Potent Absinthe Mix Stirs Up Controversy

According to Potent Absinthe Mix Stirs Up Controversy, absinthe will be available in Britain soon — mixed with beer:

Absinthe, the fiery tipple with purported hallucinogenic properties, has stirred up fresh controversy in Britain where it will go on sale in nightclubs and bars next month packaged to be mixed with beer.

"Deco" comes with a small bottle of Kronenbourg lager with a shot of absinthe attached. The idea is to down the 45 percent-strong absinthe and drink the five-percent strength lager as a chaser.
Popularly held responsible for painter Vincent Van Gogh's mutilation of his own ear, absinthe has been banned in many countries but was never outlawed in Britain.
[...]
"The actual alcohol content in a Deco is 2.5 units," said David Jones, a company spokesman. "This is actually slightly less than the 2.8 units in a pint of Kronenbourg or lager of similar strength."

Historically, absinthe was not a low-alcohol, beer-based drink:

Taken with ice water and a lump of sugar, the bitter drink became popular in 19th century Europe. It was distilled with a blend of herbs and was nicknamed "the green fairy" because of its emerald hue.

Vintage Wilde:

"After the first glass you see things as you wish they were," absinthe lover Wilde wrote. "After the second, you see things as they are not."

"Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world," Wilde concluded.

The New Gender Gap

The New Gender Gap, in Business Week cites some interesting facts:

It may still be a man's world. But it is no longer, in any way, a boy's. From his first days in school, an average boy is already developmentally two years behind the girls in reading and writing. Yet he's often expected to learn the same things in the same way in the same amount of time. While every nerve in his body tells him to run, he has to sit still and listen for almost eight hours a day. Biologically, he needs about four recesses a day, but he's lucky if he gets one, since some lawsuit-leery schools have banned them altogether. Hug a girl, and he could be labeled a "toucher" and swiftly suspended — a result of what some say is an increasingly anti-boy culture that pathologizes their behavior.

If he falls behind, he's apt to be shipped off to special ed, where he'll find that more than 70% of his classmates are also boys. Squirm, clown, or interrupt, and he is four times as likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. That often leads to being forced to take Ritalin or risk being expelled, sent to special ed, or having parents accused of negligence. One study of public schools in Fairfax County, Va., found that more than 20% of upper-middle-class white boys were taking Ritalin-like drugs by fifth grade.

Once a boy makes it to freshman year of high school, he's at greater risk of falling even further behind in grades, extracurricular activities, and advanced placement. Not even science and math remain his bastions. And while the girls are busy working on sweeping the honor roll at graduation, a boy is more likely to be bulking up in the weight room to enhance his steroid-fed Adonis complex, playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on his PlayStation2, or downloading rapper 50 Cent on his iPod. All the while, he's 30% more likely to drop out, 85% more likely to commit murder, and four to six times more likely to kill himself, with boy suicides tripling since 1970.

In college, women continue to dominate:

As for college — well, let's just say this: At least it's easier for the guys who get there to find a date. For 350 years, men outnumbered women on college campuses. Now, in every state, every income bracket, every racial and ethnic group, and most industrialized Western nations, women reign, earning an average 57% of all BAs and 58% of all master's degrees in the U.S. alone. There are 133 girls getting BAs for every 100 guys — a number that's projected to grow to 142 women per 100 men by 2010, according to the U.S. Education Dept. If current trends continue, demographers say, there will be 156 women per 100 men earning degrees by 2020.

The beauty business

The Beauty Business, in The Economist, is chock-full of fun factoids and anecdotes:

Medieval noblewomen swallowed arsenic and dabbed on bats' blood to improve their complexions; 18th-century Americans prized the warm urine of young boys to erase their freckles; Victorian ladies removed their ribs to give themselves a wasp waist. The desire to be beautiful is as old as civilisation, as is the pain that it can cause. In his autobiography, Charles Darwin noted a "universal passion for adornment", often involving "wonderfully great" suffering.

The pain has not stopped the passion from creating a $160 billion-a-year global industry, encompassing make-up, skin and hair care, fragrances, cosmetic surgery, health clubs and diet pills. Americans spend more each year on beauty than they do on education.

How did the modern beauty industry get started?

In 1909, Eugène Schueller founded the French Harmless Hair Colouring Co, which later became L'Oréal — today's industry leader. Two years later, Paul Beiersdorf, a Hamburg pharmacist, developed the first cream to bind oil and water. Today, it sells in 150 countries as Nivea, the biggest personal-care brand in the world. Around the same time, in Tokyo's upmarket Ginza, Arinobu Fukuhara hit on eudermine lotion — the first Japanese cosmetic based on a scientific formula, and the first product for the Shiseido company.

But it was the great rivalry between two women in America that made the industry what it is today. Elizabeth Arden opened the first modern beauty salon in 1910, followed a few years later by Helena Rubinstein, a Polish immigrant. The two took cosmetics out of household pots and pans and into the modern era. Both thought beauty and health were interlinked. They combined facials with diets and exercise classes in a holistic approach that the industry is now returning to.

Rubinstein considered facelifts (via leather straps and electricity) to be as acceptable as lipstick, while Arden pioneered beauty branding, with her iconic gold and pink packaging. The two women, together with Max Factor (which originally produced make-up for actresses), built the foundations of modern marketing, bewitching consumers with aggressive tactics such as celebrity endorsements and magazine advertorials. In the 1930s they were joined by Revlon, and after the second world war by Estée Lauder. All these companies are still around.

Recently, cosmetic surgery has grown to rival the traditional, less intrusive, beauty industry:

Two potentially lucrative markets are being all but ignored by the traditional beauty companies. The first is cosmetic surgery, already a $20 billion business, which has been growing and innovating by leaps and bounds. The number of cosmetic procedures have increased in America by over 220% since 1997. Old favourites, such as liposuction, breast implants and nose jobs, are being overtaken by botox injections to freeze the facial muscles that cause wrinkles. With the number of these up by more than 2,400% since 1997, botox injections have become the most common procedure of all.

The newest lines are bottom implants, fat inserts to plump up ageing hands, and fillers like Restylane and Perlane for facial wrinkles. Cosmetic dentistry is also a booming business. Jeff Golub, Manhattan dentist to stars like Kim Catrall of "Sex and the City", dubs himself a "smile designer". "We are able to create all sorts of illusions," he says. "The smile has become a fashion statement." Tooth whitening is the botox of the cosmetic dentistry business.

What used to be the preserve of actresses and celebrities has become safer and more affordable. Alan Matarasso, one of America's leading plastic surgeons, says: "Ten years ago you could reconstruct a woman's breasts for $12,000 — now it can be done for $600." Drooping prices have helped cosmetic surgery to move into the mainstream. More than 70% of those who come under the knife now earn less than $50,000 a year.

Imperial History

Dominic Lieven's Imperial History addresses the popular notion of America-as-empire:

If there is an empire in today's world, it can only be the US. But whether it is useful to think of the US as an empire is a moot point. Since "empire" nowadays is usually just a term of abuse, the debate can easily turn into a useless trading of insults. It is, however, useful to ask what the history of empire can tell one about the nature and vulnerabilities of US power. Moreover, since the question of American empire is, in fact, being asked on many of the world's streets and in most of its foreign ministries, there is something to be gained from an historian of past empires tackling this issue. Two points must first be emphasised.

Firstly, empire in the past often prevailed partly because it provided many public goods. It preserved order and peace over vast stretches of the globe. It often facilitated the spread of trade and ideas over long distances. It was usually more pluralist than the modern nation state in its tolerance for multiethnicity and multiculturalism. It was also often associated with the greatest civilisations in history, which could not have flowered without its assistance.

The second point is that empire came in many very different forms. The word "empire" itself has had many meanings even in English, let alone in translation. Some historical empires were much closer to alliance systems than to "states," in the contemporary understanding of the word. The relationship between an Achaemenid emperor and his regional satraps was nearer to that of George W Bush and the king of Saudi Arabia than that of a US president and the governor of Idaho.

Whether or not it is worthwhile to call the US an empire, it certainly is interesting to ask which particular empires and imperial traditions America resembles. In one sense, the US is closest to the British and the Dutch empires of modern capitalism which created the global capitalist economy. In other respects it is much closer to some of the great land empires of antiquity.

Problems end, solutions go on

I enjoyed Steven Den Beste's Problems End, Solutions Go On a few weeks ago, but I never found the time to properly log it. His thesis:

One of the drawbacks of many solutions to problems is that the solution takes on a life of its own, and may continue in effect long after the problem has disappeared. In the most pernicious cases, the solution ultimately becomes a problem in its own right.

He discusses the March of Dimes (which faced "the peculiar dilemma of having actually won"), rent control in New York City (which "was imposed in NYC in WWII as an emergency measure"), and...affirmative action:

It may be that the problem of discrimination is still with us. It may be that affirmative action still is needed. But eventually it won't be.

If the problem is never solved through affirmative action, then it means that affirmative action was the wrong solution, and we should probably have tried something else. But if affirmative action actually was and is an effective solution, then it means the problem of discrimination will eventually reach the point of insignificance.

Once that happens, how do we know? And how do we get rid of affirmative action? The people who benefit from it will still argue for it to be kept in place, and they'll fight politically for it. We still have rent control in NYC, more than 50 years after the true need ended.

Woman Gets Phone Calls for God

There's a reason all movie phone numbers start with 555. From Woman Gets Phone Calls for God:

Dawn Jenkins isn't in the new Jim Carrey comedy "Bruce Almighty," but her phone number is — and that's become a problem.

In the film, Carrey stars as a mortal who receives the powers of God. The character of God tries to reach Carrey's character by repeatedly leaving a phone number on his pager.

But instead of the usual 555 prefix used by most television shows and films, God's number is a common exchange — one too common for Jenkins' liking. It's her cell phone number.

She's been getting about 20 calls per hour, with callers asking for God before hanging up.

Perhaps Jenny should call and leave her number.

New Zealand Island Says It Is Rat-Free

Even Europe's rats exploit native populations. From New Zealand Island Says It Is Rat-Free:

An island located halfway between Antarctica and New Zealand was declared rat-free Monday, some 200 years after rats arrived there by sealing and whaling boats.

Campbell Island had the largest population density of rats anywhere in the world, eradication project manager Andy Roberts said. They had reduced the island's shearwater seabird population to a handful "which will take hundreds of years to recover," he said in a statement.

Other unique birds like the flightless Campbell Island teal and the tiny Campbell Island snipe had only survived eradication because they were removed from the island by environmentalists.

"After 200 years of rat occupation, Campbell is now a safe haven for the millions of seabirds that breed there," New Zealand Environment Minister Chris Carter said in a statement.

How did environmentalists handle this situation in an eco-friendly manner?

Tons of rat poison pellets were dumped on the uninhabited 27,900-acre island, 440 miles south of New Zealand, by helicopter two years ago to kill the Norway rat.

US Seizes What May Be $500 Million in Gold in Iraq

According to US Seizes What May Be $500 Million in Gold in Iraq, American soldiers found the bars while conducting "a routine traffic control search" of a Mercedes truck near the border:

American troops have seized what appears to be $500 million worth of gold bars from a truck in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Friday.

The 2,000 40-pound bars were seized on Thursday at Qaim on the Syrian border in western Iraq by soldiers of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the U.S. military's Central Command said in a statement.

I'm not surprised that a truck might carry a half-million dollars in gold, except that a half-million dollars in gold evidently weighs forty tons.

Deer Walks Through Airport Security

Since I was just at the airport in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, this story from Omaha, Nebraska jumped out at me. Deer Walks Through Airport Security:

A deer walked through the revolving doors and made its way to the baggage claim area of Eppley Airfield around 7 a.m. CDT Wednesday.

Kay Bammel, who has worked at an airport car rental counter for about 35 years, said the animal appeared scared and was making an awful noise.

"Some guy with his family just went over and tackled her around the neck and got her down," Bammel said. "Then they went and got some duct tape because she was kicking so bad."

Airport police then carried the deer out of the terminal and took her to the nearby Missouri River.
There always are concerns about deer getting on the runway, but police said they never thought they'd find one in the terminal.

I love the matter-of-fact description of what happened: Some guy with his family just went over and tackled her around the neck and got her down. Then they went and got some duct tape because she was kicking so bad. LAX would have been closed down until the SWAT team arrived.

Atkins Diet May Be No Better Than Just Cutting Fat

I find this headline interesting: Atkins Diet May Be No Better Than Just Cutting Fat. Just cutting fat? It's not as if the Atkins diet involves cutting fat and something more.

Anyway, according to the article, Atkins dieters lose weight faster initially, but everything evens out between low-carb dieters and conventional dieters. Interestingly, triglyceride levels fell further and "good" cholesterol levels rose higher on the Atkins regimen than on the low-fat diet.

In one six-month study, obese volunteers on the low-carbohydrate, high-fat and high-protein Atkins diet lost 13 pounds versus four pounds for obese people on a low-fat diet.

In a second year-long study, obese people on the Atkins diet lost nearly 10 pounds more after six months than volunteers on a conventional diet. But by the end of the year, the differences between the two groups were not significant, suggesting the Atkins diet is no better at helping fat people shed pounds than traditional weight-loss regimens.
[...]
The Atkins diet, first published in 1972, has been criticized by doctors because its high fat content increases the risk of heart disease, kidney problems and cancer. The 12-month study found, however, that triglyceride levels fell further and "good" cholesterol levels rose higher on the Atkins regimen than on the low-fat diet.

Strong Mothers Bear More Sons

Fascinating. Strong Mothers Bear More Sons:

In an Ethiopian community facing hard physical work and regular food shortages, British researchers have found that strong mothers appear more likely to bear sons than daughters.

The discovery suggests that during tough times, mothers' bodies somehow manipulate the sex of their children to maximize the chance of successful reproduction, anthropologists Dr. Ruth Mace and Mhairi Gibson write in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.

This is because bringing a boy to term is more physiologically demanding on the mother, as boys grow faster in the womb and tend to be bigger, Mace said. And in biological terms, undernourished males might have more trouble finding a partner.
[...]
The link between muscle mass and male children was particularly marked, they say. Among women whose arm muscle was less than 33 centimeters, three boys were born for every five girls. In those with the biggest muscles — over 38.9 centimeters — eight boys were born for every five girls.

Although this phenomenon has been seen in wild animals, this is the first time it has been reported in humans, Mace said.

For metric-impaired Americans, 33 cm is 13 inches, and 38.9 cm is over 15 inches — which is huge for a woman.

David Frum's Diary on National Review Online

Virginia Postrel's site (Dynamist Blog) pointed me to David Frum's Diary on National Review Online, where he translates Bush's recent communiqué on Korea:

U.S. forces in Korea are today concentrated near the border between North and South Korea — the famous DMZ, demilitarized zone. There they are easy targets for North Korea's masses of old-fashioned artillery. Because they are so vulnerable, US forces are in effect hostages. If for example the US were to hit North Korea's nuclear plants, the lives of thousands of American soldiers would be put at risk.

I first heard this idea voiced by Pat Buchanan. His variation was that our troops are nothing more than a speedbump to an invading North Korean army. Their real purpose is to incite the American people to action by dying violently in a surprise attack — and that's no way to use our brave men (and women) in uniform.

Frum offers another interesting perspective:

Which is why soft-liners like President Roh Moo-Hyun — who used to oppose the U.S. presence in South Korea — now wish to keep US troops shoved right up against the DMZ. They may say they want the troops to deter North Korea — but they know full well that the vulnerability of those troops in fact deters the United States from confronting North Korea.

For the decade since North Korea's blackmail campaign began in 1993, those 40,000 US troops on the peninsula have stayed put, under the North's guns. Now suddenly we learn that American forces will be redeploying in the south — out of reach of the North's guns, but close enough to be used as a striking force if need be. South of the Han River, those forces cease to be hostages, and become again dangerous and deadly fighters. Bush's drab communiqué is the first giant step toward regaining the ability to fight effectively in Northeast Asia. After ten years of chatter, we're getting a decisive action, and in vivid, blunt Bush trademark style. Well done.

Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoons

I enjoyed this cartoon from Cox & Forkum yesterday:

Boos and Cheers for Cannes Hero Michael Haneke

I'm not familiar with Haneke's The Piano Teacher, but Boos and Cheers for Cannes Hero Michael Haneke describes his latest film, Time of the Wolf, and it explores a hypothetical situation that fascinates me:

Talking to reporters afterwards, he said he wanted to see how thick the veneer of civilization was and to measure just how quickly moral standards crumble in adversity.

"I avoided describing the catastrophe," he said. "How would you and I cope if the water did not come out of the tap? It is as simple as that."

Scientists Develop First 'Knock-Out' Rat

While scientists have been using "knockout" mice for years, Scientists Develop First 'Knock-Out' Rat reports that they've finally created "knockout" rats lacking BRCA-1 and BRCA-2, two genes thought to suppress the growth of breast cancer:

To produce knock-out mice, researchers simply need to collect embryonic stem cells, remove the gene of choice and then allow the stem cells to develop into a mouse, Gould explained.

This technique doesn't work with rats, he explained.

To create knock-out rats, Gould and his colleagues injected male rats with a chemical that causes mutations in the stem cells of the testes, Gould said. Sperm that are formed after the injections will be missing a variety of genes, he added.

When the injected rats are bred with normal rats, their offspring end up with multiple genes knocked out, Gould said. "Each one of these offspring will have about 20 to 30 out of about 30,000 genes knocked out."

Gould and his colleagues next devised a test to figure out which genes are knocked out in the offspring.

"So if you screen a thousand rats, maybe one will be the mutation you're looking for," Gould said. "Then this rat can be used for biomedical research."

So they're generating thousands of mutant rats, then screening out the small fraction with the right mutations? Hey, what could go wrong?

'Cattle Car Syndrome' Offers SARS Insights

According to 'Cattle Car Syndrome' Offers SARS Insights, humans packed into airplanes resemble livestock packed into cattle cars:

Packed into cattle cars, young animals destined to be fattened up in feedlots get a disease called shipping fever. They develop cough, pneumonia and drip mucus from their eyes and noses.

It is caused by a coronavirus, the same class of viruses as the SARS virus, and the symptoms resemble those of SARS.

The conditions that can bring about shipping fever are similar to those affecting the travelers who spread SARS around the world, says Linda Saif, a professor of food animal health at Ohio State University.
[...]
Two human coronaviruses cause about 30 percent of common colds, but the viruses cause more significant diseases in pigs, chickens and other livestock.

Ireland Plans Alcohol Marketing Crackdown

Ireland Plans Alcohol Marketing Crackdown:

Alarmed that Ireland has become one of the hardest-drinking countries in Europe, the government announced Monday it plans to require health warnings on alcoholic drinks and limit liquor ads that invade every corner of Irish life.

Becoming one of the hardest-drinking countries in Europe? The article addresses this:

The Irish have long been stereotyped as heavy drinkers, but past surveys have suggested the reputation was undeserved and Ireland was actually one of Europe's more moderate drinking nations. In the past decade, however, figures show that has changed and Ireland has become a leading alcohol consumer.
[...]
A 1999 European Union-funded survey placed Ireland top among the 15 EU nations in terms of the percentage of citizens who consider themselves regular drinkers � 51.5 percent. A World Drinks Trends survey in 2002 placed Ireland second only to tiny Luxembourg among EU members in per-capita volume of alcohol consumed, at 2.85 gallons of pure alcohol each year. The United States average was 1.77 gallons.

What are they going to do?

To that end, he said, the government plans to ban alcohol ads from buses, trains, cinemas and sporting events involving young people, while no ads for beer or other alcoholic beverages would be permitted before 10 p.m. on Irish television.

This part's almost more shocking:

Together, the commitments represent as significant a shift in official attitudes to Irish traditions as the government's recent commitment to outlaw smoking in pubs. That ban is supposed to begin Jan. 1.

Head Injuries May Hike Risk of Parkinson's Disease

Head Injuries May Hike Risk of Parkinson's Disease presents some bad news for my kickboxing friends:

People who sustain substantial head injuries may face an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease years later, new study findings suggest.

Overall, those who had experienced head trauma were about four times more likely to develop the neurological disease than those who never had such injuries, results showed.
[...]
However, those who had experienced head trauma involving a loss of consciousness, skull fracture, prolonged memory loss or more severe complications were 11 times more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than those who had never sustained head trauma.
[...]
An average person's lifetime risk of developing Parkinson's is 1.7 percent, so those with the more severe head trauma may face almost a 20 percent risk, Bower explained.
[...]
One of the reasons researchers have suspected a link is that boxers are known to be at risk for a condition called dementia pugilistica that has some Parkinson's-like symptoms.

Suppurating?

My recent post on Gaugin's tragic death quoted a reference to "suppurating syphilis sores" — but what exactly does "suppurating" mean? Merriam-Webster OnLine comes to the rescue:

Main Entry: sup·pu·rate
Pronunciation: 's&-py&-"rAt
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -rat·ed; -rat·ing
Etymology: Latin suppuratus, past participle of suppurare, from sub- + pur-, pus pus — more at FOUL
Date: 1656
: to form or discharge pus
- sup·pu·ra·tion /"s&-py&-'rA-sh&n/ noun
- sup·pu·ra·tive /'s&-py&-r&-tiv, -"rA-; 's&-pr&-tiv/ adjective

Obesity Reported to Cost U.S. $93B a Year

Obesity Reported to Cost U.S. $93B a Year reports some not-too-surprising news, but it gives some numbers:

Obesity is costing not only American lives, but dollars too. A study tallies that $93 billion per year goes to treat health problems of people who are overweight.

About half that tab is picked up by the government through Medicare, which provides care to the elderly, and Medicaid, which serves the poor.

What does it say when your country's poor are fat?

Altogether, medical spending attributable to extra weight totaled $78.5 billion in 1998, or $92.6 billion in 2002, inflation-adjusted dollars.

The financial burden now rivals that attributable to smoking, the authors say, arguing that government and health insurance companies should offer incentives to help people lose weight.

In case $100 billion didn't sound like a lot of money — and, ironically, it may not when we're discussing the entire US — the article points out that obesity is costing as much as smoking. That's a lot of money. And, naturally, once you start paying for other people's bad choices with tax dollars, the government has to get involved in curbing those bad choices.

African Milkbush Plant May Cause Childhood Cancer

African Milkbush Plant May Cause Childhood Cancer describes how a bush used to make glue — and used by children to mold toys — switches on certain genes, allowing a virus to cause cancer:

A plant used in Africa to make glue and herbal remedies may be an important cause of the most common childhood cancer in Africa, scientists said on Tuesday.

Children use the sap from the milkbush plant to make toys, but researchers believe exposure to the sticky liquid may make them more susceptible to the effects of a virus that causes Burkitt's lymphoma, a tumor of the immune system.
[...]
When they studied the impact of the sap on the virus in the laboratory, they discovered low concentrations switched on three genes that were important in various stages of the virus, allowing it to replicate, kill cells and infect new ones.

California Autism Rate Doubles in Four Years

If this is true, it's really creepy. California Autism Rate Doubles in Four Years:

Autism cases in California nearly doubled over the past four years to more than 20,000 — a phenomenon whose cause may be difficult to pinpoint because it is not related to population increases or the way the disorder is diagnosed, a state study said on Tuesday.

Once a rare disorder, autism now is more prevalent than childhood cancer, diabetes and Down syndrome, the study's author, Dr. Ron Huff, said.

The spectacular rate of increase for autism dwarfs rises of 35 percent to 49 percent for new cases of mental retardation, cerebral palsy and epilepsy in California, he said.

"We are convinced that this is for real," Huff said. "It has to be taken seriously." Huff's study was a follow-up to an earlier report ordered by California lawmakers that showed a 273 percent rise in autism cases statewide between 1987 to 1998.

"All through the 1970s to the mid-1980s, we were looking at a couple of hundred (autistic) kids each year," Huff said. "Over the next decade we were looking at thousands of new cases each year. Parents were reporting anecdotally that there were a lot more of these kids out there that anyone believed."

Of course, if the number of functioning autistics increases, we can expect a boost to the tech sector. (Sorry.)

Amateur Astronomy Glows Bright with New Technology

Amateur Astronomy Glows Bright with New Technology points out how amateurs with new, computerized equipment recorded the Columbia disaster:

Long minutes before NASA's Mission Control or even the astronauts themselves knew there was trouble, a retired businessman, some off-duty Silicon Valley techies and a few dozen other ordinary people across the western United States had begun recording evidence of the shuttle Columbia's demise.
[...]
About 15 of their home videos strung together gave the world the only composite look at the disaster, a patchwork of images that showed the orbiter streaking across the sky, losing a piece of its left wing every two or three seconds before finally breaking apart over central Texas, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

"I don't think any of us in our wildest dreams would have thought the public would have captured that much video," said Paul Hill, a NASA flight director who took charge of gathering evidence in the disaster's aftermath.
[...]
Today, with the push of a few buttons, affordable and computer-driven telescopes automatically fix on any celestial body. The new technology also makes it easier to photograph and videotape what astronomers see.

NPR : 'Buffy Studies'

On the way home today, I heard the following story on NPR, NPR : 'Buffy Studies':

Buffy enjoys a special following among academics, some of whom have staked a claim in what they call "Buffy Studies." NPR's Neda Ulaby reports there are serious academic studies on the characters and themes in the series — titles like "Buffy the Vampire Disciplinarian: Institutional Excess and the New Economy of Power."

The program cited Slayage, the Online Journal of Buffy Studies, and interviewed some really, really nerdy professors. (Seriously, listen to the audio.)

In U.S. Drug War, Ally Bolivia Loses Ground to Coca Farmers

According to In U.S. Drug War, Ally Bolivia Loses Ground to Coca Farmers, Bolivia almost eliminated coca farming — but it's bounced back:

The coca bush emerged as the country's principal cash crop in the 1980s, spurred by rising demand for cocaine in the U.S. and Europe. The hardy plant grows readily and the leaves are easy to harvest and transport. At its peak in the mid-1980s, cultivation covered about 100,000 acres of the lush Chapare region, a semitropical lowland. Coca sales generated about $500 million a year, or 6% of Bolivia's $8 billion gross domestic product.

Times were good for the farmers. "Our lives improved greatly," Mr. Torrico says. "We had more stores. We could eat better, dress our kids better and send them to schools."

Then, after a decade of sporadic eradication efforts, in 1998 the government cracked down hard with Operation Dignity. It has uprooted more than a billion plants, slashing the total coca harvest to 30 million tons last year from 270 million tons in 1996, according to U.S. and Bolivian officials.

A few thoughts:

• Coca emerged as Bolivia's principal cash crop in the 1980s? It wasn't already the country's main crop?
  
  
• Operation Dignity? If Orwell were alive today...

Anyway, here's what I suspect is the real story:

Since 1983, AID has spent about $270 million on such programs, designed to provide farmers with legal alternatives to growing coca.

A lot of the money goes to private contractors, such as the program's current chief contractor, Development Alternatives Inc. of Bethesda, Md. The consulting firm holds a $90.2 million contract that runs from June 1999 through November 2004. Development Alternatives and various subcontractors have carried out studies of alternative crops, provided agricultural training, repaired roads and boosted eco-tourism projects.

The GAO says the consultants and AID have failed to overcome "numerous business challenges" that have made it hard for Chapare's farmers to get ahead. Among the difficulties have been the low yield and poor quality of crops, as well as inadequate transportation and limited access to credit, the report says.

Much of the millions of dollars spent on crop substitution "simply disappears because of administrative overhead and expensive consultants," says Howard Clark, a former regional environmentalist with AID who worked in Chapare during the mid-1990s.

The programs keep getting money even though the alternative crops don't grow:

"Coca just grows," Ms. Ayalde says. "It's a weed. Farmers don't have to worry about markets and diseases. It always gets a good price."
[...]
Juan Solis, 52, from the Chapare village of Chimore, bitterly recalls visits by technicians from Winrock International, an Arkansas-based nonprofit funded with money from the estate of former Arkansas Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller. "They told me to plant passion fruit, but there were never any good results," he says. "Then, I paid $5 each, $250, for 50 coconut-tree seedlings. Seven lived and 43 died. Only one ever produced a coconut." The foreign experts constantly came and went, offering one disappointing new crop after another, Mr. Solis says.
[...]
Mr. Torrico says that in 1989, he enthusiastically spent $15 each for 1,000 macadamia seedlings after extension agents told him he would earn $6,800 an acre. "It was a big disaster, a total loss," he recalls. Apparently, agricultural experts didn't take into account the difference in the length of days and nights between Chapare and Costa Rica, the source of the seedlings.

Mr. Torrico planted orange trees after advisers told him they would open a processing plant. The plant never was built, and the oranges developed cankers. He turned to palm hearts after agronomists predicted that the tropical delicacy would be a winner. When a glut ensued, he adds, the market couldn't absorb all the production. "They said we could sell each plant for one dollar, but we got only 50 cents," he says.

Medics Took Thousands of Brains Without Consent

I expect the "based on a true story" movie version to involve brains taken from live victims. Medics Took Thousands of Brains Without Consent:

British pathologists removed the brains from tens of thousands of human corpses over a period of 30 years without the permission of the victims' relatives, the government acknowledged on Monday.

In a sinister reminder of scandals in the late 1990s, when hospitals were found to have secretly kept the hearts of dead children for research purposes, the government said the illicit removal of brains had been "widespread in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s."

It said the true scale of the scandal would never be known because records from the 1970s were sketchy and many of the brains had been used for research or destroyed in the intervening years.

But the government's Inspector of Anatomy, Jeremy Metters, told a news conference that of 30,000 brains in storage in 2000, when a major count of stored organs was carried out, more than half were probably taken without permission.

"Between 50 and 70 percent of those were not taken by consent," he said.

Good-Looking Crooks Get Off Lighter

This is disturbing, if not surprising. Good-Looking Crooks Get Off Lighter — even a written description of a criminal as "handsome" or "pretty" is enough to reduce the sentence people hand out:

Good-looking criminals are likely to get lighter sentences even when people only have a written description of their looks, a Norwegian study showed on Monday.

The 500 university students surveyed handed down far milder punishments for crimes by a man described as "handsome" or a woman described as "pretty" than when the word was left out.

All the students were given a written description of crimes ranging from theft to rape and murder, but only half had a description of the looks of the offender.
[...]
The students said punishment for a handsome or pretty burglar who broke into a house and stole $36,760 should be 24 percent lower than for an average thief. For more serious crimes, such as murder and rape, the advised sentences were about 10 percent lighter. ($1 = 6.800 Norwegian Crown)

Pentagon Turns to Auctions On Internet to Clear Out Attic

The Pentagon has gone eBay. Sort of. From Pentagon Turns to Auctions On Internet to Clear Out Attic:

Lately, Mr. Doyle has been buying his trucks in one of retailing's most unusual corners: the Pentagon's online Web site for military surplus items. There, at govliquidation.com, collectors bid for tugboats, steel swords, big-screen televisions, diesel engines, heavy-duty cranes, pool tables and other things the military doesn't want.

For years, a little-known arm of the Pentagon called the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service, or DRMS, handled public surplus sales. Buyers complained that auctions were disorganized, used inconsistent procedures and frequently required bidders to travel hundreds of miles to raise a paddle in person.

In 2001, the Defense Department tapped a closely held Washington company, Government Liquidation LLC, to handle surplus sales at 200 military installations, as part of a broader effort to operate more like a private business. As part of a contract that lasts until 2008, the Pentagon receives 80% of sale proceeds, after Government Liquidation deducts its costs. Government Liquidation gets the rest. The government received about $18 million in 2002 as its cut, up 50% from the previous year's proceeds when the online auction system was getting started.

I love the list of items sold at auction:

In recent auctions, a ship propeller 9-1/2 feet in diameter sold in March for $1,520. A 15-foot one snagged $6,210. The buyers had to be U.S. citizens and send in a form saying what they planned to do with the former Navy equipment.

A Consew sewing machine with old-fashioned foot pedals ended up selling for $510 after the bidding began at $35, as it does for most items. Four electric autopsy bone-cutting saws fetched a total of $685 on March 4.

Two weeks ago, an aircraft hangar equipped with a noise-suppression system, dubbed a "Hush House," sold for $6,157 to Adams Electronics of Belton, Texas. The hangar, which covered 5,318 square feet of ground, had 8-foot-thick filament walls and had been used by the Kansas Air National Guard.
[...]
Last June, Marion Smith paid $900 for a pair of 21-year-old quarter horses called Sundance and Joe. While the U.S. eliminated cavalries in the 1940s, the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, remains active, though its job these days centers on presidential inaugurations, Rose Bowl parades and the like.

The Daily Scan

The Daily Scan reports some creepy WMD news:

In January, when officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited a nuclear facility near Baghdad, they reportedly found "nearly two tons of partially enriched uranium, along with significant quantities of highly radioactive medical and industrial isotopes," according to the magazine.

But when U.S. troops recently secured the facility many items already had been carried off by looters.

Not so widely reported were stories that canisters designed to contain radioactive materials later turned up for sale at local markets. Some were being used to hold milk and drinking water, the Newsweek article noted.

Eyes on the Road

I've been reading about fuel-cell cars for decades now. Today's Eyes on the Road column describes Honda's prototype:

The Honda FCX looks like a chunky subcompact hatchback, not a science project. But in fact, it is a science project — a serious one. Underneath the FCX's front seat is a fuel-cell stack that converts hydrogen, supplied from pressurized tanks under the rear seat, into electricity that can propel the 3,713-pound FCX as fast as 93 miles per hour, emitting only water in the process.
[...]
Once the FCX flashes "ready to drive" on its electronic dashboard display, it behaves like an ordinary car — except it's quieter and its power comes on more smoothly. There's no clunky gear shifting, just smooth acceleration and deceleration.
[...]
The FCX's fuel-cell system and the onboard hydrogen-storage tanks are capable of traveling 170 miles between refuelings. Three hundred miles is the target, Mr. Matsuo says. The FCX is too small to accommodate the hydrogen tanks needed to hit that number, he says. And there are other issues: One reason Honda and rival Toyota are testing fuel-cell prototypes in sunny California is that in colder regions, the water in the fuel-cell system would freeze.

Magpie mystic of the South Pacific

In Magpie mystic of the South Pacific, John Whitley summarizes tortured-artist Gaugin's life:

Exactly 100 years ago next Thursday, Paul Gauguin died alone and in agonising pain in his shack on the Marquesas Islands near Tahiti. He was 54, heavily in debt, his paintings were almost universally derided and he was addicted to morphine — he may even have been killed by an overdose of the drug, which he took for the suppurating syphilis sores on his legs.
[...]
Raised among distant cousins in Peru, he returned to France for a formal education, then roamed the world as a merchant seaman. At 25 he married and settled down on the stock exchange, devoting his spare time to studies with friendly Impressionists, notably his mentor, Camille Pissarro, and Degas. Hit by the 1882 crash, he threw it all up to become a full-time artist, but poverty drove him to the cheaper artists' colony at Pont-Aven in Brittany and then to Arles. There he may (or may not) have incited Van Gogh to hack off his ear.

Animal Welfare Progress

Recently, an article trumpeted KFC's new guidelines for raising chickens humanely. According to Animal Welfare Progress though, this isn't new:

KFC has had an animal welfare policy for almost a decade. KFC imposes specific, strict welfare performance standards on its suppliers. KFC's guidelines and audits are designed to manage and monitor each step of the process to ensure that all birds are handled humanely and suffer no pain. KFC audits its suppliers for compliance, and non-compliance could result in termination of the supplier's contract.

I know these guidelines are supposed to put people at ease, but, well, spelling these things out might not help. Here are the topic headings and some choice quotes:

1. General
"If audit reveals dirty or sick birds, corrective action at the grow-out house must be taken."

2. Raising
"KFC prohibits suppliers from de-beaking any poultry that will be sold in our restaurants."

3. Catching
"KFC requires suppliers to implement an incentive program that rewards catching crews for minimizing injury if audit reveals that birds are being injured during the catching process."

4. Transport
"Transport crates must not be over-filled and enough space must be provided to allow all birds to lie down."

5. Holding
"Birds held in storage sheds must be provided adequate ventilation..."

6. Stunning
"Stunning equipment must be maintained to ensure all birds are unconscious prior to slaughter, and the time between stunning and slaughter must be limited to ensure that no bird regains consciousness prior to slaughter."

7. Humane Slaughter
"State of the art slaughter equipment must be properly maintained to ensure all birds are slaughtered quickly and without pain."

Our question though was, why is KFC so concerned with chicken welfare? I wouldn't expect their clientele to be terribly concerned. A KFC Press Release reveals KFC's reason for acting:

PETA is attempting to mislead the public with an outdated and questionable video on chicken production, the National Chicken Council said today. "The beak-trimming machine shown in the PETA video is a 'Lyons' model used about 30 years ago. The system shown is no longer in common use in our industry," said Richard Lobb, a spokesperson for the National Chicken Council. "PETA's attempt to portray this outdated method as today's standard practice is false and misleading."
[...]
Beak trimming is never performed on broilers — animals sold for their meat. When done, it is conducted on day-old male birds in the breeder flock in order to prevent injury to other birds as roosters become aggressive with maturity. Only the sharp tip of the beak is removed, not a large portion as shown in the outdated PETA video. Precision laser technology is rapidly replacing blade systems.

Typing Monkeys Don't Write Shakespeare

According to Typing Monkeys Don't Write Shakespeare, six monkeys sharing one computer won't produce Shakespeare:

Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, the theory goes, and they will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.

Give six monkeys one computer for a month, and they will make a mess.
[...]
At first, said Phillips, "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it.

"Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard," added Phillips, who runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies.

Eventually, monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan produced five pages of text, composed primarily of the letter S. Later, the letters A, J, L and M crept in.

We need more monkeys!

The notion that monkeys typing at random will eventually produce literature is often attributed to Thomas Huxley, a 19th-century scientist who supported Charles Darwin's theories of evolution. Mathematicians have also used it to illustrate concepts of chance.

The monkeys' output has been posted on-line.

Oregon County Seeks Klingon Interpreter

Oregon County Seeks Klingon Interpreter:

Position Available: Interpreter, must be fluent in Klingon.

The language created for the "Star Trek" TV series and movies is one of about 55 needed by the office that treats mental health patients in metropolitan Multnomah County.
[...]
"There are some cases where we've had mental health patients where this was all they would speak," said the county's purchasing administrator, Franna Hathaway.

Why am I not surprised?

Alleged Thief Foiled by Samurai Sword

Alleged Thief Foiled by Samurai Sword:

A suspected car thief armed with a gun tried to elude police by running into a house, but was chased right back out by the home's Samurai-sword-wielding resident, police said Thursday.

Wanton Beckwith, 27, of Rialto was booked for investigation of grand theft auto, being an ex-felon in possession of a gun, being under the influence with a gun, evading police and felony hit and run.

Beckwith was allegedly driving a stolen car at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday, when police attempted to pull him over. He led officers on a high-speed chase before crashing into two cars at an intersection, according to a statement from Police Chief Roger Johnson. He then fled the vehicle, Johnson said, ran to a home and entered through the back door.

Fearing for his safety, the resident grabbed a Samurai sword on display in his home, confronted the intruder and ordered him outside, police said. The man then held the suspect at sword-point until police arrived.

Liquor Giant Targets System Dating to End of Prohibition

When I hear someone mention antiquated liquor laws, my Pennsylvanian ears perk up. Liquor Giant Targets System Dating to End of Prohibition discusses why "liquor stores seem frozen in time":

For 70 years, booze purveyors have grappled with restrictions aimed at ending the mob influence that had permeated the business in the 1920s and early 1930s. Spirits makers are barred from selling directly to liquor stores, restaurants and bars, for example. Instead, they have to go through a tier of huge wholesale distributors, and thus have had little control over how their products are presented to consumers.

Sales reps from the liquor distributors often show up at bars and liquor stores with a Diageo product under one arm and a rival's under the other, making it tough for manufacturers to implement marketing strategies. A hodgepodge of state-by-state regulations means some liquor retailers are state-owned, some are large grocery chains and many are mom-and-pop "package stores." No mass-market retailer has emerged.

Those restrictions also explain why, in contrast to the palatial supermarkets and ubiquitous convenience stores where beer is often sold, many liquor stores seem frozen in time, with their products piled up in drab displays. The big food and consumer-products companies are free to sell directly to retailers, and work closely with them to showcase their wares on eye-catching platforms. Spirits makers can't.

Recent Biotechnology Innovation Is a Bit Fishy: A Fluorescent Pet

I've been wondering — for a long, long time — when someone would finally come out with glowing animals. Now it's happening. Recent Biotechnology Innovation Is a Bit Fishy: A Fluorescent Pet:

In the basement of a building down an alley here floats the future of bioengineered pets, and it is glowing.

In a corner, small fish flit about in a dozen aquariums. Bill Kuo, a manager at Taikong Corp., draws a thick curtain and switches on black lights over the tanks. Suddenly, the fish glow a bright green. "Imagine you come home from work, turn out the lights and look at these," Mr. Kuo says. "It's very relaxing."

I may have to start an aquarium.

I love the contrast between the US and the UK:

Word has traveled fast among aquarium enthusiasts. "If they can actually do this, it will be the greatest thing since popped corn," says Nevin Bailey, manager at Aquariumfish.net, a San Diego-based fish dealer who says customers have been asking him when they can buy glow-in-the-dark fish from Taiwan. "There's a lot of pent-up demand" for fluorescent fish in the U.S., he says, owing in part to articles about them in hobbyist magazines. Mr. Bailey, whose office is near a military base, sees a day when people will select their own color combinations. "My gosh, if they ever made one that was red, white, and blue, every Marine in the country would buy one."

The reaction in Europe, where resistance to genetic modification runs high, is different. "Fish shops in the U.K. won't touch them with a barge pole," predicts Derek Lambert, editor of Today's Fishkeeper, an enthusiasts' magazine. "There's a very strong anti-genetic-engineered-fish feeling in the U.K."

There's a very strong anti-genetic-engineered-fish feeling in the UK. I guess there's a very strong pro-genetic-engineered-fish feeling in the US.

Terrorism's family tree

In Terrorism's Family Tree, George Walden reviews Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman:

This is the best book I have read on Muslim fundamentalism and what to do about it. Paul Berman writes in the excellent American weekly The New Republic. His self-description as a Social Democrat suggests a European approach to the Middle East, yet his intelligence, breadth of culture, honesty and courage are a world away from the moralistic grandstanding of slithy toves like Chris Patten, Dominique de Villepin and Joschka Fischer. The clarity of his thought cuts through their evasions like a knife through butter, as Berman looks the evil of totalitarian Islam in the face.

Based on Walden's use of "slithy toves," I may have to embrace his opinion wholeheartedly and buy Terror and Liberalism.

Highest Income Earners Pay Most Taxes

In Highest Income Earners Pay Most Taxes, the National Center for Policy analysis lists some interesting IRS data:

The data show the distribution of the tax burden by income group, or, in other words, the share of total federal personal income taxes paid by each income group:

The top one percent paid 34.75 percent of federal personal income taxes. [...] To rank in the top 1 percent, you had to report adjusted gross income (AGI) of $269,496 or more.

The top 5 percent of taxpayers paid about 54 percent of total personal-income taxes and had AGI of at least $114,729.

The top 10 percent of taxpayers by income had AGI of $83,220 or more. The top 50 percent of taxpayers had AGI of at least $25,491. The 4.21 percent share paid by the bottom half of taxpayers was virtually unchanged during this period.

The top half paid almost 96 percent of all income tax. Wow.

Agoraphilia

Glen Whitman continues his discussion of socialized medicine on his Agoraphilia site:

Healthcare and health insurance are not the same thing. As Amy observes, you can buy healthcare without having health insurance, and you can have health insurance that does not pay for certain kinds of healthcare.
[...]
If you give people a choice about how much free healthcare to consume, a great many of them will consume as much as they possibly can. They will continue to buy healthcare goods and services long past the point where the benefits justify the costs. This is particularly true with regard to optional procedures designed to boost quality of life, such as acupuncture and massage therapy. But it's also true of various aspects of other, more "serious" procedures. Given the option, people will stay in the hospital for longer stays, always choose the private room, take more pain medication, opt for name-brand over generic medicines, demand more frequent nurse visits, sign up for an extra month of physical therapy, etc. And while nobody chooses to have terrible conditions like, say, lung cancer or AIDS, they do choose how much to expose themselves to the risk of such conditions through their choices about smoking, drinking, eating, sex, and so on. When you insure people against risks, they tend to take greater risks; this phenomenon is known as moral hazard. The only way to assure that people purchase healthcare products if and only if the added benefits exceed their added costs is to face them with a price at the point of sale.
[...]
Trying to make healthcare free is a good way to make it more expensive. [...] If you're unwilling to face people with a price for their choices, the only other option is to limit their choices via bureaucracy and/or queuing.
[....]
Liberals, listen up: Socialization encourages regulation of lifestyles. Why? Because as healthcare becomes increasingly expensive (see previous point), political pressure will mount to get costs under control. Once everyone is paying for everyone else's care, your personal lifestyle choices are no longer just your own. The argument that your actions "don't hurt anybody" no longer flies, because your risky choices affect everyone else's expected tax bill.

Man Slices Own Head Off in Supermarket Suicide

Gruesome. Man Slices Own Head Off in Supermarket Suicide:

Superintendent Jay Naicker said the Shoprite Checkers store in Richards Bay had been ready to close on Monday when the man wandered in and headed for the meat department. "He just walked in, went to the band saw machine and switched it on," Naicker told Reuters. "Apparently he knew what he was doing. He put his neck to the blade and it cut about half way through before he fell to the floor."

One Man Seeks Lyrics to Unite The Fractious European Union

One Man Seeks Lyrics to Unite The Fractious European Union:

Christoph Leitl knew there was something missing when he stood for the European anthem at a gathering last summer. "Everybody in the room was mute," he says. That's because the anthem — Beethoven's soaring "Ode to Joy" from the Ninth Symphony — doesn't have official lyrics.

Actually, as the article later explains, Beethoven spent 30 years finding the right tune to go with German poet Schiller's "Ode to Joy" -- but those words aren't good enough for the EU, even though they're oddly appropriate:

Your magic powers join again
What custom strictly did divide
Brotherhood unites all men
Where your gentle wing spreads wide....

Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase

Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase describes how Earthlink eventually tracked down the "Buffalo Spammer":

As a spammer, Mr. Carmack, who is 36, covered his tracks well, EarthLink contends in the suit. None of the phone numbers listed in the spams he is alleged to have sent are listed in his name. One was in his mother's name. Another in the name of his mentally handicapped brother who lived in a nearby assisted-living home.

His post-office box was listed in the name of a cousin who lives around the corner. Other phone numbers were listed in the name of a North Dakota man who had never been to Buffalo and in the name of a former upstairs tenant who had since moved away.

In addition, each of the 343 EarthLink accounts created by Mr. Carmack used false identities and stolen credit-card or bank-account information, the company's lawsuit contends.

At this point, Mr. Carmack sounds cunning, if repulsive. Then things just get sad:

Mr. Carmack is a body-builder and was a high-school football star, according to his uncle, Joseph. Relatives and neighbors say Mr. Carmack lives with his mother in a run-down neighborhood of Buffalo, near the state-university campus, in a modest brick house with sky-blue linoleum siding. When a reporter recently rang the bell, a woman inside wouldn't open the door.

After the Boom, Cisco Is Learning to Go Slow

How about that crazy tech boom? Remember that? From After the Boom, Cisco Is Learning to Go Slow

In a way, 19-year-old Cisco is learning how to run a real business. Its efficiency moves might be natural for older companies accustomed to economic cycles. But Cisco had never experienced such cycles: Between 1995 and 2000, Cisco's revenue grew an average of 53% annually, an unheard-of rate for a multibillion-dollar company. Just keeping pace consumed all of Cisco's energy, leaving little time for rules or reflection.

Fortunately, it sounds like they've adapted.

In a Shift, Fed Signals Concern Over Deflation in Its Statement

Remember inflation? In a Shift, Fed Signals Concern Over Deflation in Its Statement:

But in the past few years, as underlying inflation fell below 2% for the first time since the 1960s, Fed officials began to realize that it could go too low. In the past six months, underlying inflation has been running at just 1% based on the Fed's preferred measure, the price index of personal consumption excluding food and energy.

When inflation is close to zero, an unexpected shock or prolonged period of economic weakness could push the economy into outright deflation, that is, generally declining prices. Deflation weakens the Fed's ability to boost spending because interest rates can't go below zero. Deflation also makes it harder for businesses and individuals to repay debts because their incomes fall while their debts are fixed.

Most Fed officials think deflation is highly unlikely, but they have been sensitized to its dangers by Japan's battle with deflation, which has crippled its economy and weakened its banking system.

I can remember when everyone complained about inflation. According to the article's graphic, inflation almost hit 10% in the late 70s and early 80s.