December 10, 2010
Science Friday: An Oliver Sacks “Desktop Diary”
Science Friday: The brilliant Oliver Sacks shows his desktop treasures. Here or below.
December 9, 2010
Fresh Air: NYT Defends Decision to Publish WikiLeaks Docs
WHYY’s “Fresh Air” interviews The New York Times’ chief Washington correspondent David Sanger on the paper’s decision to publish the WikiLeaks documents. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), for one, has called for an investigation. Listen below, and decide if the public’s right to know trumps the government’s desire to prevent disclosure of sensitive national security information.
December 7, 2010
Obama Announces Tax Cut Framework
President Obama tonight announced the outlines of a deal to temporarily extend the Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans, including the wealthiest, signaling he was not willing to gamble on a prolonged fight on taxes during this persistent recession and at a time when his leverage with lawmakers is at a low ebb following the 2010 mid-terms in which the Democrats lost their majority in the House. The president said a 13-month Unemployment Insurance extension and various middle-class tax provisions are included in the overall deal, which is expected to cost many hundreds of billions of dollars (exact figures are hard to come by right now). Ezra Klien has more on the not-yet-finalized details.
“I have no doubt that everyone will find something in this compromise that they don’t like,” the president said in a statement. “In fact, there are things in here that I don’t like — namely the extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and the wealthiest estates. But these tax cuts will expire in two years. And I’m confident that as we make tough choices about bringing our deficit down, as I engage in a conversation with the American people about the hard choices we’re going to have to make to secure our future and our children’s future and our grandchildren’s future, it will become apparent that we cannot afford to extend those tax cuts any longer.”
Enough House and Senate Democrats — many of whom are extremely grumpy about the higher bracket tax-cut extension but even more mad they can’t do much to stop it — will have to join with Republicans to pass the legislation that embodies the plan. In the Senate, that means 60 votes.
December 3, 2010
Science Friday: NASA Funding Leads to “Life” Discovery
Science Friday: NASA-funded research has led to a discovery that life can be built with an alternative biochemistry. For complicated reasons, this is very significant in the search for life beyond Earth. From the release:
“NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth. Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.”
(Below, a video primer on the discovery.)
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December 1, 2010
The Report is In: US Military Can Handle DADT Repeal
Robert Gates et al. release the long-awaited report on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal. The major conclusion is what most of us know already: the military can handle this change and will accept it. Now it’s up to Congress to act: let gays serve this country openly. Below, an embed of today’s press conference on the release of the report.