Eideard

It started with the denial of a growing health crisis.

Nearly 40% of Georgia’s children are overweight or obese — the second-highest rate in the nation — yet 50% of Georgians don’t consider child obesity a problem, and 75% of parents of obese children don’t think they have a problem on their hands, according to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

In response, the state’s largest pediatric health care provider crafted an ad campaign intended to highlight the roles of parents and caregivers in the widening epidemic.

The posters and TV spots of obese children with doleful eyes were as stark as their accompanying messages: “Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid,” and “It’s hard to be a little girl if you’re not,” to name a few.

“We felt that because there was so much denial that we needed to make people aware that this is a medical crisis,” said Linda Matzigkeit, chief administrative officer of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta…

As far as Children’s Healthcare is concerned, the fact that the ads sparked debate means they achieved their goal, regardless of the reaction. “If parents continue to be in denial we’re not going to get past this crisis.”

It’s a crisis that has been fostered by a culture of convenience: fast food, calorie-dense meals and the car-centric cities slowly building up to national obesity rates of 33.8% among adults and 17% in children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

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Vasik Rajlich, creator of Rybka

Players who use computers to cheat are a growing concern in the chess world. Now the developer of Rybka, the winner of the last four World Computer Chess Championships, has been accused of plagiarizing code to create the program.

Rybka has been stripped of its titles, and the developer, Vasik Rajlich, has been barred from entering programs in competitions.

The ruling on Rybka and Mr. Rajlich was made Tuesday by the International Computer Gaming Association, the group that organizes the championships. It concluded that Mr. Rajlich, who has American and Czech citizenship and lives in Poland, had used source code from programs called Crafty and Fruit…

The group’s president, David Levy, who is also an international master, said in an e-mail that Mr. Rajlich had been invited to defend himself but declined to do so.

When questions were first raised about Rybka earlier this year, Mr. Rajlich wrote on a forum on his program’s Web site that “Rybka is and always was completely original code, with the exception of various low-level snippets which are in the public domain.”…

Mark A. Lemley, a Stanford law professor who specializes in science and technology issues, wrote in an e-mail that because Fruit and Crafty are freely available may mean that Mr. Rajlich is not guilty of misconduct if he copied some of the code. But, Mr. Lemley added, “I can see why the Computer Gaming Association might want to prohibit it under its rules.”

Larry Kaufman, a grandmaster who helped Mr. Rajlich in the development of Rybka, but who now works on a rival called Komodo, said in an e-mail that he believed only earlier versions of Rybka were based on Fruit and Crafty.

This gets into the issue of what we have lost in chess as a result of computers. We have gained so much as well.

I look forward to following the discussions on this one.

A Pentagon investigation has found insufficient evidence that General Stanley McChrystal, the former US and Nato commander in Afghanistan sacked by Barack Obama last year, violated military policy.

McChrystal’s dismissal came after publication of an article in Rolling Stone, The Runaway General, which portrayed him and his inner circle as being out of control, and making contemptuous and dismissive remarks about the US civilian leadership…

The investigation expressed doubts about the version of some events reported in the article, written by Michael Hastings, who spent several days with McChrystal and his team. The investigation added that it could not substantiate some of the quotes.

The investigation, carried out by the Pentagon’s office of inspector general, concluded: “The evidence was insufficient to substantiate a violation of applicable department of defense standards with respect to any of the incidents on which we focused. Not all of the events at issue occurred as reported in the article…A polite way of saying Hastings is a liar and Rolling Stone is opportunist and unconcerned with journalistic standards.

The article, published in June last year, suggested that McChrystal was unimpressed with Obama at their first meeting, and that one of his team viewed the White House national security adviser, James Jones, as a clown. His team was also alleged to have been dismissive of vice-president Joe Biden and the late state department envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.

At the time, McChrystal apologised after the piece, saying it was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened. He flew back to Washington to see Obama, who dismissed him, saying: “The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general.”

The investigation’s conclusions open Obama to charges that he was too hasty in dismissing McChrystal.

The former general, though no longer in the army, was partially rehabilitated last week when the White House invited him to join a panel to try to improve the life of military families. The report reached the White House 3 days before the job offer.

The new investigation is more favourable to McChrystal than an initial one published in August last year.

There are lots of details in the report. Mostly boring high dudgeon over situations and context as unimportant than who gives the finger to whom in your daily commute.

It probably explains the how and why of Obama inviting General McChrystal into the Administration, last week. As admission that our news-as-entertainment-media prompted the removal of a significant military leader from the South Asian theatre. The only surprise is that the Kongressional Klowns didn’t follow through with their usual opportunism, sound bites and slapstick. Yet.

You’ll have to click on the pic, then click on the link.

What he said: “”If you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.

“Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”

As a southerner with a number of decades behind me, I have sat through many a speech and sermon where this tactic is employed. The listener is left to feel that, no matter how nice a person he may be, he is very much an outsider until he follows a few simple steps, which, of course, the speaker will be happy to provide him. The best part of all is that it is “free”. Of course, if, after the instruction, the Lord lays it upon your heart to cough up some of your money, that would be all right. We won’t stop you.

How sad that we have come so far and yet are still debating who is whose brother.

If you believe in brotherhood, you have a choice. You can accept the narrow world view reflected in the Governor’s words above, or the wider view. But whatever you do, please keep your money to buy your groceries, pay your bills, or help a brother or sister in need.

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” angered respectable people when it came out and still stirs a fuss 126 years later. Twain’s most famous novel has been paired with “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in a volume to be published next month by NewSouth Books that replaces the “N-word” — an offensive but often-used expression in the 1880s — with “slave.”…

“He walked a line where you could fall off on either side, to be much too conservative or by going so far that what you think is funny is not funny,” says Robert H. Hirst, general editor of the Mark Twain Project at the University of California at Berkeley, where the autobiography was edited, then released by the University of California Press.

“He said early on that the only criticism he’s interested in is that of the great general public. He’s aiming at this big audience. He wasn’t a `Not Ready for Primetime Player,’ like on `Saturday Night Live.’ He was a `Ready for Primetime Player’ and was watching where he was on the line.”…

“`Huckleberry Finn’ and the use of `nigger’ is the ultimate teachable moment in American literature,” [Ron] Powers says. “It cries out for conversation between teachers and students….”

The book’s editor, Twain scholar Alan Gribben, writes in the introduction that he had taught Twain’s work for years and that students were relieved when he chose not to recite any troubling words…

“That’s ridiculous,” Powers said. “It’s like people who ask what would Mark Twain think of women’s lib? You can’t assume that and then use that as a pretext for eviscerating a work of art.”

Pretending that an author wrote what he didn’t write educates no one. But then, making students feel more comfortable is not what I consider a legitimate educational goal.

In 2005, staffers in Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office slit open mail to find red-tinged pennies and threatening notes in a scene fit for a new kind of movie genre, political horror.

“Not one red cent for war in Iraq,” an accompanying letter read.

FBI agents discovered that the red substance wasn’t blood but oil-based paint. Still, the sixth letter unnerved Pelosi’s staff.

The incident is one of at least 236 investigated by the FBI in the past decade and outlined in documents obtained by POLITICO under the Freedom of Information Act. An analysis of the cases reveals that serious death threats against lawmakers plummeted in the past 10 years, just as Congress’s overall public approval cratered.

But serious threats still occur, flaring up around heated political moments in the American conversation — from funding for the Iraq War, to the Elian Gonzales incident, to Napster, to immigration reform.

“It’s interesting that specific events and legislation can trigger death threats,” said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “The popular image is that these people are crazy, not that they have policy motivations behind their anger. It’s interesting to see that connection…”

Pelosi’s office wasn’t alone in receiving Iraq War-related threats. The war seemed to be the impetus for a slew of the serious threats in the past decade.

In 2002, former Rep. Hilda Solis was sent a bullet covered in red paint. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) received a letter with “Let this be a warning” written in Latin…

Death threats flared up around other heated moments, even those unrelated to life-and-death policies…

The debate over whether Cuban refugee Elián Gonzalez should stay in the United States prompted threats from an angry group that identified itself as “the American Majority.”

“I sure hope your [sic] sorry ass is in the street the day I run it over with my truck,” the group wrote in a mailed letter to the Washington office of Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.).

In 2007, an immigration reform critic took his heated thoughts far beyond the bounds of news website comment threads, sending a letter to Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, both Republicans from South Carolina, threatening to drive to Washington “in a pickup truck loaded with dynamite” and blow up both senators if the immigration bill passed.

I’m not as surprised to see threats diminish in parallel to overall disapproval. Even nutball anarchists aren’t as likely to go off the deep end if there isn’t any alternative at all in Congress. What can you gain when the dweebs on both sides of the aisle have the courage and integrity of a hoe handle?

Anyone out there think the majority of their Congressional representatives aren’t beholden to one or another bloc of corporate lobbyists? Between the Chamber of Commerce/Oil Patch Boys, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical hustlers, there’s hardly anyone who isn’t owned. I’ll give you one or two principled individualists per state. Woo-hoo!

Groups like the Southern Baptists could never tolerate such a simple message here. After all, it’s a lot easier to apologize for supporting slavery after slavery is long gone than to begin treating people with dignity and respect whom you are mistreating today.

Which leads to the question, how much longer will we keep catering to prudes and bigots?

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Howard Dean ran for president in 2004 as the outsider ready to battle an entrenched establishment in Washington. And so, four years later, did Barack Obama.

Now, one year into Mr. Obama’s presidency, a sharp dispute between the president and Mr. Dean over the health care bill the Senate approved Thursday — Mr. Dean denounced it as a sellout, while Mr. Obama heralded it as a historic breakthrough — is illustrating the roots of the ideological breach within the Democratic party.

It is not just that the left wing of the party thinks that its centrists hold too much sway and are too quick to cave when faced with pressure from the right. It is also that this White House, stocked as it is with insiders, people whose view of politics is shaped by the compromises inherent in legislating, is confronting a liberal base made up largely of outsiders to the lawmaking process who are asking why they should accept politics as usual.

As much as Mr. Obama presented himself as an outsider during his campaign, a lesson of this battle is that this is a president who would rather work within the system than seek to upend it. He is not the ideologue ready to stage a symbolic fight that could end in defeat; he is a former senator comfortable in dealing with the arcane rules of the Senate and prepared to accept compromise in search of a larger goal. For the most part, Democrats on Capitol Hill have stuck with him.

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Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Alan Johnson signalled a significant reversal over the Government’s identity card policy…when he ruled out making them compulsory for British citizens.

The Home Secretary also abandoned plans for trials at two airports that would have required some staff and pilots to carry the cards and longer-term plans to make them compulsory for some railway station workers.

The announcement means that the only people for whom it will be compulsory to have an identity card will be foreign citizens. However, the Government is to press ahead with creating a national identity register that, from 2011-12, will include the details of everyone who applies for a passport…

The Government’s climbdown on one of its most controversial policies comes 24 hours after Gordon Brown announced a fresh legislative programme. The Tories have vowed that if elected they would abolish ID cards — at an estimated saving of £2 billion — while many Labour backbenchers are sympathetic to the arguments about the cost to civil liberties, as well to the Exchequer.

He added that British citizens would never be forced to have a card and admitted that the Government had allowed the perception to grow that the cards would be a “panacea” that would stop terrorism. Legislation to require some workers at Manchester and London City airports to have an identity card will be withdrawn, less than two months after it was put before Parliament. The schemes for new workers wishing to go airside at the airports will now be voluntary.

Idiots. I don’t support the position of quasi-religious libertarians that ID cards are the ultimate limitation of personal freedom; but, the history of British bureaucrats abusing their positions – and civil law – for political gain would qualify them for Congress or even the Pentagon.

Why would anyone trust them with the info required?

If you answered “Catholic” – you’d be correct.

Daylife/Getty Images

President Obama will speak at Notre Dame’s commencement on May 17. That is an honor to some, but an outrage to others.

Some alumni have called the campus saying they have thrown away their Fighting Irish sweatshirts in disgust. The local bishop, John D’Arcy, has vowed to boycott the graduation ceremony. A visiting high school senior, Halley Chavey, who said she was thrilled just weeks ago to be accepted here, said she might reject the offer because the college was hosting “the most pro-abortion president we’ve ever had…”

“Most of us are like, ‘Wow, the president of the United States is coming,’ ” said Brett Ensor, a Texas native who belongs to the Knights of Columbus, opposes abortion and voted for Mr. Obama’s Republican opponent, Senator John McCain. “What college wouldn’t want Obama to come? This is a tremendous honor for us…”

Notre Dame is regarded as an academic powerhouse and conservative Catholic bastion. But in a mock election here in November, Mr. Obama defeated Mr. McCain among students by about 11 percentage points. He won roughly the same margin of victory among Catholic voters in the national election…

In the view of the Rev. Richard McBrien, a prominent liberal theologian at Notre Dame, the commotion over Mr. Obama centers not on faith, but on politics.

“This crowd,” Mr. McBrien said, referring to conservative Catholics, “are simply Republicans who are upset that Obama won the election — and they want to pick a fight.”

Pretty accurate characterization of American Catholics in the article. Including their divergence from monocultural obedience as practiced by the Vatican. If this was a Catholic university in Italy, the invitation would never have been allowed.