People have limited funds and they don't need to be giving money to the banks. They need to be keeping that money to feed their families and pay bills."
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Gaza victims describe being used as human shields by Hamas
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
Palestinian Media Watch
p:+972 2 625 4140 e: pmw@pmw.org.il
f: +972 2 624 2803 w: www.pmw.org.il
Members of a Gaza family whose farm was turned into a "fortress" by Hamas
fighters have reported that they were helpless to stop Hamas from using them
as human shields. They told the official Palestinian Authority daily
newspaper that for years Hamas has used their property and homes for
military installations from which to launch rockets into Israel, dig tunnels
and store arms. According to the victims, those who tried to object were
shot in the legs by Hamas.
The following are excerpts from the article from the official Palestinian
Authority daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida:
"The Abd Rabbo family kept quiet while Hamas fighters turned their farm in
the Gaza strip into a fortress. Right now they are waiting for the aid
promised by the [Hamas] movement after Israel bombed the farm and turned it
into ruins...
The hill on which the Abd Rabbo family lives overlooks the Israeli town
Sderot, a fact that turned it into an ideal military position for the
Palestinian fighters, from which they have launched hundreds of rockets into
southern Israel during the last few years. Several of the Abd Rabbo family
members described how the fighters dug tunnels under their houses, stored
arms in the fields and launched rockets from the yard of their farm during
the nights.
The Abd Rabbo family members emphasize that they are not [Hamas] activists
and that they are still loyal to the Fatah movement, but that they were
unable to prevent the armed squads from entering their neighborhood at
night. One family member, Hadi (age 22) said: "You can't say anything to the
resistance [fighters], or they will accuse you of collaborating [with
Israel] and shoot you in the legs."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 27, 2009]
Palestinian Media Watch
p:+972 2 625 4140 e: pmw@pmw.org.il
f: +972 2 624 2803 w: www.pmw.org.il
Members of a Gaza family whose farm was turned into a "fortress" by Hamas
fighters have reported that they were helpless to stop Hamas from using them
as human shields. They told the official Palestinian Authority daily
newspaper that for years Hamas has used their property and homes for
military installations from which to launch rockets into Israel, dig tunnels
and store arms. According to the victims, those who tried to object were
shot in the legs by Hamas.
The following are excerpts from the article from the official Palestinian
Authority daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida:
"The Abd Rabbo family kept quiet while Hamas fighters turned their farm in
the Gaza strip into a fortress. Right now they are waiting for the aid
promised by the [Hamas] movement after Israel bombed the farm and turned it
into ruins...
The hill on which the Abd Rabbo family lives overlooks the Israeli town
Sderot, a fact that turned it into an ideal military position for the
Palestinian fighters, from which they have launched hundreds of rockets into
southern Israel during the last few years. Several of the Abd Rabbo family
members described how the fighters dug tunnels under their houses, stored
arms in the fields and launched rockets from the yard of their farm during
the nights.
The Abd Rabbo family members emphasize that they are not [Hamas] activists
and that they are still loyal to the Fatah movement, but that they were
unable to prevent the armed squads from entering their neighborhood at
night. One family member, Hadi (age 22) said: "You can't say anything to the
resistance [fighters], or they will accuse you of collaborating [with
Israel] and shoot you in the legs."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 27, 2009]
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
String theory officially useful, may not represent reality
By John Timmer
Brookhaven National Laboratory has what is currently one of the highest energy particle accelerators on the planet. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) hosts collisions between the nuclei of gold atoms that are moving at roughly 99 percent of the speed of light, creating a quark soup similar to the one that existed immediately after the big bang. But the scientists running the experiments started noticing something funny about the data: instead of expanding evenly outward, the collision debris were ellipsoidal (think a 3-D ellipse). What was even stranger was that this sort of behavior had already been described, for a gas of lithium atoms at the opposite end of the temperature spectrum, at a fraction of a microkelvin. As these groups were talking about a collaboration, things got stranger still when string theorists started citing this work, since the behavior had already been predicted through their work—a fact that the physicists weren't aware of until a science reporter called to ask what they thought about it.
The tale of this unlikely collaboration unfolded at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, where the introductory remarks described just how far apart these systems are. In terms of temperature, the RHIC and chilled lithium differ by 19 orders of magnitude (that's a factor of 1019). When it comes to density, the difference is an astonishing 25 orders of magnitude. Meanwhile, the bit of string theory that describes the normal, four-dimensional (3-D + time) behavior of these systems can be predicted by modeling a four-dimensional sphere wrapped around a five dimensional black hole.
Quantum viscosity runs hot and cold
The cold atomic cloud is probably easiest to understand, although John Thomas of Duke, who does the work, claimed that, when dragged to wine tastings with his wife's friends, "I wait until everyone's sufficiently drunk before explaining what we do." His short description is that he makes bowls of light; in principle, the first steps in his system involve the sort of laser cooling that our Chris Lee has described in the past. This can only get things down to a bit under a kelvin above absolute zero, but Thomas then loosens the laser trap, and a few atoms evaporate off, taking most of the remaining heat with them. The end result is an atomic cloud at one-tenth of a microkelvin.
The 6Li atoms that he uses have up and down spins that form an analog of the cooper pairs of electrons that cause high-temperature superconductivity, so his system allows theorists to test some of their ideas in an accessible experimental system. But it also has interesting properties when in a magnetic field. At a specific magnetic field strength, the interactions between the paired atoms start to go asymptotic and, when at a very precise point, the interactions vanish and quantum effects dominate. When the laser trap is released again, the atoms expand elliptically, displaying essentially the smallest amount of quantum viscosity possible. Because the system is experimentally possible, they were able (on the advice of string theorists—more on that below) to measure both the viscosity and entropy, and found that they were related directly to one divided by four π.
Smaller accelerator, bigger atoms: Brookhaven's RHIC
Out at the other end of the temperature spectrum, the collisions in the RHIC were producing what Brookhaven's Barbara Jacack termed "quark soup." In normal matter, quarks interact by exchanging gluons with a limited number of partners. But, at the densities that exist immediately after these collisions, quarks can exchange multiple gluons with multiple partners, leading to longer-range interactions that are more similar to those in a liquid. Two aspects of the behavior seen by RHIC's detectors, however, were a bit surprising. The first is the ellipsoidal expansion that marks the behavior of perfect quantum liquids that we mentioned above. The second is that, although radiation can pass across the small cluster of quark soup, the actual quarks, it appeared, could not. Jacack likened the fact that even the heavy charm quark didn't make it across the collision to a set of bowling pins stopping an incoming ball.
Like Thomas, talking to string theorists allowed Jacack and her team to look for some specific properties—in this case, shock waves of a particular type—of the quark soup. So far, it's looking like they're there. RHIC is about to undergo a retrofit that should make it easier to study this, and the stimulus package may have some money for the DOE that could accelerate the work.
The theory needs a five-dimensional black hole, but reality may not
Clifford Johnson of USC then spoke about how a specific application of string theory helped tie everything together. As he described it, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) works very well at describing the interactions of a limited number of particles, and its successes in the early 1970s caused researchers to abandon an earlier version of string theory. But QCD doesn't work that well at the densities seen in the RHIC, where ensembles of particles have emergent behavior—as Johnson noted, a single water molecule isn't wet; that's a property that emerges from a population of water molecules. And this, along with a few other vexing problems, has allowed string theory back in the game.
"String theory," Johnson said, "having failed to explain something, got resurrected a few years on and was used to explain everything," or at least provide a quantum description of gravity. He got interested in the problem of describing quantum black holes, which are far smaller than the macroscopic ones we've observed in space. Based on their emission of quantum radiation, they have to have an internal structure, one that our lack of a quantum gravity is preventing us from probing. (During the questions, it became clear that Johnson is one of the few people hoping that the LHC does spawn a small black hole.) It turns out, using the math of string theory, it's easy to examine a five-dimensional black hole simply by wrapping a four-dimensional sheet around it. When you do that, however, a lot of three-dimensional QCD behavior pops out of the equations—"the bugs of string theory become features," as Johnson put it.
Image courtesy of icanhascheezburger.com
In the extra dimensions, gravitons get pulled towards, and then bounce off, the black hole, undergoing interference as they do. That interference apparently describes the behavior seen in both of these real-world systems. Johnson was emphatic that this doesn't mean that the experiments that have used these string theory models are a test of the theory; rather, it means that the predictions of string theory are being used to guide experiments, which is a measure of its utility.
As for whether there's really an extradimensional black hole tucked away in these conditions, Johnson described himself as "agnostic." It may be possible, he said, to find a way to describe this behavior without resorting to anything beyond our familiar dimensions, but, at the moment, string theory's models are simple and functional, so there's no reason not to use them. In the meantime, everyone seems excited about the prospect of further collaboration. As Jacack said when showing a slide with a certain image of a kitten playing with yarn, "you know your field has hit the big time when you make it into lolcats."
Brookhaven National Laboratory has what is currently one of the highest energy particle accelerators on the planet. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) hosts collisions between the nuclei of gold atoms that are moving at roughly 99 percent of the speed of light, creating a quark soup similar to the one that existed immediately after the big bang. But the scientists running the experiments started noticing something funny about the data: instead of expanding evenly outward, the collision debris were ellipsoidal (think a 3-D ellipse). What was even stranger was that this sort of behavior had already been described, for a gas of lithium atoms at the opposite end of the temperature spectrum, at a fraction of a microkelvin. As these groups were talking about a collaboration, things got stranger still when string theorists started citing this work, since the behavior had already been predicted through their work—a fact that the physicists weren't aware of until a science reporter called to ask what they thought about it.
The tale of this unlikely collaboration unfolded at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, where the introductory remarks described just how far apart these systems are. In terms of temperature, the RHIC and chilled lithium differ by 19 orders of magnitude (that's a factor of 1019). When it comes to density, the difference is an astonishing 25 orders of magnitude. Meanwhile, the bit of string theory that describes the normal, four-dimensional (3-D + time) behavior of these systems can be predicted by modeling a four-dimensional sphere wrapped around a five dimensional black hole.
Quantum viscosity runs hot and cold
The cold atomic cloud is probably easiest to understand, although John Thomas of Duke, who does the work, claimed that, when dragged to wine tastings with his wife's friends, "I wait until everyone's sufficiently drunk before explaining what we do." His short description is that he makes bowls of light; in principle, the first steps in his system involve the sort of laser cooling that our Chris Lee has described in the past. This can only get things down to a bit under a kelvin above absolute zero, but Thomas then loosens the laser trap, and a few atoms evaporate off, taking most of the remaining heat with them. The end result is an atomic cloud at one-tenth of a microkelvin.
The 6Li atoms that he uses have up and down spins that form an analog of the cooper pairs of electrons that cause high-temperature superconductivity, so his system allows theorists to test some of their ideas in an accessible experimental system. But it also has interesting properties when in a magnetic field. At a specific magnetic field strength, the interactions between the paired atoms start to go asymptotic and, when at a very precise point, the interactions vanish and quantum effects dominate. When the laser trap is released again, the atoms expand elliptically, displaying essentially the smallest amount of quantum viscosity possible. Because the system is experimentally possible, they were able (on the advice of string theorists—more on that below) to measure both the viscosity and entropy, and found that they were related directly to one divided by four π.
Smaller accelerator, bigger atoms: Brookhaven's RHIC
Out at the other end of the temperature spectrum, the collisions in the RHIC were producing what Brookhaven's Barbara Jacack termed "quark soup." In normal matter, quarks interact by exchanging gluons with a limited number of partners. But, at the densities that exist immediately after these collisions, quarks can exchange multiple gluons with multiple partners, leading to longer-range interactions that are more similar to those in a liquid. Two aspects of the behavior seen by RHIC's detectors, however, were a bit surprising. The first is the ellipsoidal expansion that marks the behavior of perfect quantum liquids that we mentioned above. The second is that, although radiation can pass across the small cluster of quark soup, the actual quarks, it appeared, could not. Jacack likened the fact that even the heavy charm quark didn't make it across the collision to a set of bowling pins stopping an incoming ball.
Like Thomas, talking to string theorists allowed Jacack and her team to look for some specific properties—in this case, shock waves of a particular type—of the quark soup. So far, it's looking like they're there. RHIC is about to undergo a retrofit that should make it easier to study this, and the stimulus package may have some money for the DOE that could accelerate the work.
The theory needs a five-dimensional black hole, but reality may not
Clifford Johnson of USC then spoke about how a specific application of string theory helped tie everything together. As he described it, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) works very well at describing the interactions of a limited number of particles, and its successes in the early 1970s caused researchers to abandon an earlier version of string theory. But QCD doesn't work that well at the densities seen in the RHIC, where ensembles of particles have emergent behavior—as Johnson noted, a single water molecule isn't wet; that's a property that emerges from a population of water molecules. And this, along with a few other vexing problems, has allowed string theory back in the game.
"String theory," Johnson said, "having failed to explain something, got resurrected a few years on and was used to explain everything," or at least provide a quantum description of gravity. He got interested in the problem of describing quantum black holes, which are far smaller than the macroscopic ones we've observed in space. Based on their emission of quantum radiation, they have to have an internal structure, one that our lack of a quantum gravity is preventing us from probing. (During the questions, it became clear that Johnson is one of the few people hoping that the LHC does spawn a small black hole.) It turns out, using the math of string theory, it's easy to examine a five-dimensional black hole simply by wrapping a four-dimensional sheet around it. When you do that, however, a lot of three-dimensional QCD behavior pops out of the equations—"the bugs of string theory become features," as Johnson put it.
Image courtesy of icanhascheezburger.com
In the extra dimensions, gravitons get pulled towards, and then bounce off, the black hole, undergoing interference as they do. That interference apparently describes the behavior seen in both of these real-world systems. Johnson was emphatic that this doesn't mean that the experiments that have used these string theory models are a test of the theory; rather, it means that the predictions of string theory are being used to guide experiments, which is a measure of its utility.
As for whether there's really an extradimensional black hole tucked away in these conditions, Johnson described himself as "agnostic." It may be possible, he said, to find a way to describe this behavior without resorting to anything beyond our familiar dimensions, but, at the moment, string theory's models are simple and functional, so there's no reason not to use them. In the meantime, everyone seems excited about the prospect of further collaboration. As Jacack said when showing a slide with a certain image of a kitten playing with yarn, "you know your field has hit the big time when you make it into lolcats."
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
U.S. "war on terror" eroded rights worldwide: experts
By Laura MacInnis
GENEVA (Reuters) - Washington's "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks has eroded human rights worldwide, creating lingering cynicism that the United Nations must now combat, international law experts said on Monday.
Mary Robinson, who was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights when al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, said the United States caused harm with some of the ways it responded.
"Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and repeal abusive laws and policies," the former Irish president said, warning that harsh U.S. detentions and interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba gave a dangerous signal to other countries that could easily follow suit.
While new U.S. President Barack Obama has announced he will close Guantanamo to break from the practices of his predecessor George W. Bush, Robinson said sweeping changes needed to take place to ensure Washington abandons its "war paradigm."
"There has been severe damage and it needs to be addressed," she told a news conference in Geneva. "We are not more secure. We are more divided, and people are more cynical about the operation of laws."
Arthur Chaskalson, former chief justice of South Africa, said that the United States should launch an inquiry into its counter-terrorism practices, including acts of torture by individual security and intelligence agents.
Although counter-terrorism issues have faded from the front pages since the change of government in Washington, Chaskalson said such practices have shifted around the world and could keep restricting liberties if they are not confronted head-on.
"We all have less rights today than we had five or 10 years ago, and if nothing happens, we will have even less," he told a Geneva briefing to launch an International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) report on counter-terrorism and human rights.
ABUSE MONITORING
The report found that many undemocratic states have referred to U.S. counter-terrorism practices to justify their own abuses, a trend Robinson said was particularly alarming.
She called on the U.N. Security Council and Human Rights Council to step up their abuse monitoring and to assist poorer nations with police training to better target rights violators.
Counter-terrorism policies worldwide should also be put under the microscope, according to Robinson. "It could warrant a special session of the Human Rights Council," she said.
The 47-member-state body has previously had special sessions on Israel and the Palestinians, Sudan's Darfur region, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and high food prices, and will assess the global financial crisis on Friday.
Robinson also questioned the effectiveness of the Council's universal periodic review, under which every U.N. member has its rights record assessed on a regular rotation.
"We have looked at some of the universal periodic reviews of countries that we know from our hearings have severely abused human rights in their counter-terrorism measures, and it is a soft review, there is no accountability," she said. "There is a necessity now for leadership at the United Nations."
Countries recently reviewed by the Council include China, Russia, Germany, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico. Hearings for the ICJ report took place in Bogota, Nairobi, Sydney, Belfast, London, Rabat, Washington, Buenos Aires, Jakarta, Moscow, Delhi, Islamabad, Toronto, Ottawa, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Brussels.
GENEVA (Reuters) - Washington's "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks has eroded human rights worldwide, creating lingering cynicism that the United Nations must now combat, international law experts said on Monday.
Mary Robinson, who was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights when al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, said the United States caused harm with some of the ways it responded.
"Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and repeal abusive laws and policies," the former Irish president said, warning that harsh U.S. detentions and interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba gave a dangerous signal to other countries that could easily follow suit.
While new U.S. President Barack Obama has announced he will close Guantanamo to break from the practices of his predecessor George W. Bush, Robinson said sweeping changes needed to take place to ensure Washington abandons its "war paradigm."
"There has been severe damage and it needs to be addressed," she told a news conference in Geneva. "We are not more secure. We are more divided, and people are more cynical about the operation of laws."
Arthur Chaskalson, former chief justice of South Africa, said that the United States should launch an inquiry into its counter-terrorism practices, including acts of torture by individual security and intelligence agents.
Although counter-terrorism issues have faded from the front pages since the change of government in Washington, Chaskalson said such practices have shifted around the world and could keep restricting liberties if they are not confronted head-on.
"We all have less rights today than we had five or 10 years ago, and if nothing happens, we will have even less," he told a Geneva briefing to launch an International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) report on counter-terrorism and human rights.
ABUSE MONITORING
The report found that many undemocratic states have referred to U.S. counter-terrorism practices to justify their own abuses, a trend Robinson said was particularly alarming.
She called on the U.N. Security Council and Human Rights Council to step up their abuse monitoring and to assist poorer nations with police training to better target rights violators.
Counter-terrorism policies worldwide should also be put under the microscope, according to Robinson. "It could warrant a special session of the Human Rights Council," she said.
The 47-member-state body has previously had special sessions on Israel and the Palestinians, Sudan's Darfur region, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and high food prices, and will assess the global financial crisis on Friday.
Robinson also questioned the effectiveness of the Council's universal periodic review, under which every U.N. member has its rights record assessed on a regular rotation.
"We have looked at some of the universal periodic reviews of countries that we know from our hearings have severely abused human rights in their counter-terrorism measures, and it is a soft review, there is no accountability," she said. "There is a necessity now for leadership at the United Nations."
Countries recently reviewed by the Council include China, Russia, Germany, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico. Hearings for the ICJ report took place in Bogota, Nairobi, Sydney, Belfast, London, Rabat, Washington, Buenos Aires, Jakarta, Moscow, Delhi, Islamabad, Toronto, Ottawa, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Brussels.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Judge to return after drug charges
ROSE COOPER
at wnewsj.com
County Editor
Clinton County Juvenile Court Magistrate Roger Bowling will soon be back on the bench.
Bowling, 58, who was charged Dec. 9 with two misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, appeared Jan. 23 in Hillsboro Municipal Court where the case was transferred after Clinton County Municipal Court Judge Chad L. Carey stepped aside. Judge David McKenna, of Hillsboro Municipal Court, and Prosecutor Fred Beery, brought the case against Bowling.
A spokesperson in the Clinton County Municipal Court said the possession of drug paraphernalia was dismissed with prejudice under a plea agreement. For the possession of marijuana charge, the court ordered a $158 bond forfeiture.
A Wilmington resident, Bowling was charged after Wilmington police executed a search warrant at his home for illegal narcotics. Police detectives found marijuana, marijuana seeds and stems, pipes with residue, rolling papers and burnt marijuana cigarettes, according to a media release from the Wilmington Police Department.
At the time the charges were filed, police said anonymous tips led to a three-month investigation. During the investigation, detectives “developed probable cause,” said police, prompting the issuance of the search warrant.
After he was charged, Bowling was removed from the bench and initially placed on paid administrative leave, according to Clinton County Juvenile Court Administrator David Hockaday.
Clinton County Probate Judge Allen Gano said Bowling was later placed on leave without pay.
Judge Gano said Bowling has gone through the steps required under the county’s drug policy. “The drug policy urges us to take steps to rehabilitate,” he said.
Bowling began rehabilitation “on his own initiative,” Gano said. “He was taking the steps that fit into the county policy. We followed that from the beginning. I’m pleased with the way he has dealt with it. I’m satisfied at the sincerity of his efforts. As the county policy would have us do, he will get a second chance,” the judge said.
There was never an indication in any of Bowling’s work performance there was a problem, Gano said.
Bowling is expected to return to the bench at the end of February or beginning of March. “This is the right thing to do under the circumstances,” Gano said. “After a good deal of consideration and discussion with him, it was an appropriate decision. He’s done the rehabilitation and I’m satisfied he will be able to perform.”
Gano said the magistrate’s decisions are always reviewed by the judge.
Bowling has served as a Clinton County magistrate for more than 10 years.
As juvenile court magistrate, Bowling oversees a number of juvenile cases, most of them traffic offenses, said Hockaday. Bowling also handles a variety of other cases, including juvenile misdemeanor drug cases.
at wnewsj.com
County Editor
Clinton County Juvenile Court Magistrate Roger Bowling will soon be back on the bench.
Bowling, 58, who was charged Dec. 9 with two misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, appeared Jan. 23 in Hillsboro Municipal Court where the case was transferred after Clinton County Municipal Court Judge Chad L. Carey stepped aside. Judge David McKenna, of Hillsboro Municipal Court, and Prosecutor Fred Beery, brought the case against Bowling.
A spokesperson in the Clinton County Municipal Court said the possession of drug paraphernalia was dismissed with prejudice under a plea agreement. For the possession of marijuana charge, the court ordered a $158 bond forfeiture.
A Wilmington resident, Bowling was charged after Wilmington police executed a search warrant at his home for illegal narcotics. Police detectives found marijuana, marijuana seeds and stems, pipes with residue, rolling papers and burnt marijuana cigarettes, according to a media release from the Wilmington Police Department.
At the time the charges were filed, police said anonymous tips led to a three-month investigation. During the investigation, detectives “developed probable cause,” said police, prompting the issuance of the search warrant.
After he was charged, Bowling was removed from the bench and initially placed on paid administrative leave, according to Clinton County Juvenile Court Administrator David Hockaday.
Clinton County Probate Judge Allen Gano said Bowling was later placed on leave without pay.
Judge Gano said Bowling has gone through the steps required under the county’s drug policy. “The drug policy urges us to take steps to rehabilitate,” he said.
Bowling began rehabilitation “on his own initiative,” Gano said. “He was taking the steps that fit into the county policy. We followed that from the beginning. I’m pleased with the way he has dealt with it. I’m satisfied at the sincerity of his efforts. As the county policy would have us do, he will get a second chance,” the judge said.
There was never an indication in any of Bowling’s work performance there was a problem, Gano said.
Bowling is expected to return to the bench at the end of February or beginning of March. “This is the right thing to do under the circumstances,” Gano said. “After a good deal of consideration and discussion with him, it was an appropriate decision. He’s done the rehabilitation and I’m satisfied he will be able to perform.”
Gano said the magistrate’s decisions are always reviewed by the judge.
Bowling has served as a Clinton County magistrate for more than 10 years.
As juvenile court magistrate, Bowling oversees a number of juvenile cases, most of them traffic offenses, said Hockaday. Bowling also handles a variety of other cases, including juvenile misdemeanor drug cases.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Mathematics: The only true universal language
by Martin Rees
IF WE ever establish contact with intelligent aliens living on a planet around a distant star, we would expect some problems communicating with them. As we are many light years away, our signals would take many years to reach them, so there would be no scope for snappy repartee. There could be an IQ gap and the aliens might be built from quite different chemistry.
Yet there would be much common ground too. They would be made of similar atoms to us. They could trace their origins back to the big bang 13.7 billion years ago, and they would share with us the universe's future. However, the surest common culture would be mathematics.
Mathematics has been the language of science for thousands of years, and it is remarkably successful. In a famous essay, the great physicist Eugene Wigner wrote about the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics". Most of us resonate with the perplexity expressed by Wigner, and also with Einstein's dictum that "the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible". We marvel at the fact that the universe is not anarchic - that atoms obey the same laws in distant galaxies as in the lab. The aliens would, like us, be astonished by the patterns in our shared cosmos and by the effectiveness of mathematics in describing those patterns.
Mathematics can point the way towards new discoveries in physics too. Most famously, British theorist Paul Dirac used pure mathematics to formulate an equation that led to the idea of antimatter several years before the first antiparticle was found in 1932. So will physicists' luck hold as they aim to probe still deeper levels of structure in the cosmos? Are limits set by the intrinsic capacity of our brains? Can computers offer insights, rather than just crunch numbers? These are some of the questions that exercise me.
The precedents are encouraging. The two big breakthroughs in physics in the 20th century owed much to mathematics. The first was the formulation of quantum theory in the 1920s, of which Dirac was one of the great pioneers. The theory tells us that, on the atomic scale, nature is intrinsically fuzzy. Nonetheless, atoms behave in precise mathematical ways when they emit and absorb light, or link together to make molecules.
The other was Einstein's general relativity. More than 200 years earlier, Isaac Newton showed that the force that makes apples fall is the same as the gravity that holds planets in their orbits. Newton's mathematics is good enough to fly rockets into space and steer probes around planets, but Einstein transcended Newton. His general theory of relativity could cope with very high speeds and strong gravity, offering deeper insight into gravity's nature.
Yet despite his deep physical insights, Einstein was not a top-rate mathematician. The language needed for the great conceptual advances of 20th-century physics was already in place and Einstein was lucky that the geometrical concepts he needed had already been developed by German mathematician Bernhard Riemann a century earlier. The cohort of young quantum theorists led by Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg and Dirac were similarly fortunate in being able to apply ready-made mathematics.
Einstein was not a top-rated mathematician. The concepts he needed had already been developed
The 21st-century counterparts of these great figures - those seeking to mesh general relativity and quantum mechanics in a unified theory - are not so lucky. A unified theory is key unfinished business for science today.
The most favoured theory posits that the particles that make up atoms are all made up of tiny loops, or strings, that vibrate in a space with 10 or 11 dimensions. This string theory involves intensely complex mathematics that certainly cannot be found on the shelf, and the challenges it poses have been a stimulus for mathematics. Ed Witten, the acknowledged intellectual leader of string theory, ranks as a world-class mathematician, and several other leading mathematicians have been attracted by the challenge.
String theory is not the only approach to a unified theory, but it is by far the most intensively studied one. This endeavour is surely good for mathematics, but there is controversy about how good it is for physics. Arguments rage over whether string theory is right, whether it will ever engage with experiment, and even whether it is physics at all. There have even been commercially successful books rubbishin g the idea.
To me, criticisms of string theory as an intellectual enterprise seem to be in poor taste. It is presumptuous to second-guess the judgement of people of acknowledged brilliance who choose to devote their research career to it. However, we should be concerned about the undue concentration of talent in one speculative field.
Finding a unified theory would be the completion of a programme that started with Newton. String theory, if correct, would also vindicate the vision of Einstein and the late American physicist John Wheeler that the world is essentially a geometrical structure.
An interesting possibility, which I think should not be dismissed, is that a "true" fundamental theory exists, but that it may just be too hard for human brains to grasp. A fish may be barely aware of the medium in which it lives and swims; certainly it has no intellectual powers to comprehend that water consists of interlinked atoms of hydrogen and oxygen. The microstructure of empty space could, likewise, be far too complex for unaided human brains to grasp.
String theory involves scales a billion billion times smaller than any we can directly probe. At the other extreme, our cosmological theories suggest that the universe is vastly more extensive than the patch we can observe with our telescopes. It may even be infinite. The domain that astronomers call "the universe" - the space, extending more than 10 billion light years around us and containing billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, billions of planets (and maybe billions of biospheres) - could be an infinitesimal part of the totality.
There is a definite horizon to direct observations: a spherical shell around us, such that no light from beyond it has had time to reach us since the big bang. However, there is nothing physical about this horizon. If you were in the middle of an ocean, it is conceivable that the water ends just beyond your horizon - except that we know it doesn't. Likewise, there are reasons to suspect that our universe - the aftermath of our big bang - extends hugely further than we can see.
That is not all: our big bang may not be the only one. An idea called eternal inflation developed largely by Andrei Linde at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, envisages big bangs popping off, endlessly, in an ever-expanding substratum. Or there could be other space-times alongside ours - all embedded in a higher-dimensional space. Ours could be but one universe in a multiverse.
Other branches of mathematics then become relevant. We need a rigorous language to describe the number of possible states that a universe could possess and to compare the probability of different configurations. A clearer concept of infinity itself is also required (see "The enigma of infinity").
The multiverse confronts us with infinities, multiplied by other infinities - perhaps repeatedly. To bring sense to these concepts, we must deploy the mathematics of transfinite numbers, which date back to Georg Cantor in the 19th century. He showed that there was a rigorous way to discuss infinity and that in a well-defined sense there are infinities of different sizes. Without these exotic concepts, cosmologists will not be able to firm up the concept of the multiverse theory and decide, without paradoxes or ambiguities, what is probable and what is improbable within it.
At its deepest level, physical reality may have a geometric intricacy that would be satisfying to any intelligences on Earth or beyond, just as it would have delighted the Pythagoreans. Provided we could understand it, a unified theory that revealed this would be an intellectual triumph. Calling it a "theory of everything", though, is hubristic and misleading as it would offer no help to 99 per cent of scientists. Chemistry and biology are not held up through ignorance of subnuclear physics; still less are they dependent on the deepest structure of space-time. String theory might unify two great scientific frontiers, the very big and the very small, but there is a third frontier - the very complex. That is perhaps the most challenging of all, and it is the frontier on which most scientists work.
Finding a theory of everything would offer no help to 99 per cent of scientists
There are nonetheless reasons to hope that simple underlying rules might govern some seemingly complex phenomena. This was intimated in 1970 by the mathematician John Conway who invented the "game of life". Conway wanted to devise a game that would start with a simple pattern and use basic rules to evolve it again and again. He began experimenting with the black and white tiles on a Go board and discovered that by adjusting the simple rules of his game, which determine when a tile turns from black to white and vice versa, and the starting patterns, some arrangements produce incredibly complex results seemingly from nowhere. Some patterns can emerge that appear to have a life of their own as they move round the board.
The real world is similar: simple rules allow complex consequences. While Conway only needed a pencil and paper to devise his game, it takes a computer to fully explore the range of complexity inherent in it.
Computer simulations have given science an immense boost. And there is no reason why computers cannot actually make discoveries, albeit in their own distinctive way. IBM's chess-playing computer Deep Blue didn't work out its strategy like a human player. Instead, it took advantage of its computational speed to explore millions of alternative series of moves and responses before deciding an optimum move. This brute force approach overwhelmed a world champion.
The same approach could be put to good use to solve problems that have us so far eluded us. For example, scientists are currently looking for new superconductors that, rather than requiring low temperatures to conduct electricity as they do now, will work at ordinary room temperatures. This search involves a lot of trial and error, because nobody understands exactly what makes the electrical resistance disappear more readily in some materials than in others. Suppose that a machine came up with a recipe for such a superconductor. While it might have succeeded in the same way that Deep Blue defeated Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov, rather than by having a theory or strategy, it would have achieved something that would deserve a Nobel prize.
Simulations using ever more powerful computers will, in a similar way, help scientists to understand processes that we neither study in our laboratories nor observe directly. In my own subject of astronomy, researchers can already create a virtual universe in a computer and carry out experiments in it, such as calculating how stars form and die.
Some day, perhaps, my biological colleagues will be using them to simulate many processes including the chemical complexities within living cells, how combinations of genes encode the intricate chemistry of a cell, and the morphology of limbs and eyes. Perhaps they will be able to simulate the conditions that led to the first life, and even other forms of life that could, in principle, exist.
However there is a long way to go before real machine intelligence is achieved. A powerful computer can be a world chess champion, but not even the most advanced robot can recognise and move the pieces on a real chessboard as adeptly as a five-year-old child.
Maybe in the far future, though, post-human intelligence will develop hypercomputers with the processing power to simulate living things - even entire worlds. Perhaps advanced beings could even simulate a "universe" that goes far beyond mere patterns on a chequer-board and the best movie special effects. Their simulated universe could be as complex as the one we perceive ourselves to be in. This raises a disconcerting thought: perhaps that is what our universe really is.
It is fascinating to speculate whether hyper-intelligent aliens already exist in some remote part of our cosmos. If so, would their brains "package" reality in a mathematical language that would be comprehensible to us or our descendents?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
$3 trillion! — Senate, Fed, Treasury attack crisis
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON – On a single day filled with staggering sums, the Obama administration, Federal Reserve and Senate attacked the deepening economic crisis Tuesday with actions that could throw as much as $3 trillion more in government and private funds into the fight against frozen credit markets and rising joblessness.
"It's gone deep. It's gotten worse," President Barack Obama said of the recession at a campaign-style appearance in Fort Myers, Fla., where unemployment has reached double digits. "The situation we face could not be more serious."
If any more emphasis were needed, Wall Street investors sent stocks plunging, objecting that new rescue details from the government were too sparse. The Dow Jones industrials dropped 382 points.
The president spoke shortly after Senate passage of an $838 billion emergency economic stimulus bill cleared the way for talks with the House on a final compromise. In a display of urgency, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel traveled to the Capitol for meetings that stretched into the night with Democratic leaders as well as moderate senators whose views — and votes — will be key to any deal.
Separately, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner outlined plans for spending much of the $350 billion in financial bailout money recently cleared by Congress, and the Federal Reserve announced it would commit up to $1 trillion to make loans more widely available to consumers.
Taken together, the events marked at least a political watershed if not an economic turning point — the day the three-week old administration and its congressional allies assumed full control of the struggle against the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The vote was 61-37 in the Senate to pass the stimulus, with moderate Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania joining Democrats in support.
Even before the vote, Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Obama at the White House to go over the task ahead.
The Democratic leaders have long pledged to have legislation on Obama's desk by mid-month, and some Democrats said there was an informal target of Wednesday for agreement on a bill that would likely wind up in the range of $800 billion.
The political urgency bumped up against other obstacles, though.
The House measure includes roughly $70 billion more spending than the Senate's, but it lacks Senate-approved tax breaks totaling more than $100 billion for new car buyers, home purchasers and upper middle income families.
In a further obstacle, Collins and other Senate moderates — in both parties — signaled they will work to hold the cost of the final bill below $800 billion. That's less than the $820 billion in spending and tax cuts combined in the bill that cleared the House as well as the $838 billion legislation the Senate wrote.
Additionally, Obama has campaigned particularly energetically to include funds for school construction in the bill. At the insistence of Collins, the Senate measure omitted money for that purpose, and it wasn't clear whether she had eased her position on the presidential priority.
Whatever the cost of the final bill, it will add to the deficit, and that created another little-mentioned dilemma for the administration and Democrats.
Future spending bills on domestic programs or tax cuts will probably have a far more difficult time gaining the support necessary to pass without offsetting spending cuts or tax increases that would hold the deficit level.
Obama has campaigned energetically in recent days for passage of the stimulus bill, at the White House, on visits to other federal agencies, in his trip to Florida and a similar appearance Monday in a high-unemployment area of Indiana.
Reid depicted a president deeply involved in the compromise effort as well. He said Obama had "certain set ideas as to what he thinks should be done" but declined to elaborate.
The president set the context for the unfolding events Monday night at his first presidential news conference when he said, "With the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life."
Geithner outlined some of the details, although he and aides left numerous questions unanswered.
"We have to both jump-start job creation and private investment, and we must get credit flowing again to businesses and families," Geithner said at a news conference. He pledged to "fundamentally reshape" the financial industry bailout that began last fall under the Bush administration, and he announced that at least $50 billion would be spent helping homeowners facing foreclosure. He also said new steps would hold banks accountable for their use of bailout funds.
One element of the administration's approach calls for using as much as $100 billion in federal bailout funds to give banks, hedge funds or other investors the incentive to purchase so-called toxic assets carried on the books of other financial institutions. The goal is to return struggling banks to health so they can resume making loans, and an administration fact sheet said the amount of government and private funds combined will be "on an initial scale of up to $500 billion, with the potential to expand up to $1 trillion."
The Federal Reserve announced it would commit up to $1 trillion to purchase bonds or other assets backed by consumer loans. The Treasury will guarantee a portion of the Fed investment by putting up $100 billion, an increase from a $20 billion commitment that Bush administration had announced.
The goal of this program is to make it easier for consumers to buy cars or obtain student loans, small business loans or other types of credit that have dried up in recent months.
Geithner said $50 billion in bailout funds would be dedicated to an effort to prevent mortgage foreclosure of "owner-occupied middle class homes." Few details were provided.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Amazon Indians accused of cannibalizing farmer
By Helena DeMoura
CNN
CNN
(CNN) -- A city official in the remote Brazilian Amazon village of Envira told CNN that five members of the Kulina tribe are on the run after being accused of murdering, butchering and eating a farmer in a ritual act of cannibalism.
The village's chief of staff, Maronilton da Silva Clementino, said Kulina tribesmen took the life of Ocelio Alves de Carvalho, 19, last week on the outskirts of Envira, which is in the far western part of Brazil that bumps up against Peru.
Portal Amazonia newspaper reported that the Indians escaped after being held for a few hours in the city's police station.
No arrest warrants were issued. Brazilian law does not allow the military or civil police to enter Indian lands, Portal Amazonia reported.
It is still unknown how many people took part in the alleged cannibalistic ritual, although several Indians have fled into the jungle fearing prosecution, the newspaper Diario do Amazonas reported.
Clementino said the victim was herding cattle when he met with a group of Indians who invited him back to their village.
"They knew each other and they sometimes helped one another. They invited him to their reservation three days ago and he was never seen again," Clementino said.
"The family decided to go into the reservation and that's when they saw his body quartered and his skull hanging on a tree. It was very tragic for the family," he said.
The news of the incident came from the Indians themselves, who apparently bragged about eating the man's organs, Clementino said.
Members of the tribe told residents of Envira -- where 190 Kulina families brush shoulders with non-tribal Brazilians -- that they held a cannibalistic ritual in which they cooked the victim's organs, Clementino said.
He said Kulina Indians began surrounding the police station where the suspects were briefly interrogated.
Villagers told authorities they are incensed by the lack of response from FUNAI, Brazil's National Indian Foundation.
"The family is very frustrated with the law here, which protects the Indians and doesn't help protect us," he said. "They start drinking and local farmers here are afraid who could be next."
Clementino said groups Indians -- often outnumbering police -- pose a security threat to locals.
He said the man's family are upset that authorities did not arrive until three days later. But a FUNAI official told the newspaper Voz do Acre that access to Envira is very difficult, requiring long boat or helicopter rides.
According to FUNAI, about 2,500 Kulina live in Brazil's Acre state, which borders with Peru, where 450 Kulina live. This remote jungle corridor is known for its isolated tribes.
The Kulina are classified as an "isolated" tribe but some have contact with the non-indian population.
The Kulina are also known for their complex language. FUNAI studies show that Kulina women speak a completely different language from the men.
According to FUNAI, there are 460,000 Indians in Brazil and 1,300 indian languages. There are 55 groups considered to live in isolation.Sunday, February 8, 2009
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