DC Adventures:
The Hip Hop Festival is coming up, July 11-16. There are a number of events that look really interesting (though Geeksta Rap is woefully underrepresented...actually, its completely unrepresented).

Adventure of the Mind: The review of the book, "The Genuis Factory," about the Sperm Bank that uses only Nobel Prize winners as donors has me intrigued.
Also, a book on the importance of family dinners, including recipes, seems appropriate given a number of conversations I've had this week.
Or, play with Google Earth, the new Google maps update, which is featured in a new Wired article.

Old Folks Mess With New Tech: Its interesting that most of the articles (Wired, for example) I have read assess the Supreme Court decision on Monday as at best neutral, but likely to have a negative impact on the supposed winner, the entertainment industry, because it allows the industry to remain complacent rather than forcing them to meet the challenge of unstoppable new technologies (some in the industry appear to be recognizing this). Everyone seems to agree that tech innovation is the big loser. The industry may also be missing out on an opportunity, since P2P could give shows greater exposure and increase popularity(for example Veronica Mars!), as it has with the pilot of a proposed WB show. Wired also has an interesting interview with Rep Rick Boucher, who is actually in support of file sharing.

The court also ruled that cable companies don't have to allow competitive ISPs on their wires. Telephone companies, which do have to, are now saying they shouldn't have to either, which is leaving consumer protection groups worried that there will be fewer broadband providers. The issue goes to Congress next.

Candymonster: A bizarre part of a story from AFP that says candy is used to entice prisoners to talk... okay, maybe that would work on me, but I still find that really strange. Then again, some of the prisoners are allegedly kids, but it doesn't sound like they're being bribed with candy...

Tell Us How You Really Feel: If you're from a resident of NY, one of your lawmakers thinks you're an idiot. This comes shortly after Texas Governor Rick Perry called a reporter a mo-fo. And shortly after saying that Mexicans take jobs not even blacks would take, Mexico is once again causing an uproar because of stamps that are seen as racist.

Easily Distractible: No, not me, but police in India, who face a bunch of women stripping every time they try to arrest a group of criminals. Okay, and me, because I keep finding bizarre stories that just need to be posted. Such as this one, about "smoothies," sort of a small-town counterpart to the metrosexual.

Maybe all this crazy news is related to the rise in drug use around the world.

Scientology : During my initial obsession with Veronica Mars, I learned that one of the actors was a Scientologist. So I tried to learn what exactly that means. Luckily for me, Tom Cruise chose exactly that time to go a little nutty, trying to recruit people (even it means marrying them, perhaps?) If you want to read more about it, Salon has a four part series (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 is forthcoming). And then there are the angry responses to the series.

Interesting Development:
Since the Supreme Court ruling last week that private property may be used for development, a contractor has decided to try to use the law to build a hotel on Justice David Souter's land.

Vacation Dreams:
Since I am not taking a vacation this summer (though DC is awesome, and I really can't complain too much), I have been fantasizing about traveling. So I am passing this on to those of you who are actually planning vacations, or those of us who are just dreaming about it while sitting at our desks (maybe start planning for next year or so?)
My godmother just informed that World Heritage sites are amazing places to visit, and whenever you see the designation on a map, it is worth making the trip. There are 788 sites all over the world that have this designation.
Secondly, my friend Scott is leaving today to go Fairbanks. From there, he will travel to Deadhorse, from which he and a friend will drive non-stop to Key West, Florida in an attempt to break a world record. I just found that there is actually a news story about them! In any case, while this is not exactly my ideal vacation, Scott's excited, and apparently they are also doing it to raise awareness for the National Center for the Victims of Crime, so I'm going to keep you posted on his progress over the next weeks.

Update: Another vacation idea? Spain has authorized a nude protest of the running with the bulls next month, for all you unself-conscious activists!

Geeksta's Paradise: Apparently, there is a phenomenon I was shamefully unaware of called Geeksta Rap, or Nerdcore. While this ought to be enough to send you scrambling to read all about it, here's a little more to whet your appetite: "The stigma that was once attached to computer geeks and role-playing nerds is diminishing incredibly fast," said "digital gangster" Bryce Case Jr., aka ytcracker. "It has almost become trendy to have skills on a computer. Rather than guns and 'hos, I speak about DDOS attacks and camgirls." The self-proclaimed "#1 greatest computer science gangsta rapper ever" is MC Plus+, a geeksta leading light whose moniker comes from the C++ programming language. For some reason, I feel like this will be of interest to a number of my friends... you know who you are.

Google's Watching: Wired has an article with some warnings for avid google-fans (like me.) In other techn news, Roomba is coming out with a version that can be preprogrammed, so you can wake up to clean floors. I have a Roomba that I got as a present after I took the LSAT, which is therefore named El Sayad. It works really well in my small, carpetless studio apartment. However, it is still quite loud, and that is not a way I would like to wake up in the morning. But I do love my Roomba, which not only cleans for me, but serves as a pet since I can't have any "real" animals right now.

News for When You Have Time: RFK, Jr's has an article on a vaccine coverup which got a lot of criticism recently from medical officials (NY Times has two articles rebutting the claims, here and here). RFK responded to those critiques. It seems to me that it is not about the scientific validity of the claims, but whether or not data is being covered up, because without the full story, how can medical professionals have a real scientific debate on the actual issue? (I'm not a medical professional, so I can't judge on that basis, but I am for open debates, and I think this is an instance where transparency seems appropriate.)
And for those who still aren't caught up on it, there is even more reason to pay attention to the weird and ever-more twisted Ohio scandal which is implicating more and more Ohio government officials.

Intellectual Property Decision
Call me crazy, but intellectual property issues have become one of the most fascinating issues to me. Therefore, I am linking to this article from Salon on the possible implications of the Supreme Court ruling yesterday that peer-to-peer file sharing sites can be held liable for encouraging file sharing. While this discusses some negative consequences of IP, German Chancellor Schroeder yesterday told the US Chamber of Commerce that IPR are one of the things he considers most important to global commerce. So maybe I'm not so crazy afterall!

Speaking of open access things, one of my friends just informed me that CRS reports are now available to the public online! (The WP has a story on it.) How did people do any research before the internet???

Teachers Need More Than An Apple: The NYT has an article once again spotlighting how underappreciated/underpaid teachers are. This is something that I just cannot comprehend, because it seems like education is the answer to almost everything. So why wouldn't you pay teachers enough to make it an attractive position, so you can attract the best people for the job? Society will save later on things from obesity costs (see one of today's earlier posts) to crime to welfare benefits... the list goes on and on.

Completely unrelatedly, Krugman's column today is on the threat posed by Chinese takeovers, citing the Unocal takeover bid.

Hilarious
Jon Stewart: ...so the truth is, the media couldn't break Watergate today?
Steven Colbert: That's right Jon, it no longer has that credibility.
Jon Stewart: the media?
Steven Colbert: No, Jon, the truth.

Weighty Costs: Last Tuesday, June 21, I mentioned the ads about obesity being overblown as a problem. "Recently, I was in the metro and saw an ad implying that obesity is not really a problem, but has been blown out of proportion. The ad, I have now discovered, is funded by the Center for Consumer Freedom, which is backed by US food and restaurant industries. An article on MSNBC also discusses the ads." As I mentioned before, even if overweight or even obesity is not killing people, it is still having tremendous well-being and economic effects. The USAToday has an article today which says spending on obesity has increased more than tenfold since 1987.

Don't let the study dissuade you from having chocolate, though, since once again studies have shown that dark chocolate is good for you, in that it actually has a beneficial effect cardiovascular outcome. It also helps diabetes and hypertension, among other things.

Salon has an article on a DNC report on voting problems in Ohio was released last week. (Voting is another one of those issues that gets me going) It doesn't say that the state should have gone to John Kerry, but it does list a number of problems voters encountered, such as excessive wait times, especially in precincts that used electronic voting machines...

Right News: Tom Delay on what's going on in Iraq: "From the "What Planet Is He On?" department, Tom DeLay has weighed in on how things really are in Iraq. And it turns out that Iraq is like ... Iraq is like ... well, it turns out that Iraq is a lot like Texas, actually. "

Bush forever? Some Congressmen, apparently mainly Democrats, are trying to repeal the 22nd Amendment, which limits Presidential term limits. He would probably get the support of Young Republicans who were tearing up DC this weekend. Perhaps Tony Blair's son will join them when he starts to intern for Republican Congressman David Dreier.

More News of Note:
Slate has an interesting article on Corporate Welfare that discusses how corporate welfare has increased and actually helps only certain companies within an industry.

Back to Downing Street... Salon's war room column asks a good question: where are the Senate Democrats? Why haven't they signed on to John Kerry's request for an investigation? I just don't get it.

Naked Culture: Justice gets naked, and makes deals with the porn industry... Well, the drapes mandated by Ashcroft to cover the Justice Statues' breasts were removed, but the porn deal is unrelated, but aptly timed to coincide, so I figured it was worth mentioning (or at least get your attention). Pornography has nothing to do with the shift the heads of PBS are attempting to surreptitously make in PBS/NPR programming, according to an excellent NYT editorial. Instead of turning to PBS as usual, I got my dose of culture in at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival yesterday, which was really interesting and fun and definitely worth braving the heat to see. The NYT has an article on the Food Culture USA exhibits, one of the themes featured (along with Latin Music, Forestry and Oman).

And more evidence from our instant gratification society: an article from last Sunday on a NBER study of the myopia of investors, even when there is strong promise of long term payoff. "In other words, most investors tend to ignore events that are scheduled to happen more than five years into the future. They are like drivers who ignore warning signs about slippery pavement just around the bend, and instead wait until nearly the last second to apply the brakes."

I almost forgot, the Onion has a 2056 edition which is quite funny and interesting... good, light weekend reading about genetically modified farmers and ozone repletion projects, just to name a few headlines.

Good Start for Friday
Two stories to start the day off on a positive note: PBS keeps its funding!!! (Also, more coverage on calls to remove Tomlinson, and on another note, the former RNC Chairman was chosen to be the new CPB President is) And Al Gore made someone's day (by picking up keys she dropped, but still...)

Krugman News: Krugman talks about not allowing ourselves to be misled and intimidated.

Science News: Physicists say that time travel can be possible without the past being in jeopardy of being altered, basically because we have already observed it, so it can't be changed. Animal talk: Adding to the research finding prairie dogs have a vocabulary, there is an article on different chickadee chirps signaling predators.

And Now The Bad News: E-voting proponents testified to the Senate this week that paper trails are not only unnecessary, but harmful... so we're just supposed to trust machines and the technology to be infallible, and have no way to double check??? Evoting without a paper trail is as popular with me as... the US is to the rest of the world? Because apparently the US is now less popular than China.

Sounds Crazy... But True?: The weirdest story I've read all day is about yesterday's Senate hearing on lobbyist Jack Abrahamoff... (though I hesitate putting it up after Milbank's piece last Friday on the Conyers hearing).

From NC, a judge (whose courtroom I have actually observed for a pre-law class) said you can't swear on the Quran. Maybe Google's new search engine can help, since Google is trying to make its search engine capable of sorting by truth... theoretically that would be phenomenal, but the truth according to who?? GoogleTruth might also have been helpful in ranking these hard-to-believe pieces: Berlusconi used his "playboy charms" on Finnish president... according to Berlusconi. Zimbabwe is destroying vegetable gardens allegedly because they damage the environment. Also, in Ethipia, lions rescued a girl by fighting off her kidnappers.

David Sedaris, author of the very hilarious Me Talk Pretty One Day, doesn't seem to be holding back the truth on the tip bucket he puts out at his readings: "People will ask, 'Is that your tip bucket,' and I'll say, 'Yeah.' Then they say, 'Anyway, if you could make this out to Sheila.' Like, would you go to Starbucks and say, 'Is this your tip bucket? OK, anyway ...' Someone a couple of days ago told me that I make enough money from royalties, and I told her, 'It's not your place to tell me how much money I need. I will tell you when I have enough money.'"

PBS/NPR Under Attack
One of the things that has me riled up: the attempted destruction of something I hold near and dear-- public broadcasting. (Quick background: The head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Ken Tomlinson is trying to make PBS and NPR more objective by having people like Brit Hume advise the public broadcasting units on how to be fair and balanced. See background story in the Seattle Times.) A number of questionable things have now come to light, including the secret hiring of a supposedly independent researcher, Fred Mann (article from the NYT), an earlier NYT article noted lobbyists' involvement in CPB, and another piece from Raw Story cited emails further indicating Bush administration involvement in what is supposed to be a public institution not subject to political influences. A number of Senators sent a letter to Bush yesterday calling for Tomlinson's resignation, saying that "Tomlinson has spent a great deal of time and the public’s money undermining public television in his new post and making the CPB weaker than before he took over the chairmanship."
Update: NPR did a story on the emails June 20. Also, see a WP article on cutting CPB funding. Also, the Nation has some suggestions for things you can do to save NPR/PBS.

I feel personally attacked by this, because I love PBS and NPR: we're talking about Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Frontline, NOVA... If they succeed in killing PBS as I know and love it, they will be breaking a little piece of my heart...

News of Note: A study says men earn more when their wives do all the chores...but men with homemaker-wives only earned 3% more. That seems like a very marginal amount, when these guys in effect have a maid, cook, nanny, event planner... I mean, average wages in the US in 2002 were $36, 764 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Three percent of that is $1,102.92, or about $91 per month, or about $3 per day. (If you make $100,000 per year, that still is only $3,000 more per year, $250 per month, or $8 per day, so even then it seems quite miniscule.) I would sort of expect someone who gets all those services for free to be making more than an extra $3 per day. Really, the title of the article should point that out, because the fact that anyone who has someone else do the bulk of the domestic work makes more money is really not a shocker.

Patrick Henry College would probably approve of women staying home, as you can read in the New Yorker profile of this self-proclaimed "Harvard for Homeschoolers. " An excerpt from the founder and President of the school, Michael Farris: "[President and Founder of the school Michael] Farris’s manifesto for the school, “The Joshua Generation,” embraces the Rove principle: the “Moses generation,” he wrote, had “left Egypt,” and now it was time for their children to “take the land.” Farris is the author of nine nonfiction books and three novels, all with Christian themes, and in them he warns against “MTV, Internet porn, abortion, homosexuality, greed and accomplished selfishness”; he calls public schools “godless monstrosities.” (Emphasis added) There are so many other comment-worthy things about this article, I just recommend reading the whole thing.

FYI: The school competes with Bob Jones University, which recently banned students from wearing Abercrombie and Fitch clothing because of the company has "shown an unusual degree of antagonism to the name of Christ and an unusual display of wickedness in their promotions."

Tomorrow is Wednesday, which happens to be the best night for television. Why, you ask? Because Veronica Mars is on UPN... wait, don't be scared off by the station! Veronica Mars is seriously the best show I can think of, even better than the best season of 24. It is witty, smart, and has great characters and actors. Just ask the critics at Salon, USAToday, NYMetro, SeattlePI, NYT, and TWoP. (I wouldn't read too much though, since otherwise you may find out more of the season than you should.)
The only problem is that no one watches UPN, so no one knows about it, so it has poor ratings. Which can actually make you feel intellectually superior, considering some of the shows that do have higher ratings! So watch it tomorrow at 9pm, and tell me how much you love it!

News of Note so far today: an article on a bar of soap made from fat of Italian PM sold, and farmers are trying to get rid of the term couch potato. Also, Boston is full of stoners who may like new pot-flavored lollypops, and we can sue if we fail our graduate school classes.

Updated: Polish plumbers to attract French.

Genes Determine Political Inclination? An interesting article in the NYT today discusses a study that indicating political views may be partly genetic. "A mismatch between an inherited social orientation and a given party may also explain why some people defect from a party. Many people who are genetically conservative may be brought up as Democrats, and some who are genetically more progressive may be raised as Republicans, the researchers say." For parents who wonder where they went wrong (or kids who wonder what's wrong with their parents), maybe its all in the genes...

I have been somewhat negligent in keeping up with fun things to do in DC the last two weeks, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to redeem myself a little. Here are a couple of the things on my list of fun (and free or cheap!) things to do over the summer:

This Weekend: National Capital Barbecue Battle with lots of food and bands. Tickets are $10, but someone told me Safeway has a promotion where you get buy-one-get-one-free.

On-Going or Coming Soon:
Jazz in the Sculpture Garden, Fridays 5-8pm, June 3-Sept 16

Smithsonian Folklife Festival, June 23-27, June 30-July 4, 11 am-5:30pm. This year the focus will be on Oman, forestry, Latino music, and American food culture.

First Friday, free tour of numerous Art Galleries, 5-8 pm 1732 Connecticut Avenue, NW .

Bengies Drive-In Movie Theatre in Baltimore, they play pretty current movies, but seem to have really strict (and weird) rules-- shoes must be worn at all times in your car. But I think the idea is really fun!

Summer Restaurant Week is finally set for Aug. 1 through 7.

A WP articles lists nearby beaches.

Tubing in WVa-- I already went once this summer, and it was so much fun. Butt's Tubes is $12 if you get your tube before noon. Rub vaseline on your arms beforehand and you won't get tube burn!

Screen on the Green starts July 18-Aug 15, at sundown on the Washington Mall between Fourth and Seventh streets. The WP has the list of what's playing.

I like the Zoo, especially the outdoor parts. And the baby cheetahs, who have until now only been viewable with the cheetah webcam, are apparently making their debut June 25.

My favorite museum is the Freer and the Sackler (which are connected), which always has great stuff. Matt's favorite shop in DC is their giftstore.

I haven't been there yet, but the Kreeger Museum on Embassy Row, the African Art Museum, Botanical Garden, and National Arboretum are all on my list of things to do, too.
That's all I have time for today!

Obesity
Recently, I was in the metro and saw an ad implying that obesity is not really a problem, but has been blown out of proportion. The ad, I have now discovered, is funded by the Center for Consumer Freedom, which is backed by US food and restaurant industries. An article on MSNBC also discusses the ads.

What drives me crazy is that ever since a study came out (a month or so ago) saying that overweight people actually live longer, people have been saying the obesity epidemic is overhyped. But the study shows that overweight (not obese) people live longer, and it does not say that they live with a better quality of life. I actually chose obesity as a future contingency of interest for my forward engagement class, because I see it as something that will be a major future problem in terms of economics (huge costs associated with diabetes and the 40 other dieases associated with obesity, for starters), science (funding diverted from research on other issues, for example), and governance and security (tremendous strain on public health care costs will have serious budget implications). Things like those ads which conflate obesity with overweightness drive me crazy, because they are not only inaccurate but also misleading.

It seems clear that obesity has major quality of life implications, such as causing premature aging. A couple other obesity related articles I just came across include this article in the New Scientist linking prenatal nutrition to obesity, and an article in Salon on Mike Huckabee, governor of Arkansas, who recently lost a lot of weight and is trying to fight obesity in his home state. China may take some lessons, as it is projected to be home to 200 million obese people in 10 years time.

Last semester I took a class on Forward Engagement which focused on trying to make policy for long term issues, and looked at things that are likely to turn into important issues in the future across a variety of areas (aka future contingencies of interest). Apparently the class was a success since I can't read the papers anymore without noting FE-related pieces. An example is an article on outsourcing psychological warfare. Forward Engagement is one of various themes that will likely recurr in my blog.

Just to preface: I am setting up this blog so that I can stop bombarding people with thousands of emails, and just put together articles of interest in one concise place. By articles of interest I mean articles of interest to me, which sometimes means things that get me riled up (in a good or bad way), things I'm interested in personally or academically, or things that are just plain funny or strange.