Eideard

Does it matter who’s in the White House?

WASHINGTON — in this covetous town, the delicacies of the Georgetown Cupcake shop stand alone as symbols of wish fulfillment — heaping swirls of luscious confection atop rich, creamy pastry.

Therefore: Operation Cupcake. As the Federal Communications Commission debated final rules last December on how Internet service providers should manage their traffic, AT&T delivered 1,500 of these opulent desserts to the F.C.C.’s headquarters here.

Like many other big corporations, AT&T annually blankets power brokers with token holiday gifts, but the cupcake campaign was notable for its military precision. A three-page spreadsheet, stamped “AT&T Proprietary (Internal Use Only),” detailed how the desserts were to be deployed to each of the 63 commission offices: four dozen were assigned to the enforcement bureau, 10 dozen to the wireless divisions, 12 cupcakes to each of four commissioners, and 18 to the chairman, and so on.

As it turns out, AT&T had begun its $39 billion courting of T-Mobile about the same time. The resulting deal, announced a week ago, would transform the industry if approved. It would narrow the field of major wireless providers to three and vault AT&T into the No. 1 spot, ahead of Verizon; consumer advocates say the combination will lead to higher prices.

As interested parties lobby for and against the merger, one person will be pulling at the levers of power more often and with more influence than anyone else, according to both friends and foes: AT&T’s chief lobbyist, James W. Cicconi. A master strategist, Mr. Cicconi internalizes the art of regulatory and legislative war — and Operation Cupcake is but one of the efforts to come out of his shop…

In 13 years at AT&T, Mr. Cicconi has helped guide the company through roughly a dozen mergers, large and small, and he has made his share of enemies in Washington. As a testament to his power, however, few of them will criticize him on the record…

Nor is Mr. Cicconi’s lobbying effort a one-man show. He oversees a division that spent $115 million on lobbying over the last six years, putting it among the top five corporate spenders in the country, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks lobbying and campaign spending.

AT&T employs an army of outside lobbyists, including at least six prominent former members of Congress, including the former Senate majority leader Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, and former Senator John Breaux, a Louisiana Democrat.

Two of the sleaziest politicians who ever lived.

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Cristina and Monica

An immigration judge has agreed to delay the deportation of a Queens woman until the legal status of the Defense of Marriage Act becomes clearer.

Monica Alcota faced return to Argentina even though she’s married to an American citizen, Cristina Ojeda – because the feds don’t give immigration benefits to gay couples.

President Obama announced last month that the White House won’t defend the 1996 law that bars recognition of same-sex marriages. That gave Ojeda and Alcota new hope that Alcota, who overstayed a tourist visa, might be approved to stay in the U.S.

Judge Terry Bain put a hold on her deportation order while the couple waits to see if the Defense of Marriage Act is overturned and their green card application goes through.

“She could have said no,” Ojeda said. “But instead she gave us time…”

“I was very pleased that both the judge and the government attorney treated the issue with seriousness and respect,” said their lawyer, Lavi Soloway. “I think it was a demonstration of respect for Monica and Cristina and their marriage. They were kind and generous about it.”

Phew. Most sensible folks await the end of DOMA and other crap laws designed to prevent civil rights.

Meanwhile, our best wishes to Monica and Cristina.

Indonesian customs officials have arrested two men suspected of trying to take 40 snakes on to a flight to Dubai.

The two were about to enter the departure area at Jakarta airport when X-rays showed their bags were filled with sedated pythons…

The two suspects told investigators they planned to sell the animals to collectors in the United Arab Emirates, the AP news agency reports…

“People often use the flights to Dubai to smuggle illegal animals,” an official at Jakarta airport told AFP news agency.

“For the sake of flight safety and security, no animals are allowed to be brought on to aircraft without permission and special handling,” the official, Salahudin Rafi, added.

And if they get loose on the plane, it’s a remake of a not-very-good movie.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

When President Barack Obama signed his healthcare overhaul into law a year ago, some U.S. companies were quick to flag — and write down — the millions of dollars they stood to lose as a result of one aspect of the measure.

A year later, data from the Department of Health and Human Services shows the business community is one of the biggest beneficiaries of a separate provision of the overhaul, which provides billions of dollars in assistance to employers that maintain medical coverage for early retirees.

Hundreds of U.S. companies — including some that took writedowns last year that critics cited as proof of the new law’s burden on business — are participating in the program, which has paid out $530 million in the first seven months and is authorized to spend as much as $5 billion through 2014.

But while companies were quick to bemoan a potential headwind created by the overhaul, which eliminated a double subsidy they had enjoyed on certain drug expenses, no one seems keen to alert shareholders to the tailwind the companies are enjoying thanks to another aspect of the law.

The program, known as the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program, was designed to encourage health-plan sponsors — companies, labor unions, nonprofits and state and local governments — to continue to provide coverage to employees who retire before they qualify for Medicare, the government healthcare program for people aged 65 and over…

The plan is scheduled to sunset in 2014, when the health insurance exchanges created by the Obama law are scheduled to open, providing affordable insurance to everyone. But in the four years ERRP is around, it can put as much as $240,000 per early retiree back in the pocket of a company…

So far, about one-fifth of the $530 million that was dispersed in the first seven months of the program has gone to private U.S. businesses. The actual amounts each company received are not yet available.

But the official list of companies participating in the program includes half the members of the Dow Jones industrial average.

Reuters contacted the three biggest firms on that list, AT&T, Caterpillar and John Deere asking what they had told their shareholders about the benefits received from this aspect of healthcare reform. They either offered no comment – or said they’re still evaluating data.

Counting the money is more like it.

A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.

The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.

The team’s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one. The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.

The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland…

Dr Wiener continued: “In a large number of modern secular democracies, there’s been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%.”

The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the “non-religious” category.

They found…that those parameters were similar across all the countries studied, suggesting that similar behaviour drives the mathematics in all of them. And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.

However, Dr Wiener told the conference that the team was working to update the model with a “network structure” more representative of the one at work in the world.

“Obviously we don’t really believe this is the network structure of a modern society, where each person is influenced equally by all the other people in society,” he said. However, he told BBC News that he thought it was “a suggestive result”.

Overdue. Not that I think philosophical idealism will vanish. We have a few too many genes that need to update before that could happen. But, so-called organized religion appears to be working as diligently as possible to become a force for regressive, even reactionary behavior. Probably, because those who profit the most from incumbency fear the only way to maintain power and profit is by drawing back into fundamentalism for protection.

Since the study concerned educated secular democracies, the United States obviously has little need to fear a change.

Festo has added to its robotic menagerie with the creation of a robotic seagull that weighs just 450 g and boasts a wingspan of 1.96 metres. Dubbed the SmartBird, the ultralight flying robot was inspired by the herring gull and can take off, fly and land autonomously, without the help of any additional drive systems.

In creating the SmartBird, Festo says it has succeeded in deciphering the flight of birds. The robot’s wings not only beat up and down, with a lever mechanism increasing the degree of deflection to increase from the torso to the wing tip, but also twist at specific angles along their length in the same way that a real bird’s do so that the leading edge is directed upwards during the upward stroke.

Directional control is achieved through the opposing movement of the robot’s head and torso sections, which is synchronized by means of two electric motors and cables. This enables it to bend aerodynamically, with simultaneous weight displacement, and is responsible for the SmartBird’s agility and maneuverability.

As with a real bird, the SmartBird’s tail isn’t just for show either. It produces lift and functions as both a pitch elevator and yaw rudder. In addition to stabilizing the robot in a similar way to an aircraft’s conventional vertical stabilizer, the tail also tilts to initiate left and right turns and rotates about the longitudinal axis to produce yaw.

Packed inside the SmartBird’s torso are the battery, engine and transmission, the crank transmission and control and regulation electronics. Wing position and torsion can be monitored via two-way ZigBee protocol radio communication and can be adjusted and optimized in real time during flight.

There’s a bit more technical analysis and benefits Festo says they’ve acquired from studying their seagull – in the article. “Another plus is that it won’t try and steal your chips at the beach.”

A book advising dentists on how to run their practices Mongolian warlord style has won the Diagram prize for oddest book title of the year.

Managing a Dental Practice the Genghis Khan Way, by former dentist Michael Young, offers a guide on how to build an empire in the dentistry field. It includes chapters on managing conflict situations, team building and “planning for disaster”…

In his book, Young argues that despite the western world viewing the legendary warrior in negative terms, his warmongering tenacity is required to build a successful business.

Its closest rival was 8th International Friction Stir Welding Symposium Proceedings, which details the development and application of friction stir welding at a German symposium last May…

This year’s other shortlisted titles were What Colour Is Your Dog?, The Italian’s One-Night Love-Child, Myth of the Social Volcano and The Generosity of the Dead.

Previous winners of the prize include Living with Crazy Buttocks, Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers, How to Avoid Huge Ships and Highlights in the History of Concrete.

Rock on Michael Young. I can’t wait to see if my dentist has read this, yet.

John Morse – the worst offender

A US Jesuit order has agreed to pay $166.1 million to compensate nearly 500 victims of decades-long “horrific” sexual and psychological abuse by priests in five US states…

The US Northwest chapter of the Rome-based Society of Jesus agreed to the payout — which lawyers said is the biggest by a religious organization in the United States — as part of bankruptcy proceedings.

Most of those abused by priests from the Oregon Province — the Jesuit order which covers the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana — were Native Americans at mission schools on Indian reservations.

“This settlement recognizes that the Jesuits betrayed the trust of hundreds of young children in their care, and inflicted terrible atrocities upon them,” said lawyer Blaine Tamaki.

“These religious figures should have been responsible for protecting children, but instead raped and molested them,” he added…

Forty-nine of the victims represented by Tamaki were sexually abused when they were eight or younger.

The settlement also asks the Jesuits to provide a written apology to the victims, and share documents of importance to victims, such as their personal medical records, he said.

The abuse took place from the 1940s and continued through to the 1990s…

The Jesuit Chapter is in bankruptcy court – claiming the Catholic order can’t afford to compensate the victims of their priests.

The “unusable” bikini photo

A US beauty contest winner who claimed she was stripped of her crown because she had gained weight has won her courtroom fight to regain the title.

Seventeen-year-old Domonique Ramirez claimed pageant officials in Texas had told her to “get off the tacos”. Organisers of the Miss San Antonio contest said she was dismissed because she had breached her contract.

After nearly 12 hours of deliberation, jurors in Bexar County, Texas, ruled in favour of Ms Ramirez…

“This is about principle, this is about what’s right,” the 5ft 8in, 129lb Ms Ramirez said after the verdict on Thursday…

During the week-long trial, pageant director Linda Woods said the teenager had turned up to a bikini shoot overweight, making the pictures “unusable”.

Ms Ramirez told the court that pageant bosses had said she “needed to lay off the tacos and the junk food“…

Jury foreman Jesse Sanchez told the local newspaper, the Express-News, that the verdict was a “a hard decision”. She declined to divulge what damages and fees were awarded to Ms Ramirez.

Now that she has her title back, Ms Ramirez is eligible to compete for the titles of Miss Texas and Miss America.

The judges appointed a replacement while all this was going on – but Domonique says she’s perfectly willing to move on and compete alongside the substitute, Ashley Dixon, in the follow-on contests that can lead to Miss America.

If I only had a heart…

General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

While General Electric is one of the most skilled at reducing its tax burden, many other companies have become better at this as well. Although the top corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, companies have been increasingly using a maze of shelters, tax credits and subsidies to pay far less.

In a regulatory filing just a week before the Japanese disaster put a spotlight on the company’s nuclear reactor business, G.E. reported that its tax burden was 7.4 percent of its American profits, about a third of the average reported by other American multinationals. Even those figures are overstated, because they include taxes that will be paid only if the company brings its overseas profits back to the United States. With those profits still offshore, G.E. is effectively getting money back.

RTFA. Long, detailed, persuasive.

The other half of the equation is populated with former bureaucrats, members of Congress and similarly crime-inclined citizens with the connections to help bend, break and otherwise aid our corporate barons avoid any responsibility for funding this nation. Yup. It’s still just up to us.