Quote of the day: Unconscionable austerianism

Australian economist Bill Mitchell, Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity at the University of Newcastle, posting at his always excellent  blog on the long-term consequences of the startling level of youth unemployment created during the eurocrisis:

The damage that arises from excluding the youth from the labour market is life-long and then some. This cohort will carry the disadvantage throughout their lives and typically endure unstable and low-paid work interspersed with lengthy periods of unemployment when the business cycle turns down.

But even more damaging is that they will find it harder to form stable relationships and if they do their children will inherit this disadvantage arising from the exclusion at this time of their parent(s).

It is unfathomable why this is not an absolute policy priority and the Euro leaders announce immediate job creation programs through the Eurozone targetted at youth, if they cannot bring themselves to introduce an unconditional job guarantee for all workers.

The costs of this folly are so large and so enduring that there is no fiscal justification that can be mounted to not introduce such a plan.

Pepper-spraying cop costs UC a million dollars

Yep, the University of California is paying dearly for now-departed Police Lt. John Pike, the man who became infamous as the Pepper Spraying Cop after he blasted Occupy UC Davis protesters with blast from an industrial-sized can of the noxious substance.

Here’s a video of the 18 November 2011 incident from vlogger terrydatiger:

Pike, who left the university’s employ in July, also inspired a pair of Tumblr parody websites.

Terms of the million-dollar settlement were revealed today.

The announcement from the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California:

Today attorneys for 21 UC Davis students and recent alumni announced the details of their settlement of the federal class-action lawsuit against UC Davis over the shocking incident in which campus police repeatedly doused seated, non-violent student demonstrators with military grade pepper spray at close range. The lawsuit charged that the police violated state and federal constitutional protections, including the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, when they arrested and used excessive force against these non-violent demonstrators. The UC Regents approved the settlement in a September 13 meeting, and the settlement documents were filed with the court today. A federal court judge must approve the settlement before it is finalized.

“I want to make sure that nothing like this happens again. That’s the best thing that could come from this. Since November 18 students have been afraid of the police. The University still needs to work to rebuild students’ trust and this settlement is a step in the right direction,” said Fatima Sbeih, who just graduated with an International Studies degree. Sbeih was pepper-sprayed on the quad. She had panic attacks and frequent nightmares for months after the incident, and often woke up screaming.

“I want the University and the police to understand what they did wrong. Police should be accountable to students,” said Ian Lee, who will be a sophomore this year. Lee was less than two months into college when he was pepper-sprayed last year. “I was demonstrating because of rising tuition hikes and privatization of the University. Then we faced police brutality in response. I felt like the University silenced me.” After the incident Lee experienced panic attacks and was afraid to participate in protests.

The student plaintiffs who were pepper-sprayed experienced excruciating effects. In some cases, the pain lasted for days. Like Fatima and Ian, many have experienced trauma since the incident. As a result, many students’ grades suffered.

The University’s response to seated student, non-violent protesters has been widely deemed unacceptable. A task force that the University created to investigate and analyze the response to the protestors concluded in an extensive report that “The pepper spraying incident that took place on November 18, 2011 should and could have been prevented,” and found culpability at all levels of the University administration and police force.

Terms of the Settlement

The settlement was filed today with the United States District Court, Eastern District of California, for review by a federal judge before it becomes final. The terms of the settlement include:

• UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi will issue a formal written apology to each of the students and recent alumni who was pepper sprayed or arrested.
• The University will pay $1 million as part of the settlement. This includes a total of $730,000 to the named plaintiffs and others who were arrested or pepper-sprayed on November 18. It will also include up to $250,000 in costs and attorney fees.
• The University will work with the ACLU as it develops new policies on student demonstrations, crowd management, and use of force to prevent anything like the November 18 pepper

Canadian students win, tuition hikes cancelled

From RT America:

And the government also cancelled those draconian anti-protest laws. The tuition increase will instead [brace yourself for a shock] be funded by a tax hike for the rich.

The program notes:

Canada’s newly elected Parti Quebecois had their first day in Parliament and immediately canceled a tuition fee hike, repealed laws to restrict public demonstrations and pledged to reimburse a residential health tax. Jeremie Bedard-Wien co-spokesperson for CLASSE, joins RT’s Meghan Lopez to discuss the rapid change and the first day of session.

GreeceWatch: Cuts, closures, lots of bad numbers

With an end-of-the-week deadline, the coalition’s busily hacking away, hoping to come up with cuts that will please the Troikarchs. We’ve got the demands as well as some of the incisions already made. Then there’s the finance minister’s prediction of a 25 percent economic contraction, another ominous sighting of light at the end of the tunnel, some questionable claims from the health minister, rare praise from a German, and Bulgarian healthcare poaching

University students will find closed departments, high tuition, and costly textbooks, while the government’s privatization manager is poromising a bonanza for foreign investors, bondholders raise warnings, labor costs are growing “competitive” [and some numbers explaining why], forest falling prey to Greeks who can’t afford heating and cooking fuel, more racism worries, and the sad story of death by austerity.

Cuts package nearly done, minister says

Those major budgets cuts demanded by the Troikarchs after their rejection of a large part of the package assembled by increasingly nervous coalition is almost done, declares the finance minister.

From Agence France-Presse:

Greece’s finance minister said Tuesday that Athens is close to sealing a deal with its international lenders on fresh austerity measures in exchange for billions of euros in aid funds.

“I hope that by Sunday (the package will be finalised), we don’t have much time,” said Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras after a three-hour meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

The negotiations are “difficult” but with about two thirds of the austerity programme already finalised, Greece is on the right path and close to sealing a deal with its international lenders to unlock crucial aid funds, he said.

Read the rest.

More from an earlier Athens News story:

The government still has to identify 4bn euros’ worth of the 11.9bn euros of cuts required by the troika, the finance minister told representatives of the three coalition parties on Monday.

Yannis Stournaras met with party representatives to brief them on the progress of his negotiations with the troika in order to finalise the measures that will make up the spending cuts package.

Party officials said that the main points of contention with the troika concern the 750m euros of cuts proposed for state operational costs and a large chunk of the cutbacks in health and defence.

One party representative, who attended the meeting with the troika, remarked that the measures proposed by the government were not enough for the troika, which was seeking “even more blood”.

The party representatives said that Stournaras gave them the impression that the package of measures had to be finalised by Sunday.

They added that the two-year increase in the retirement age to 67 is inevitable and so are deep cuts in pensions and benefits, and public sector layoffs.

Read the rest.

And more context from ANSAmed:

Greece’s Finance Minister, Yiannis Stournaras is continuing to meet with representatives of Greece’s international partners in order to finalize an 11.5 billion euro cuts package requested by the Troika in return for 31 billion euro of financial aid. Without it, Greece faces bankruptcy. Stournaras will today meet with the head of the the European Union task force for Greece, Horst Reichenbanch, to discuss the budgetary cuts and assess the progress of economic reforms.

A trimestral task force report is then sent to the Greek government and international creditors.

On Wednesday Stournaras again meets with Troika representatives – Matthias Mors (European Union), Klaus Mazuch (European Central Bank) and Paul Tomsen (International Monetary Fund). Following this he will meet leaders of the political parties supporting the Samaras government to finalize the austerity measures included in the new package.

And what does the Troika demand?

Here’s a quick synopsis from John Psaropoulos for Al Jazeera.

The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have asked Greece to pass 2013-2014 budgets in October which eliminate the annual deficit in three key ways:

• The public payroll must come down by at least 1.5 percent of GDP, producing savings of about $3.7bn. This requires laying off or retiring at least 150,000 people.
• Government operating costs must come down by 1 percent of GDP by moving out of leased properties, abolishing hundreds of committees and public entities that produce nothing, and even outsourcing some government functions. The troika says this could produce savings of about  $2.5bn
• Spending on pensions and healthcare must come down by 3 per cent of GDP, producing savings of about $7.5bn.

These spending cuts must be put to parliamentary vote by October 1.

The reason why they are so heavily focused on essentially two areas – social spending and state administration – is that these claim a disproportionate amount of the budget. Out of this year’s 88 billion euro budget, 18bn will go to state salaries and 35bn to topping up pension funds, the finance ministry says.

Read the rest.

And what has the Samaras coalition proposed?

Here’s a start, from a longer summary by Panagiotis Sotiris for Greek Left Review:

This package has been presented to the Troika representatives in order to be approved by them so that 31 billion euros of bail-out funds will be released and the Greek state saved from bankruptcy. It includes:

• Cuts in the funding of Ministries, that will make them almost impossible to function properly.
• A slashing in social spending, that includes reductions in family benefits, in special unemployment benefits for seasonal workers and other social benefits, including funding for travel expenses for patients receiving dialysis.
• A new wave of personnel reductions in the public sector, by forcing thousands of civil servants close to retirement age to enter “pre-retirement status” at reduced wages, by not rehiring public sector employees on limited term contracts (e.g. substitute teachers or adjunct faculty), and by reducing the total number of public sector institutions.
• New cuts in pensions and public sector wages. The cuts in pensions will not simply deteriorate the quality of life for senior citizens. They will deprive families of an income that was instrumental in sustaining forms of intergenerational solidarity.
• A massive new wave of privatizations.
• Cuts in health spending, in a period when Greece is very close to a humanitarian crisis. These cuts will jeopardize the ability of many hospitals and clinics to function properly and will lead to a deterioration of the quality of health services and a reduction in total health coverage.
• The reduction of the total number of Universities, University departments and Higher Education Institutions, through a process of “spatial restructuring” of Higher Education.
• The freeze in hiring in all levels of education, mass lay-offs of adjunct faculty, new education budget cuts – including the abolition of the gratis provision of university textbooks –, and increased tuition for graduate courses.
• Reduced funding for culture and the Arts

Read the rest.

Another grim ministerial prediction

Even with the additional bailout cash, the near-term future is looking bleak, according to the finance minister’s calculations.

From the Economic Times:

Greece’s economy will have contracted by 25 percent by the time the recession ends, the finance minister said Tuesday, as the government remained locked in talks with rescue lenders for its next major austerity program.

Yannis Stournaras made the remarks at a Greek-Chinese business forum, before senior officials from his ministry resumed negotiations with inspectors from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, known as the “troika.’‘

“The cumulative reduction (of gross domestic product) since 2008 is just under 20 percent and is expected to reach 25 percent by 2014,’‘ Stournaras said.

Read the rest.

More from the London Telegraph:

Speaking to a Greek-Chinese business forum, he said that Athens would broadly meet a target of cutting the 2012 primary deficit, excluding debt servicing costs, to €2bn in nominal terms.

But, he said the primary deficit figure would reach 1.5pc of gross domestic product, compared with a previous estimate of 1pc, as the recession bit.

With the Greek government remaining locked in talks with rescue lenders as they evaluate Greece’s progress before releasing its next tranche of aid, Mr Stournaras pleaded for more time from the European Union and International Monetary Fund troika.

“Otherwise, there is a great risk of prolonging the negative consequences for the economy and society,” he warned.

Read the rest.

Oh noes! More ‘light at the end of the tunnel’

We’ve noted how this phrase was twice used by Western leaders hailing the imminent approach of “victory” in Vietnam, once by the French commander shortly before the disastrous battle of Dien Bien Phu, and again by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966.

Ominously, it’s also become the favorite phrase of europols of late when referring to Greece and the larger crisis.

And here it comes again.

From Ekathemerini:

Germany’s foreign minister on Tuesday said he saw “light at the end of the tunnel” in efforts to tackle the lingering eurozone crisis.

“We must look beyond the present and now also hold a debate about Europe’s future in a committed way,” Guido Westerwelle told Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

“It’s about making Europe better and creating new confidence in Europe,” he added.

Meanwhile, Finland’s Europe minister Alexander Stubb on Tuesday appeared skeptical of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso’s calls last week for a change to the EU’s treaty.

“If treaty change is needed, then it must be done. However, I am slightly skeptical as to the real need for treaty change and also cautious about its feasibility,” said Stubb, who is Minister of European Affairs and Foreign Trade.

Read the rest.

Doctoring the image of unhealthy reality

The health minister says major cuts to the healthcare system won’t deprive the sick of care.

Some Greek cancer patients disagree.

From Oliver Joy and Irene Chapple of CNN:

Greece is being asked to make “great sacrifices” but the country’s sick

Scientists Under Attack, corporate power run amok

Scientists Under Attack, Genetic Engineering in the Magnetic Field of Money, a 2010 documentary by Bertram Verhaag for Denkmal Films, focuses on the confrontations between two biologists and the power of the genetic corporateers.

The first is Árpád Pusztai, a respected scientist who lost his job with the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, after a furor erupted over then-unpublished results of experiments revealing that a genetically engineered potatoes changed the epithelial cells in lab animals.

The second scientist, UC Berkeley’s own plant micobiologist [and friend] Ignacio Chapela [previously], was targeted by Monsanto for research demonstrating that genes from the company’s genetically modified corn had infiltrated native seed stock in Mexico, the land of origin for modern maize and the source of its greatest biological diversity.

As a result of the campaign, he was denied tenure at Cal, winning it only though a court battle, events we covered when we reported for the Berkeley Daily Planet.

From Denkmal Films:

Árpád Pusztai and Ignacio Chapela have two things in common. They are distinguished scientists and their careers are in ruins. Both scientists choose to look at the phenomenon of genetic engineering. Both made important discoveries. Both of them are suffering the fate of those who criticise the powerful vested interests that now dominate big business and scientific research. Statements made by scientists themselves prove that 95% of the research in the area of genetic engineering is paid by the industry. Only 5% of the research is independent. The big danger for freedom of science and our democracy is evident. Can the public – we all – still trust our scientists?

UC to pay damages for pepper-spraying cop

Lt. John Pike, the infamous UC Davis campus cop who blasted students with an industrial-sized canister of pepper spray during a peaceful campus protest, may have left his post in July, but the impacts of his actions are lingering.

Here’s Pike unloading the spray on students last 18 November, a scene captured by vlogger terrydatiger:

The latest development is a court settlement in which the university will pay damages to the students he sprayed.

From Larry Gordon of the Los Angeles Times:

The University of California will pay damages to the UC Davis students and alumni who were pepper sprayed by campus police during an otherwise peaceful protest 10 months ago, officials said Thursday.

The UC regents, in a closed-door meeting, approved the proposed settlement payment to 21 UC Davis students and alumni who sued the university and contended their civil rights were violated in the widely criticized pepper spray incident.

However, both UC officials and the ACLU of Northern California, which is representing the students in the lawsuit, refused to divulge settlement details, saying the rules of the agreement talks require a federal judge to review the matter before it can be made public. That may happen within a few days, they said.

Jonathan Stein, the UC student regent, said the settlement was warranted. “We did an injustice to our students that day at Davis, and some amount of recompense is appropriate. More importantly, it’s time for us as an institution to publicly acknowledge that’s not the way we should treat our students; we were wrong, and we are moving forward,” he said.

Read the rest.

Among his other legacies is a website filled with graphics inspired by his notorious actions.

One of our favorite images from PEPPER SPRAYING COP:

GreeceWatch: Troikarchs, cuts, strikes, thuggery

While the prime minister’s busy making nice with the eurobankster in Frankfurt, angry union members were keeping Troikarchs away from a meet with the labor minister in Athens [but that comes later], and the Troika’s found almost half of the coalition government’s cuts unacceptable.

Another sign of coalition splintering surfaces, the presidents pleads for whips to be dropped, and there’s a deficit cut than means less than it seems. More walkouts are underway or planned, racists attack in a barber shop, and the government learns a police bodyguard joined with his charge in that church fair immigrant stall smashing.

Samaras makes nice with the eurobankster

He wanted to let him know he’s zealous to win his credibility.

He’s rather sensitive know, what with all those cuts and Troika’s declaration that they weren’t sufficiently sincere.

From Athens News:

The government is determined to meet the obligations it has undertaken under the terms of bailout loans and at the same time speed up the recovery of its economy, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said on Tuesday after meeting European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi in Frankfurt.

Samaras said that he had discussed the prospects of both Greece and the eurozone during his meeting with the ECB president, expressing Athens’ support for the initiatives taken by Draghi to stabilise the monetary union and find a way out of the debt crisis, putting an end to attacks by speculators.

“We also spoke about the great efforts being made by our country to regain its credibility and emerge from the crisis. I insisted that we are determined to meet the obligations we have undertaken and, at the same time, to speed up the recovery of our economy,” he said.

According to the premier, Draghi had noted the progress the country has made and the meeting had marked a “first step for a closer and more productive cooperation with the ECB”.

Read the rest.

As they used to say, gag us with a spoon.

Troikarchs rule half of the cuts unacceptable

That’s simply stunning.

After all that work and all that political angst over trying to do the least damage to their electoral futures.

From Ekanathemerini via neokosmos:

Only some 6 billion of the 11.5 billion euros in spending cuts proposed by the Greek government has been accepted by the troika, which is pressing for public sector sackings as one of the policies Athens should turn to in order to make up the shortfall.

Representatives of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund met with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Monday and informed him of their skepticism about some of the coalition’s measures.

Some 2.2 billion euros worth of cuts, which include about 1.2 billion euros in savings from reductions in operating costs in the public sector and 500 million euros in savings from financing for local authorities, has been rejected outright by Greece’s lenders.

The cuts also included 437 million euros from arms programs but the troika was not convinced this would lead to permanent savings. According to sources, the troika’s refusal to accept these savings surprised the government as it had designed the savings to be of a permanent nature.

The inspectors also asked for more details about some 3.5 billion euros’ worth of cuts. “We are trying to convince them about our position. The effort continues,” said Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras.

Read the rest.

Communist union forces delay in meeting

Seems member of PAME, the Communist Party union, were upset that the Troikarchs were scheduled for a meet with the labor minister to define the final terms of the latest shafting of the working class.

Here’s the only video we could find, and it’s in Greek and reports that about 50 union members stage what they describe as a symbolic occupation:

The Troikarchs wisely opted not to try to force their way through a throng of angry radical, organized working folk, so they postponed the session.

So what are the cuts on the agenda?

The list From Keep Talking Greene:

• possible raise of retirement age from 65 to 67 years old.
• Decrease notice time for lay-off from 6 down to 3 months
• Decrease of lay-off compensation by 50%
• Decreasing employees’ contributions to social security funds
• Increase of working days from 5 to 6
• Lowering the already lowered minimum wage [Febr 2011 it went down from 751 euro to 586 & 500 euro].

Read the rest.

No wonder they were angry.

Coalition partner say don’t cut pensions

And the Democratic Left, the smallest of the coalition government’s three parties, doesn’t want retirement age raised either.

From Capital.gr:

Greece should avoid across-the-board cuts in bonus payments to pensioners and raising the retirement age, the government’s junior coalition partner said Tuesday, calling instead for cuts in defense, health and energy sector outlays to close the country’s budget gap.

In a policy paper, the small Democratic Left party — which participates in the Greece’s three-way coalition government — has proposed some 1.23 billion euros ($1.58 billion) in alternative cutbacks so as to avoid slashing pensions and other benefits.

The policy paper comes as a troika of international inspectors — from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — are in Athens to discuss some EUR13.5 billion worth of budget cuts Greece must take to narrow its budget gap over the next two years and meet demands of international creditors.

Read the rest.

Put away the whips, president says

Son of a general, a member of the resistance who fought German occupiers in World War II, and former foreign minister, the 83-year-old Carolos Papoulias holds the largely ceremonial office of President of Greece.

But he speaks with a certain moral authority about another kind of occupation, the conquering forces of international finance and high [and low] politics.

From Agence France Presse:

Greece has had enough ‘merciless whipping’ over its fiscal profligacy and the European Union should help out ailing southern eurozone nations, President Carolos Papoulias said on Tuesday.

“Until now we have sustained a merciless whipping. I think we have paid for our mistakes enough,” Papoulias said during a meeting with Canada’s visiting Senate speaker Noël Kinsella.

“Europe must understand that it needs to help Greece. And not just Greece, but Spain, Portugal and Ireland, to overcome the economic crisis,” the 83-year-old former wartime resistance fighter said.

Read the rest.

More from Greek Reporter’s Andy Dabilis:

Papoulias supports the pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions being put forth by an uneasy coalition government led by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative leader, but said enough is enough and there have to be some changes.

The government is aiming squarely at workers, pensioners and the poor to bear the burden again for cuts that Samaras admitted were “unfair and unjust” but said were necessary to keep Greece from defaulting and leaving the Eurozone of the 17 countries using the euro as a currency.

>snip<

Greece has been surviving on a first series of $152 billion in rescue loans from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) but is awaiting a last installment of $38.8 billion as well as a delayed second bailout of $173 billion. But that money has come with insistence on austerity measures that have worsened a five-year recession, created 24.1 percent unemployment with nearly two million people out of work and is shrinking the economy by 7 percent.

Read the rest.

But there’s always a German. . .

Once again, the finance minister, sounding the usual notes.

From Greek Reporter’s A. Papapostolou:

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Tuesday there cannot be any new negotiations about the Greek budget consolidation

A new cause of sleep disorder: Call it iNsomnia

You say you spend hours a day at your iPad, or in front of your backlit desktop or notebook screen?

And when you got to bed you find yourself tossing and turning, chasing the restful balm of sleep?

Well, you may well be experiencing the loss of a key natural sleep-inducing chemical, and that addictive screen may well be the cause.

We bring you in full a fascinating tale from Rebekah Mullaney, scribe for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, reporting on some new research. And note the funding source:

A new study from the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute shows that a two-hour exposure to electronic devices with self-luminous “backlit” displays causes melatonin suppression, which might lead to delayed bedtimes, especially in teens.

The research team, led by Mariana Figueiro, associate professor at Rensselaer and director of the LRC’s Light and Health Program, tested the effects of self-luminous tablets on melatonin suppression. In order to simulate typical usage of these devices, 13 individuals used self-luminous tablets to read, play games, and watch movies. Results of the study, titled “Light level and duration of exposure determine the impact of self-luminous tablets on melatonin suppression,” were recently published in the journal Applied Ergonomics.

“Our study shows that a two-hour exposure to light from self-luminous electronic displays can suppress melatonin by about 22 percent. Stimulating the human circadian system to this level may affect sleep in those using the devices prior to bedtime,” said Figueiro.

The actual melatonin suppression values after 60 minutes were very similar to those estimated using a predictive model of human circadian phototransduction for one-hour light exposures. “Based on these results, display manufacturers can use our model to determine how their products could affect circadian system regulation,” said Figueiro.

The results of this study, together with the LRC predictive model of human circadian phototransduction, could urge manufacturers to design more “circadian-friendly” electronic devices that could either increase or decrease circadian stimulation depending on the time of day—reducing circadian stimulation in the evening for a better night’s sleep, and increasing in the morning to encourage alertness. In the future, manufacturers might be able to use data and predictive models to design tablets for tailored daytime light exposures that minimize symptoms of seasonal affective disorder, and sleep disorders in seniors. Individuals would be able to receive light treatments while playing games or watching movies, making light therapy much more enjoyable than just sitting in front of a light box.

Along with Figueiro, co-authors of the study are LRC Director and Professor Mark S. Rea, LRC Research Specialist Brittany Wood, and LRC Research Nurse Barbara Plitnick.

Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland at night and under conditions of darkness in both diurnal and nocturnal species. It is a “timing messenger,” signaling nighttime information throughout the body. Exposure to light at night, especially short-wavelength light, can slow or even cease nocturnal melatonin production. Suppression of melatonin by light at night resulting in circadian disruption has been implicated in sleep disturbances, increased risk for diabetes and obesity, as well as increased risk for more serious diseases, such as breast cancer, if circadian disruption occurs for many consecutive years, such as in nightshift workers.

“Technology developments have led to bigger and brighter televisions, computer screens, and cell phones,” said Wood, who used the study as the basis for her master’s thesis. “To produce white light, these electronic devices must emit light at short wavelengths, which makes them potential sources for suppressing or delaying the onset of melatonin in the evening, reducing sleep duration and disrupting sleep. This is particularly worrisome in populations such as young adults and adolescents, who already tend to be night owls.”

In the study, the participants were divided into three groups. The first group viewed their tablets through a pair of clear goggles fitted with 470-nm (blue) light from light emitting diodes (LEDs). This was a “true positive” condition because the blue light is known to be a strong stimulus for suppressing melatonin. The second group viewed their tablets through orange-tinted glasses, capable of filtering out the short-wavelength radiation that can suppress melatonin; this was the “dark control” condition. The third group did not wear glasses or goggles. Each tablet was set to full brightness.

The glasses. Photo from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

In order to accurately record personal light exposures during the experiment, each subject wore a Dimesimeter close to the eye. The

Quote of the day: The academic/drone complex

From Mark Brunswick of the Minneapolis Star Tribune [emphasis added]:

The University of North Dakota operates a fleet of seven different types of unmanned aircraft. In 2009, it became the first college in the country to offer a four-year degree in unmanned aircraft piloting. It now has 23 graduates and 84 students majoring in the program, which is open only to U.S. citizens.

It works with Northland Community College in Thief River Falls, Minn., which developed the first drone maintenance training center in the country and proudly shows off its own full-size Global Hawk.

The university also serves as an incubator for companies that might want to expand the industry. In five days, Unmanned Applications Institute International, which provides training in operating drones, can teach a cop how to use a drone the size of a bathtub toy.

“If you’re concerned about it, maybe there’s a reason we should be flying over you, right?” said Douglas McDonald, the company’s director of special operations and president of a local chapter of the unmanned vehicle trade group.

Read the rest.

The corporate/academic attack on science

We’ve been thinking a lot about a book that profoundly affected our own life when we first read it as a high school senior a half-century ago, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

No other book in the last century played a greater role in precipitating the awareness that human’s are playing a deadly role in destroying the natural environment from which we all spring.

Carson’s devastating expose of the hazards of pesticides forced millions to reconsider humanity’s avid embrace to chemical cure-alls and led directly to the banning of the primary target of her book, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT — even though Carson herself hadn’t called for an outright ban, rather she advocated very careful and smaller-scale use.

Back in our childhood we remember the periodic sweeps through of the DDT truck, spewing clouds of white powder to control mosquitos, often attracting children who would run into the clouds and come out coated with the fine, white dust.

DDT was eagerly embraced by the academic community, who say in the pesticide an irreplaceable weapon against agricultural pests and promoted its use.

The chemical was promoted widely to the public, using the latest media tools of the day.

Here’s a remarkable 1946 promotional film, aimed at both children and adults, for the Sherwin-Williams DDT brand Pestroy via vlogger phobiazzzero:

Doomsday for Pests. 1946 [14:44]

But there were clear signs that DDT wasn’t harmless, and one of the principal sources Carson relied on was a Michigan State University scientist, George J. Wallace, whose interest was sparked when robins started dying en masse on the university’s campus.

When he correctly traced the deaths to DDT, his career was nearly destroyed after the chemical industry mobilized against him.

Here’s his story, told in a documentary from MSU’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism:

Dying to be Heard, 2011 [27:20]

One of the leading attacks on Carson’s book came from UC Berkeley scientist Thomas H. Jukes, who arrived on campus after a career at chemical giant American Cynamid. We first learned of his role as white-coated hit man in historian Linda Lear’s 1997 biography, Rachel Carson, Witness for Nature.

By 1977, when Jukes and two fellow scientists sued the New York Times for libel stemming from a story about controversy over bird counts, U.S. Court of Appeals Justice Irving R. Kaufman could write this in a decision overturning a judgment against the paper:

The truth is that many species high on the food chain, such as most bird-eating raptors and fisheaters, are suffering serious declines in numbers as a direct result of pesticide contamination; there is now abundant evidence to prove this.

But Jukes remains a hero to the Right [including Glenn Beck] in their campaign to abolish government regulations on industrial products — including the American Competitice Institute, which has its own anti-Carson website.

Oh, and he was also the same fellow who gave rise to the ongoing, systemic dosing of livestock with antibiotics, another practice now coming under tighter control because of its role in fostering the rise of deadly antibacterial-resistant microbes.

UC Berkeley scientists targeted by industry

We posted repeatedly about two Cal scientists whose research has made them targets of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Ignacio Chapela [previously], a plant microbiologist, has earned the hatred of Monsanto and Novartis [now Syngenta], two of the world’s leading corporate powers.

Chapela and researcher David Quist discovered that genes from Monsanto’s genetically engineered corn had leapt into the native Mexican varieties from which all modern corn originate.

Monsanto launched a fierce campaign, complete with black-ops-style false fronts as well as pressure on Chapela’s fellow academics. The research has since been vindicated, but it took a lawsuit for Chapela to win tenure at the campus that gave birth to the Free Speech Movement.

Another Cal scientist who has felt the wrath of industry is Tyrone Hayes [previously], a biologist whose specialty is frogs.

The attacks began after he linked Atrazine, the most widely used pesticide in the world, to birth defects in frogs. Syngenta, the pesticide’s manufacturer, has been waging a relentless war on Hayes in an attempt to discredit him.

Here’s a video of Hayes and documentary filmmaker Penelope Jagessar Chaffer from a TED talk that should give us all pause about the endless stream of chemicals we’re pouring into the environment.

Finally, here’s a presentation he made in October in the [irony alert] Monsanto Auditorium at the University of Missouri, “From Silent Spring to Silent Night: A Tale of Toads and Men”:

Quote of the day; A Millennial student revolution?

From James Howard Kunstler, who blogs at Clusterfuck Nation, writing at Dissident Voice:

Like the anti-war youth of August, 1968, burning their draft cards in the streets of Chicago, the Millennials should flock to Charlotte and Tampa this summer and fill the parking lots (there are no streets in these places) with the smoke of their burning loan contracts — and then proceed with the loud repudiation of party politics in its two current useless, lying, craven, feckless factions. The effrontery of these rogues, promising a hundred years of shale gas, and jobs, jobs, jobs, and a personal relationship with Jesus! Send them packing into the bowels of history, then go home and make it work locally, where it will have to happen in any case because the arc of events has a velocity of its own now and that is our certain destination.

The colleges themselves will, of course, implode shortly, along with everything else currently organized on the super-gigantic scale. They are no more prepared for what is about to happen to them than the chiselers in government, banking, medicine, and global corporate enterprise. We will wonder in retrospect how they ever managed to winkle 50-grand a year for their absurd promises, and how we permitted young people with undeveloped powers of judgment to sign their financial lives away on terms even more stringent than their parents’ mortgages. When the universities do go down, tossing their employees overboard in the process, it will be interesting to see the former faculty chairpersons and distinguished professors of econometric modeling learn how to plant kale and care for chickens side-by-side with their formerly-indentured students. I can imagine a period of turmoil in America even harsher than, say, the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s in China where officials, professors, and authorities of all kinds were paraded through the angry mobs wearing dunce caps. Weird things happen in history.

Read the rest.

Massive Chile protest against privatized education

Like all good austerians, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera pushes privatization and increased costs for public schools.

The first hard Right president since the end of the nation’s military dictatorship, he’s already launched a partial privatization of the nation’s copper mines, and now he’s targeting higher education — the spark for yesterday’s rallies that drew 150,000 to the streets.

From I Love Chile:

Educational profiteering was a main topic during today’s protest, which also joined professors and workers from across the city.

“We’ve gathered here today to call for an end to educational profiteering, which is something that affects the private universities more than it does us [Department of Mathematics at the Universidad de Santiago en Chile],” student Aguillen Ortega said to I Love Chile. “However, just because it only affects private universities doesn’t mean it’s not a fight for all the Chilean students.”

>snip<

Members of Chile’s older generations also joined the ranks of protestors today. Parents and grandparents marched alongside the young people in a crowd of 150,000 people, according to figures reported by Confech.

“We’re protesting, accompanying. We have children that it cost us a lot to educate, and we now have grandchildren it’s costing us even more to educate,” said Rita, a grandmother and demonstrator at today’s event.

Read the rest.

More from the EFE news agency:

Starting last year, Chilean students have mounted a series of protests against a highly stratified education system that funnels state subsidies to private institutions even as public schools in poor areas struggle.

Chile’s public schools and universities were neglected by the 1973-1990 dictatorship of the late Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who embraced doctrinaire free market policies.

Private schools mushroomed under the military regime and the trend continued after democracy was restored, even during the 1990-2010 tenure of the center-left Concertacion coalition. EFE.

Read the test.

And from Kevin Kunitake of the Santiago Times:

“The government is right to be worried because we are dealing with a minister who bows to business,” said Confech Spokesperson Gabriel Boric at the march’s closing ceremony. “We want to say that while this happens, we will not be quiet. We went from a military dictatorship to a market dictatorship.”

In Chile, the majority of education costs are borne by private citizens. Confech and other student organizations have called for the government to take a more active investment.

In addition to the movement’s broad call for education reforms, many protesters specifically spoke against profiteering in the educational system. At least seven universities are under investigation for taking money from the instruction and putting it into the pockets of its directors and executives.

This was the movement’s third major protest of the year, but first sanctioned route past La Moneda presidential palace. It was also the biggest of the three, according to the Confech estimate.

An overwhelming majority were students from both private and public universities and varying grade levels. Others included grandmothers, teachers and workers, all supporting the movement.

Read the rest.

And note this detail from the Associated Press [emphasis added]:

Chile is beset by poor-quality public schools and expensive private universities benefiting from state funding, and many students face huge educational loan debts.

Gee, students actually taking to the streets. They do it in Canada and Chile; why not here?

Video roundup of the day’s events

Here’s a video of the action in Santiago, featuring a appearance by Camila Vallejo, the spearhead of the ongoing student revolt. And we love those street dogs who find water cannons and even better source of drinking water than toilet bowls:

Here’s another video of stills from the day’s action, set to Hip Hop:

More footage, this time of a parallel rally in Concepción:

Finally, from Reuters, more scenes from Santiago, including some rather remarkable teargas-spewing armored vehicles. Maybe Berkeley can buy a couple, to go along with that tank:

Headline of the day: Global Corporate University

From AlterNet:

What Happens When Public Universities Are Run by Robber Barons

Chart of the day: Impoverishment by degrees

From My Budget 360:

Headline of the day II: Zombie student loans

From ProPublica:

Grieving Father Struggles to Pay Dead Son’s Student Loans

Video treat: Early CIA-funded LSD experiment

One of the most fascinating videos you’re likely to see today, commercially filmed and CIA-funded, a truly remarkable case of a psychedelic encounter between two cultures, the scientific and the experiential.

Now we must begin with a confession that we experimented with LSD starting on New Year’s Eve 1966, in the final hours before the drug became illegal in Nevada. The drug was given us by a fellow journalist at a faculty party of folks of a politically dissident bent. We took it, looking for insights about ourself and the world we lived in.

Over the new few years we got to interview most of the world’s leading academic researchers on psychedelic ["mind-manifesting"] drugs, many of whom we subsequently learned. had been CIA funded. We also got to spend extended time with several while we were covering conferences as an associate editor of Psychology Today magazine.

In this video you’ll see what happens when a Los Angeles painter is given LSD in the setting of a CIA-funded experiment: There’s the artist, reveling in the flow and content of spontaneous sensations heightened and empowered by the chemical, and then there’s is the academic, intent on dissecting and altering the experience in order to fulfill the therms of his CIA-funded contract:

Schizophrenic Model Psychosis Induced by LSD 25 [1955, 23:57]

Narrated by Nicholas A. Bercel, M.D., of the University of Southern California Medical School’s Department of Physiology.

Bercel’s 20 August 2009 Los Angeles Times obituary reveals a fascinating background. A native of Budapest trained in medicine at the Sorbonne by Marie Curie, he came to the U.S. in 1940. He joined the USC faculty in the early 1950s, wrote novels, and practiced medicine until age 92. He was 97 when he died.

The film’s a production of Confidential Telepictures Inc, and the drug was made by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Sandoz, with the involvement of Harry Althouse of San Francisco. Althouse, on the marketing side of the company, even had a branding idea. While Sandoz branded the drug Delycid [for D-Lysergic acid diethylamide-25]  Althouse had “suggested the pharmacological designation Phantastium for this substance.”

Althouse also provided LSD to Betty Grover Eisner, a psychotherapist who lost her license because a patient during a very peculiar therapy session conducted in her own bathroom. Mentored by another Althouse beneficiary — Sidney Cohen, UCLA psychiatrist who’d done some of the earliest CIA-funded experiments — Eisner went on to found a group practice that involved a whole range of mind-alerting drugs, communal living, often-mandatory sexual experimentation, and much more. Her clientele included world-famous academics, a leading jazz musician, doctors, lawyers [even one who worked for the IRS] and more. It’s a fascinating story, told in our second book, Deadly Blessings, Faith Healing on Trial.

Scientists vs BP: Guess who won?

When two scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute [WHOI] learned of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the promptly volunteered their expertise to assess the extent of the massive underwater oil spill.

Little did they know that two years later they’d find themselves in court, on the losing end of a motion filed by oil giant BP that would force them to reveal both the raw and spirited contention that goes into scientific research but the secrets of their own inventions as well.

And the net result could prove chilling to both the scientific deliberative process and to the willingness of scientists to give themselves freely when their help is needed.

The events that have shocked the scientific community should also serve as a reminder to UC Berkeley scientists that their emails could well be targets of the company that effectively bought the university with the largest corporate research grant in the history of American academia.

Dampening the volunteer spirit

We being with a summary of the what happened, from Suzanne Goldenberg of The Guardian:

A pair of scientists have accused BP of an attack on academic freedom after the oil company successfully subpoenaed thousands of confidential emails related to research on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

The accusation from oceanographers Richard Camilli and Christopher Reddy offered a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes legal manoeuvring by BP in the billion-dollar legal proceedings arising from the April 2010 blow-out of its well.

It also heightened fears among scientists of an assault on academic freedoms, following the legal campaign against a number of prominent climate scientists.

>snip<

The two researchers turned over some 50,000 pages of research notes and data to BP. But BP demanded more, and obtained a court subpoena for the handover of more than 3,000 confidential emails.

Read the rest.

Now for some background

Christopher M. Reddy and Richard Camilli are scientists at Woods Hole. A marine chemist, Reddy directs the Director of the Institution’s Coastal Ocean Institute, while Camilli is an associate scientist with a specialty in oceanic physics and engineering.

After the Deepwater Horizon explosion on 20 April 2010, the two volunteered their time, expertise, and equipment to survey the extent of the oil spill, but found themselves block by BP.

Here’s Camilli’s testimony to the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling on 27 September 2010:

And here’s what they discovered when they were finally allowed in, via a 19 August, 2010 report from WHOI:

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In the study, which appears in the Aug. 19 issue of the journal Science, the researchers measured distinguishing petroleum hydrocarbons in the plume and, using them as an investigative tool, determined that the source of the plume could not have been natural oil seeps but had to have come from the blown out well.

Moreover, they reported that deep-sea microbes were degrading the plume relatively slowly, and that it was possible that the 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume had and will persist for some time.

The WHOI team based its findings on some 57,000 discrete chemical analyses measured in real time during a June 19-28 scientific cruise aboard the R/V Endeavor, which is owned by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by the University of Rhode Island. They accomplished their feat using two highly advanced technologies: the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry and a type of underwater mass spectrometer known as TETHYS (Tethered Yearlong Spectrometer).

Read the rest.

And the lawyers play games

Having spent nearly five years covering litigation in Southern California’s most elite court venue, we can pretty much parse the reasons why BP wanted the emails.

The answers to be found in a two-word phrase: Exculpatory evidence.

Science can be a rather messy affair before it gets to the stage of the well-crafted journal article or heavily footnoted report as scientists “blue sky” a whole range of hypothesis, not a few of which are simply off the wall. There’s good reasons for doing it that way, throwing out all manner of ideas and concepts while honing down the focus to the set that best fits the data.

But to a lawyer defending one of the world’s biggest corporations against massive civil suits, getting hold of those spontaneous communications can prove a wonderful thing in court, allowing a crafty litigator to create alternative scenarios aimed solely at discrediting an adverse witness.

And the reality of modern communications technology is that its residues last forever, providing a potential gold mine for advocates consumed by the notion of dazzling or bamboozling a jury.

And so, being the zealous advocates they are, BP’s lawyers struck for the jugular, and when the dust had settled, they got everything — including sensitive proprietary information about costly hardware they scientists had invented.

Before the age of emails, scientists would debate their evidence through old media, from phone calls to letters, and much of those exchanges would simply vanish, either forgotten or relegated to the wastebacket.

The scientists were alarmed, writing to the Boston Globe:

Ultimately this is not about BP. Our experience highlights that virtually all of scientists’ deliberative communications, including e-mails and attached documents, can be subject to legal proceedings without limitation. Incomplete thoughts and half-finished documents attached to e-mails can be taken out of context and impugned by people who have a motive for discrediting the findings In addition to obscuring true scientific findings, this situation casts a chill over the

Nobel science laureates lobby for Greece

We give one ✰ out of ✰✰✰✰. We’d add a half-✰ but our typeset lacks them.

These are science laureates, advocating for support of their own disciplines, which are seen as critical to a Greek economic recovery.

They’re arguing for their guild, as well they should.

But the reason we’ve don’t five it those ✰✰✰✰ is because of their intentionally narrow focus.

From Harald Zur Hausen in Science, 25 May 2012, behind a paywall, something we find outrageous and utterly antithetical to the spirit in which the authors write. We found a jpeg of it at this Greek blog:

The Greek society and its institutions are going through very difficult times, emanating from several years of severe economic crisis. The gross national product of Greece decreased by almost 7% last year alone, and the unemployment rate exceeded 20%. Meanwhile, fiscal cutbacks threaten the survival of Greece’s best centers of creative potential. A recent commentary in Physics Today points out that funds are potentially available and can be used to remedy some of the above problems. Such funds, named structural funds, derive from “value-added” (sales) taxes throughout the European Union (EU) and are to be used to support the development of the poorer member-areas of the Union. Greece is entitled, annually, to a fraction of these European structural funds. For several years, Greece has used a sizable fraction of these funds to cover its research and technology budget. The disbursement of these funds requires actions from both sides, the EU and Greece. In the past 2 years, for various reasons, these actions did not come to fruition, resulting in the current crisis of Greek initiatives in education, research, and technology. This is halting the prospects of weathering the current crisis.

Now is the time for European leaders to secure the survival and future development of Greece’s most competitive scientific and technological institutions by reinitiating these measures.

To succeed, the following items need to be implemented. (i) For short-term benefits, release a substantial part of the EU structural funds that are available to Greece, to be used by innovative Greek programs in science and technology. (ii) For long-term benefits, also use these funds to initiate a broad program promoting the close cooperation of major European research and technology centers with Greek clusters of excellence. (iii) Ensure the continued support of Greek participation in major European institutions, such as the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. (iv) Initiate a program to establish new joint EU-Greek institutions of excellence, focusing on scientific areas where Greece already has a strong presence in the European landscape and which could be crucial to Greece’s further technological development.

With these points in mind, 22 internationally renowned leaders in various fields of science and technology have drafted and signed a petition and sent it to Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament; Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council; and José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the EU Commission. The signatories of this petition sincerely hope that scientists and science policy leaders will take these issues seriously and will take whatever steps are in their power to address them. The petition follows:

Greece is in the midst of a prolonged and deep economic recession that has already changed dramatically the lives of its citizens and threatens the very existence of its structures necessary for future recovery. To regain its forward momentum, keep alive its competitive

Canada’s Maple Spring, an attack on austerity

Writer Andrew Gavin Marshall provides some context for the massive mobilization of students on Quebec in an interview with RT.

Despite a draconian new law imposing heavy fines on student protesters and their organizations, the movement remains very much alive.

While sparked by a dramatic increases in university tuition, the protests have broadened and are now focusing on issues ranging from attacks on social spending, massive defense outlays, and government corruption by organized crime.

UPDATE: For Marshall’s extended analysis of the causes of the student action, see here.

Canada’s largest mass arrest targets students

At least 518 protesters were arrested in Montreal after police performed a classic kettling operation, but a new announcement from Quebec Premier Jean Charest indicates that the 102-day-old protest may be on the verge of victory.

In addition to the arrests in Montreal, at least 170 other were arrested in Quebec City and Sherbrooke, according to RT.

Those numbers make last night’s action the largest-ever mass arrest in the nation’s history.

We begin with a video from Pierre Chauvin of The Link, the student newspaper of Concordia University, shot before last night’s arrests in Montreal.

Next a report on the arrests by Allen McInnis of the Montreal Gazette:

It was a peaceful river of humanity for more than three hours, with about 3,000 people walking, chanting and feeling united on the 30th consecutive night of the student protests in Montreal.

Then, in a heartbeat, Wednesday night’s big march turned ugly.

Just before midnight police surrounded a large group of protesters at Sherbrooke and St. Denis Sts. to make a mass arrest, Montreal police Constable Daniel Fortier said. Police said on Thursday morning the arrests totaled 518, making it the largest number of people arrested in a single night so far in the weeks-long student protest.

It also surpassed the 497 arrests made under the War Measures Act during the October Crisis of 1970.

506 of those arrested were caught in the kettle, including 30 minors. They were each fined $634 for illegal assembly, while the penalty for the minors is $118. The remaining 12 were isolated arrests, including four for criminal acts and eight for city bylaw infractions, police said.

Read the rest.

The protest of the Casseroles

Students, who are protesting an 83 percent tuition hike, have adopted a unique style, banging pots and pans as they march through the city.

Here’s a video shot in one Montreal neighborhood of the beginning of last night’s demonstration from vlogger GNOMEchomsky:

Dario Ayala of the Montreal Gazette offers some context:

Bang, bang, bang – ping!

A phenomenon is sweeping Montreal and other cities that gives new meaning to the term Bloc Pot – no, nothing to do with Quebec’s marijuana party.

The stink that’s being raised is a block party, every night at 8 o’clock in places as varied as Verdun and Villeray, Sherbrooke and Quebec City.

It’s called “Nos casseroles contre la loi spéciale!”

And it makes loud use of pots and pans.

In neighbourhoods in and outside the metropolis, at the strike of 8, students and teachers, parents and kids, renters and homeowners, go outside and start banging saucepans and skillets, pieplates and pots.

The target of the protest is the Charest government’s emergency Bill 78, which regiments public demonstrations as a response to the province-wide student strike, now in its fourth month.

Read the rest.

In the contest of wills, Charest blinks first

The draconian provisions of the special law rammed through the provincial legislature was passed in hopes the $125,000 fines imposed on student organizations and unions backing the strike would force a capitulation. The legislation also imposes $7,000 fines on individuals who fall within its provisions.

But that’s clearly not working.

So Charest may be grabbing at Plan B.

From CBC News:

In the midst of an expanding social crisis, Premier Jean Charest is replacing his most senior aide and bringing back a right-hand man with a reputation for steady competence.

Daniel Gagnier is being brought back after three years away from politics and is returning to his old position as chief of staff. He replaces Luc Bastien.

Gagnier is apparently being given a mandate to kick-start negotiations with student groups and seek a resolution to the unrest plaguing the province, before tourists flock to Montreal for festival season.

Read the rest.