Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, June 17, 2014.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: The Scientist by Coldplay
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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Georgia carries out first US execution since botched attempt
By (BBC)
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The US state of Georgia has carried out the first execution in the US since a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma in April.
Marcus Wellons, who raped and killed a 15-year-old in 1989, died by injection of a single drug late on Tuesday.
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Officials in Oklahoma halted the execution of Clayton Lockett in April after he began making noises, and he died of a heart attack less than an hour later.
Like Oklahoma, Georgia and Missouri refuse to say where they are obtaining drugs for lethal injections, or if they are tested.
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Whistleblower Crackdowns, Self-Censorship, Stonewalled FOIAs: The 1st Amendment Under Attack
By Peter Van Buren
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Among the many offenses against liberty in pre-constitutional America, one pivotal event, the Stamp Act of 1765, stands out. To enforce the taxes imposed by the Act, the king's men used "writs of assistance" that allowed them to burst into any home or business, with or without suspicion of wrongdoing. American privacy was violated and property ransacked, often simply as a warning of the king's power. Some colonist was then undoubtedly the first American to mutter, "But if I have nothing to hide, why should I be afraid?" He soon learned that when a population is categorically treated as a potential enemy, everyone has something to hide if the government claims they do.
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According to Washington lawyer Abbe Lowell, who defended Stephen Kim, significant amounts of time have been spent by the Department of Justice in the search for a legal rationale for indicting journalists for their participation in exposing classified documents. A crucial test case is James Risen's 2006 book, State of War, which had an anonymously sourced chapter on a failed CIA operation to disrupt Iran's nuclear program. When Risen, citing the First Amendment, refused to identify his source or testify in the trial of the former CIA officer accused of being that source, the government sought to imprison him. He responded that "the Obama administration... wants to use this case and others like it to intimidate reporters and whistleblowers. But I am appealing to the Supreme Court because it is too dangerous to allow the government to conduct national security policy completely in the dark."
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Almost 13 years after the 9/11 attacks, it remains wartime. For the war on terror, the driver, excuse, and raison d'être for the tattering of the Bill of Rights, there is no end in sight. Recently retired NSA head Keith Alexander is typical of key figures in the national security state when he claims that despite, well, everything, the country is at greater risk today than ever before. These days, wartime is forever, which means that a government working ever more in secret has ever more latitude to decide which rights in which form applied in what manner are still inalienable.
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One key factor remains missing in such a version of post-9/11 events in America: the people. Even today, 45% of Americans, when polled on the subject, agree that torture is sometimes necessary and acceptable to gain information that may protect the public. Americans as a group seem unsure about whether the NSA's global and domestic surveillance is justified, and many remain convinced that Edward Snowden and the journalists who published his material are criminals. The most common meme related to whistleblowers is still "patriot or traitor?" and toward the war on terror, "security or freedom?"
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Apple settles $840m ebook price-fixing case
By Samuel Gibbs
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Apple has settled its case with US states and consumers over ebook price fixing, according to a filing with a New York court made on Monday.
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The settlement avoids a trial that could has seen as much as $840m (£495m) in claims against Apple and follows similar settlements made by the fivebig publishers also involved in the price fixing. The plaintiffs claimed Apple overcharged consumers by $280m for books and that the company should have to pay three times that amount.
Apple following suit
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The case alleged that in 2009 Apple and the publishers conspired to set ebook prices across the industry in an attempt to break Amazon’s hold of the market, which at the time saw the Seattle-based company claim around 90% of ebook sales, sometimes selling them at a loss to boost sales of its Kindle ebook reader and tablets.
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International |
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GCHQ claims right to do warrantless mass interception of all webmail, search and social media
By Cory Doctorow
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The UK spy agency GCHQ says it doesn't need a warrant to intercept and store all UK social media traffic, search history and webmail because it is headed offshore, so it's "foreign communications". It had kept this interpretation of English and Welsh law a secret until now, and only revealed it after a protracted legal battle with the excellent people at Privacy International and six other civil liberties groups, including Amnesty International, and ACLU.
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In a statement, GCHQ said all its work "is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate".
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"Intelligence agencies cannot be considered accountable to parliament and to the public they serve when their actions are obfuscated through secret interpretations of Byzantine laws."
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Sri Lanka riots prompt international concern
By (Al Jazeera)
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Foreign governments and organisations have expressed concern as reports of deadly rioting and arson attacks by Buddhist mobs in Sri Lanka continue for the second day.
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For her part, Navi Pillay, the UN human rights chief, expressed concern that the religious riots could spread to other areas of Sri Lanka and demanded that the government immediately bring the perpetrators of Sunday's attacks to justice.
"The government must urgently do everything it can to arrest this violence, curb the incitement and hate speech which is driving it, and protect all religious minorities," she said in a statement issued in Geneva, Switzerland.
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Local Muslim leaders are accusing authorities of doing little to prevent the deadly riots that have made hundreds of Muslims homeless after attacks on their homes, shops, factories, mosques and even a nursery.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Hillary Clinton won’t discuss Keystone XL
By John Upton
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Hillary Clinton is talking up a storm as she promotes her new book on TV shows and at readings across the country, but there’s one subject she doesn’t feel like chatting about: the Keystone XL pipeline.
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Our relationship is so much bigger and more important than any one decision – even one as important as this is. Canada is critical to who we are and what we hope to do together in the future. We have no better relationship. [But] this particular decision is a very difficult one because there are so many factors at play. I can’t really comment at great length because I had responsibility for it and it’s been passed on and it wouldn’t be appropriate, but I hope that Canadians appreciate that the United States government – the Obama administration – is trying to get it right. And getting it right doesn’t mean you will agree or disagree with the decision, but that it will be one based on the best available evidence and all of the complex local, state, federal, interlocking laws and concerns.
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Taking a position on such a highly-charged issue later won’t be easy. Doing so now would prove politically impossible. It’s no-brainer for Clinton to steer clear of one for as long as she can.
But it’s a pretty weak dodge for a woman touting a book entitled Hard Choices. |
Judge ordered US military to turn over its video of Gitmo force-feedings. So military stopped filming.
By Xeni Jardin
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Attorneys representing a Guantanamo detainee who was force-fed in a brutal, abusive manner have entered into evidence, as part of a lawsuit filed on the man's behalf, three videos shot by military guards at the prison. . .
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U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler had ordered the U.S. military to hand over 28 videos of the force-feedings in May and gave them until Friday to submit the footage. The process of force-feeding, depicted in the videos, includes the deployment of what's called a “Forcible Cell Extraction” team to detainees who appear resistant.
Rabbani's affidavit says authorities have stopped filming all force-feeding sessions in response to Kessler's order to hand the tapes over to lawyers. “It is a great shame as I would always describe loudly for the camera what was being done to me,” Rabbani said in the affidavit.
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
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This song is about a scientist who is so caught up in his work that he neglects his girlfriend, but realizes it eventually and wants to "go back to the start" and begin fresh.
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Chris Martin (from Rolling Stone July 14, 2005): "On the second album I was thinking there was something missing. I was in this really dark room in Liverpool, and there was a piano so old and out of tune. I really wanted to try and work out the George Harrison song 'Isn't It A Pity,' but I couldn't. Then this song came out at once. I said, 'Can you turn on the recorder?' The first time I sung it is what's out there."
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In a track-by-track reveal Martin explained the development of the song: "That's just about girls. It's weird that whatever else is on your mind, whether it's the downfall of global economics or terrible environmental troubles, the thing that always gets you most is when you fancy someone."
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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UK government gives green light to offshore windfarm
By (theguardian.com)
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An offshore windfarm which could become one of the largest in the world has been given the green light by the UK government.
Development of the East Anglia One windfarm, off the coast of Suffolk, will involve the installation of up to 240 turbines and, once built, will generate enough electricity to power around 820,000 homes.
The scheme is expected to support almost 2,900 jobs during construction and operation and bring more than £520 million of investment into the UK economy, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said.
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Obama to expand marine reserves and crack down on seafood black market
By Suzanne Goldenberg
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Barack Obama used his executive powers as president on Tuesday to create the world's largest marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing, mining and oil exploration in a vast expanse of the Pacific.
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Seeking to deflect an anticipated Republican backlash against his use of his executive authority, Obama said he was following the lead of earlier presidents by expanding an existing protection zone.
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Scientists believe as much as a third of the wild-caught seafood sold in US is landed by illegal fishing trawlers, undermining efforts to sustainably manage stocks
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Other environmental groups praised the action on illegal fishing, but urged Congress to implement a treaty that would put identification numbers on all fishing vessels and curb landings of illegal fish catches.
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How to Grow Food in the Middle of a Desert Using Seawater
By Sarah Zhang
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As conventional sources of clean water dry up, we're looking ever farther, wider, and deeper. In a long feature on unusual sources of water, Nature leads us somewhere especially unexpected—into the middle of a desert. The Sahara Forest Project wants to prove we can green the desert, turning barren land into oases of cucumbers and melons. And the water? It'll come from the sea.
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At one end, salt water is trickled over a gridlike curtain so that the prevailing wind blows the resulting cool, moist air over the plants inside. This cooling effect allowed the Qatar facility to grow three crops per year, even in the scorching summer. At the other end of the greenhouse is a network of pipes with cold seawater running through them. Some of the moisture in the air condenses on the pipes and is collected, providing a source of fresh water.
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The facility also takes advantage of one natural resource in abundance in the desert: sun. Solar panels generate electricity for the pump systems, and excess electricity can go toward desalination of additional seawater.
Last year, the Sahara Forest Project harvested the first crops from its pilot location in the Qatari desert. Their yield was comparable to a traditional greenhouse of the same size, and now they're aiming to build a larger test facility in Jordan. As all new tech goes, this is currently an incredibly expensive way to grow some salad. That could change, though, especially in an increasingly thirsty world.
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Science and Health |
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Move over, silicon, there's a new circuit in town
By (ScienceDaily)
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When it comes to electronics, silicon will now have to share the spotlight. In a paper recently published in Nature Communications, researchers from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering describe how they have overcome a major issue in carbon nanotube technology by developing a flexible, energy-efficient hybrid circuit combining carbon nanotube thin film transistors with other thin film transistors. This hybrid could take the place of silicon as the traditional transistor material used in electronic chips, since carbon nanotubes are more transparent, flexible, and can be processed at a lower cost.
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The new technology also has major medical implications. Currently, memory used in computers and phones is made with silicon substrates, the surface on which memory chips are built. To obtain medical information from a patient such as heart rate or brainwave data, stiff electrode objects are placed on several fixed locations on the patient's body. With this new hybridized circuit, however, electrodes could be placed all over the patient's body with just a single large but flexible object.
With this development, Zhou and his team have circumvented the difficulty of creating n-type carbon nanotube TFTs and p-type IGZO TFTs by creating a hybrid integration of p-type carbon nanotube TFTs and n-type IGZO TFTs and demonstrating a large-scale integration of circuits. As a proof of concept, they achieved a scale ring oscillator consisting of over 1,000 transistors. Up to this point, all carbon nanotube-based transistors had a maximum number of 200 transistors.
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The next step for Zhou and his team will be to build more complicated circuits using a CNT and IGZO hybrid that achieves more complicated functions and computations, as well as to build circuits on flexible substrates.
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Is 'pink slime' making a comeback?
By Brooks Hays
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More than two years after a media firestorm had restaurants and meat producers running from even the slightest association with so-called "pink slime," and roughly a year since pink slime makers filed a defamation suit against newsmakers, the mystery meat product is apparently making its way back into an array of meat products.
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A severe drought across the Western U.S. -- as well as a number of other relevant market and environmental factors -- have pushed beef prices to $4 a pound, up from $2.25 in 2010. High prices make a cheap filler like pink slime popular.
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As Martin told NPR, pink slime is just lean beef trimmings treated with citric acid to kill bacteria. But it turned people off, and Cargill and others paid dearly.
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Technology |
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YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service
By Stuart Dredge and Dominic Rushe
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Independent artists could disappear from YouTube "in a matter of days" after the Google video service confirmed it was dropping content from independent labels that have not signed up for its upcoming subscription music service.
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His confirmation that YouTube will block videos from labels that do not sign licensing deals for the new premium tier will be hugely controversial among indie labels, with trade body WIN already filing a complaint to the European Commission about its negotiating strategy.
. . . Their licensing agency Merlin estimates that indies collectively account for a 32.6% market share of the recorded music industry's sales and streams.
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The move comes as Amazon too has begun to flex its muscles in ways that limit the content its customers can receive. Amazon is delaying shipments and refused pre-orders for some titles from Hachette, publisher of Harry Potter author JK Rowling, and home to David Baldacci, Stephen Colbert, David Foster Wallace and others.
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Do we need to rescue our kids from the digital world?
By Jane Wakefield
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These digital natives understand the etiquette of the digital world - how to text, how to email, how to get wi-fi and how to watch whatever they want, whenever they want. And homework is a whole lot easier now that they have the virtual font of all knowledge at the their fingertips - Google.
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All the data our children are creating and uploading, coupled with their casual ability to bring their friends into the house via a tablet screen, makes parents question whether they are growing up in a world where privacy just won't mean anything.
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A lot of it comes down to sensible parenting, thinks Mr Tapscott.
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"Children don't learn the way we learnt, but the classroom hasn't changed since the industrial revolution."
While there are plenty of schools doing innovative stuff with technology, there is also evidence that many teachers remain scared of its potential.
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China signs £14bn trade deals with UK amid Premier's visit
By (BBC)
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The BBC understands the projects the state-owned China Development Bank (CDB) wants to invest in include High Speed 2 and the next generation of nuclear power stations.
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The agreement will encourage CDB lending in the UK as well as trading in China's currency, the renminbi, which will open up trade opportunities in China to British businesses.
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Downing Street has previously insisted the route will be wholly funded by the taxpayer, but a large investor could come in to run the service or to build stations and ancillary connecting services. The first part of the 250mph line to Birmingham is due to open in 2026.
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CDB is one of the biggest players in infrastructure development loans worldwide and is seen as an arm of Beijing's economic development policy as well as an extension of the country's "soft power" around the globe.
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Cultural |
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UAE: Parents reject free child car seats
By (BBC)
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Parents in the United Arab Emirates are rejecting road safety campaigns urging them to use car safety seats for their children, even when the seats are given away for free, it seems.
Despite road safety initiatives, adults believe that their youngsters are safer in their arms rather than "heartless" car seats, Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper reports, citing a study by UAE University. The research found that only one in five parents use them for their infants, with seats given away for free by hospitals "found unused and gathering dust at home". With the average Emirati family having 3.69 children, parents complained that seats took up too much space in the car, The National said.
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The World Health Organisation says that the correct use of car seats can reduce the likelihood of car crash deaths by 70% in infants, leading to the study to conclude that "urgent legislative action and enforcement" was required in the United Arab Emirates.
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Letter from Africa: Are men still the bosses in Ghana?
By Elizabeth Ohene
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Unfortunately, the reality is that there are lots of people around here whose fathers don't feature in anyway in their lives, and it is not surprising that the Fathers' Day celebrations don't get much traction here.
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But I am beginning to think that maybe fathers in Ghana don't really need such a campaign.
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The children would know, for example, that fathers get the choicest parts of the meat even if they don't give housekeeping money.
They would know that in this country fathers can appear with two bottles of schnapps and claim paternity of a 25-year-old that they had taken no interest in from birth.
In other words, I shouldn't really be worrying about fathers not being made a fuss over publicly in Ghana - our men believe they are the bosses and the next generation of Ghanaians are being brought up to continue to see them as the bosses.
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |