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Wednesday, 22 April 2009
1. Ex-Consumers Union exec in top US antitrust staff
Reuters
April 22, 2009
Washington, April 22 (Reuters) - A former vice president for advocacy group Consumers Union has been named a top antitrust official at the U.S. Justice Department, according to a statement issued on Wednesday.
Gene Kimmelman, most recently Consumers Union's vice president for federal and international affairs, was named to be chief counsel for competition policy and intergovernmental relations by Christine Varney, confirmed on Monday as the new assistant attorney general for antitrust....
CARL SHAPIRO, who was named deputy assistant attorney general for economic analysis, is a former economist in the department who worked on the landmark Microsoft Corp ... antitrust case. He will be taking a leave of absence from the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, WHERE HE TEACHES ECONOMICS. Full Story
2. Berkeley's Opinion Space Maps Online
New visualization tool groups like-minded commentators into "opinion clusters" to facilitate better communication.
Information Week
April 22, 2009
THE BERKELEY CENTER FOR NEW MEDIA AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, has launched a new visualization and mapping system to encourage dialogue between Internet users who post comments online.
"Opinion Space" is an experimental opinion visualization system that represents people's viewpoints in relation to each other. Opinions appear as stars in a constellation that puts like viewpoints together and differing opinions farther apart.
"New tools are needed to actively engage online groups in dialogue and decision-making on topics ranging from art to public policy to zoology," U.C. BERKELEY PROFESSOR KEN GOLDBERG, who is on the team that's developing the system, said in a statement released Wednesday....
"Massive collaboration is driven by passionate people with divergent viewpoints who come from all walks of life," Wikimedia communications director Jay Walsh said in a prepared statement. "UC Berkeley's Opinion Space is an exciting new visual model that helps people learn about and interact with each other. This kind of mutual awareness could have far-reaching implications."...
[Other stories on this topic appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle Online and Network World] Full Story
3. Siemens donates software to University of California’s CITRIS program
San Francisco Business Times
April 21, 2009
A Siemens unit donated $57 million worth of engineering software to the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA for its CITRIS computer research program.
The grant is from Siemens PLM Software in Plano, Texas, north of Dallas. It goes to the university's CENTER FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH IN THE INTEREST OF SOCIETY, set up on four campuses — BERKELEY, Davis, Santa Cruz and Merced.
SHANKAR SASTRY, UC BERKELEY'S DEAN OF ENGINEERING, said the software will be used in design project courses at the university....
The new CITRIS headquarters building on UC Berkeley’s campus, Sutardja Dai Hall, has been delayed slightly — though it opened in late February, equipment is still being installed and the structure won’t be fully functional until June 1. The building is in the northeast corner of campus, where other engineering and computer science buildings are located.... Full Story
4. Poetic Master of Biblical Translation Receives Award
Jewish Journal of Greater L.A.
April 22, 2009
ROBERT ALTER is the 2009 recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award, a lifetime achievement award named after my late father and given each year by the Los Angeles Times....
Born in New York City in 1935 and educated at Columbia and Harvard, Alter has long served as Class of 1937 PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AT THE BERKELEY CAMPUS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA....
I suspect that most readers know Robert Alter through the books that are required reading in “Bible as literature” classes on campuses across America, including “The Art of Biblical Narrative,” “The Art of Biblical Poetry” and (with Frank Kermode) “The Literary Guide to the Bible.”...
More recently, Alter has composed a series of translations and commentaries that approach the ancient texts with the full arsenal of his literary scholarship and his critical sensibility, his poet’s ear for language and his mastery of biblical Hebrew....
Many recipients of lifetime-achievement awards are uncomfortable about the honor because it is regarded as a capstone rather than a milestone. Perhaps the most important thing that readers need to know about Robert Alter is that he continues to deploy new examples of his scholarship with the same powerful curiosity that has characterized his work from the outset, and his newest book — “American Prose and the King James Version” — is scheduled for publication later this year. Full Story
5. Different approaches for two men at center of 'torture memo' controversy
While John Yoo fiercely defends his legal justification for harsh interrogation tactics before a skeptical crowd in Orange County, federal appeals court Judge Jay Bybee maintains a low profile.
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
April 22, 2009
As demands mounted Tuesday for sanctions against Bush administration lawyers who wrote so-called torture memos, one fiercely defended his legal justification for harsh interrogation tactics while another stuck to a carefully honed policy of silence.
LAW PROFESSOR JOHN C. YOO confronted the allegations that he bent the law to condone violations of international treaties against torture. By contrast, his former boss at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, Jay S. Bybee, remained in his chambers at the Las Vegas courthouse where he holds a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals court judge.
Bybee ... has maintained a low profile, declining to talk about his role in shaping the administration's treatment of terror suspects.
Bybee's approach contrasts sharply with that of YOO, his former deputy, who is now a TENURED LAW PROFESSOR AT UC BERKELEY and a strong defender of the Bush administration's tactics....
Some critics of the Bush administration say Yoo has taken a disproportionate share of the public condemnation over the memos. "It's important not to focus too much on scapegoating professor Yoo. He was a subordinate of Judge Bybee," said Katherine Darmer, a professor at Chapman University School of Law, where Yoo is a visiting professor this semester. "Jay Bybee has not been held accountable for his central role in these memoranda."...
Yoo, 41, alluded to his own uncomfortable situation at the liberal university where he has tenure, thanking the Chapman administration for giving him the opportunity to escape "the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of Berkeley."
Yoo dismissed the legal arguments put forward by two fellow law professors at Chapman, Darmer and Lawrence Rosenthal, saying "they would rule out any form of coercive interrogation no matter who we had -- including and up to Osama bin Laden."...
[Other stories on this topic appeared in more than 350 sources nationwide, including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal (link by subscription only), another in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times Online, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, and NPR'S Morning Edition and Talk of the Nation (link to audios)] Full Story
6. Law Blog: Here It Is: The 2009 U.S. News Law-School Ranking
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
April 22, 2009
One piece of advice we got before applying to LAW SCHOOL was this: Go to the best law school you get into. For us, that just meant applying to a whole bunch and going to the one rated highest on the U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings.
...[Let's] bring you this year’s rankings, at least through the top 35. They are: 1. Yale, 2. Harvard, 3. Stanford, 4. Columbia, 5. NYU, 6. BERKELEY....
[Link to 2009 rankings of colleges and universities at U.S. News & World Report] Full Story
7. Gary Hirshberg Blog: Work Efficiently – It’s Good for Your (Economy’s) Health
CNBC Online
April 22, 2009
By being energy efficient, you’ll not only save money – you’ll help create jobs....
Hard to believe? More studies than you can count pour in daily, illuminating the incredible job growth and economic savings to be had simply by getting serious about energy efficiency and renewable energy.
...UC–BERKELEY RESEARCHER DAVID ROLAND-HOLST took an after-the-fact look at California’s energy efficiency investments over the last 30 years.
His conclusions:
* 1.5 million more jobs were created than would have occurred otherwise, with a $45 billion payroll;
* 50 jobs were gained for each job lost from the fossil energy sector;
* $56 billion in savings resulted; and
* California reduced its dependence on energy imports and ensured a smoother transition to the low-carbon economy of the future....
According to DAN KAMMEN, A LEADING RESEARCHER ON ENERGY AND JOBS, RENEWABLE ENERGY [AT UC BERKELEY] produces twice as many jobs as traditional fossil energy for the same amount of power. It’s not hard to see why: more labor goes into designing, manufacturing, selling, shipping, installing, and maintaining hundreds of small distributed renewable generation sources (e.g., windmills, solar photovoltaic arrays, etc.) than capital-intensive power plants and transmission lines. Better yet, more of that money stays in the local economy instead of being “exported” out of state – or worse, out of the country. Not surprisingly, our energy security also improves. And I haven’t even mentioned global warming emissions and other pollution from fossil power plants.... Full Story
8. California Report: Is Ethanol Green Enough?
KQED Radio
April 22, 2009
This week, California regulators are expected to take the next big step in the state's fight against climate change. The Air Resources Board is likely to approve new regulations for the fuel we put in our cars and trucks. The rules promise a big cut in greenhouse gas emissions, but the ethanol industry -- which promotes itself as making cleaner, more Earth-friendly fuels -- is furious with the proposed plan.
[UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR DAN KAMMEN participated in this discussion. Link to audio] Full Story
9. Astronomers Find Planet Closer to Size of Earth
New York Times (*requires registration)
April 22, 2009
European astronomers said Tuesday that they had discovered the smallest planet yet found orbiting another star. The planet could be as little as only 1.9 times as massive as the Earth and belongs to a dim red star known as Gliese 581, which lies about 20 light-years from Earth in the constellation Libra.
The star was already know to harbor at least three more massive planets. The new planet, known as Gliese 581e, is probably rocky like the Earth, but it lies in such a close orbit — only three million miles from its star — that it is surely blasted with too much radiation and heat to be livable....
“Finding Earth-like planets with lukewarm temperatures is the next great goal,” GEOFF MARCY, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, a planet-hunting rival of Dr. Mayor’s, said in an e-mail message.
“This is the most exciting discovery in exoplanets so far,” Dr. Marcy said....
[This story also appeared in the International Herald Tribune. Another appeared in the Los Angeles Times] Full Story
10. New Lick telescope will help us search for Earthlike neighbors
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
April 22, 2009
If E.T. has a home, Steve Vogt wants to find it.
This week, the planet-hunting scientist and his team of University of California-Santa Cruz astronomers are assembling a sensitive new telescope on the summit of Mount Hamilton that will search the skies for any galactic neighbors.
The long-awaited arrival of the Automated Planet Finder at Lick Observatory is a milestone in the search for a world that could sustain life. It brings us one step closer to answering the profound question: Are we alone?...
The project is led by veteran stargazer Vogt, and shared between scientists at UC-Santa Cruz and UC-BERKELEY. Vogt's team is credited with finding 160 of the 350 planets outside our solar system. However, most of these have been giant gassy orbs that can't sustain life....
In the search for life, much attention has been paid to the [UC BERKELEY-AFFILIATED] SETI search for communication from other planets, popularized in the movie "Contact." It will help, said Vogt, to narrow the search down to a neighborhood where the signal might beam from.... Full Story
11. Robots prepare to walk upside-down
New Scientist
April 22, 2009
The ability to scale walls and hang off the ceiling with gecko-like ease may be within reach - for robots at least.
METIN SITTI and Ozgur Unver of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, say their new robots - a sticky-tracked wall climber and a 16-legged ceiling walker - could tackle many jobs in the home including painting ceilings and clearing cobwebs. They could also play a part in exploration, inspection, repair and even search and rescue.
The robots could play a part in exploration, inspection, repair and even search and rescue....
The new robots ... rely on a "sticky" elastic polymer, or elastomer, that can adhere to a variety of surfaces, including wood, metal, glass and brick. The idea is to mimic the mechanism which geckos use to climb walls and walk upside down.
Geckos can cling fast, and also detach themselves easily to move on, thanks to millions of tiny hairs called setae on their toe pads. ENGINEERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, INCLUDING SITTI, showed in 2002 that the geckos' setae do this by harnessing van der Waals forces, a weak electrostatic attraction which operates only at an intermolecular level. Although each hair's attraction is tiny, the combined force provided by the huge number of hairs is enough to support the weight of the lizard.... Full Story
12. A little air pollution boosts vegetation’s carbon uptake
Aerosols bumped up world’s plant productivity by 25 percent in the 1960s and 1970s, new research suggests
Science News
April 22, 2009
The world’s vegetation soaked up carbon dioxide more efficiently under the polluted skies of recent decades than it would have under a pristine atmosphere, a new analysis in the April 23 Nature suggests. The trend hints that relying on forests and other vegetation to sequester carbon may not be effective if skies continue to clear, researchers say....
To estimate the way pollution and other aerosols affect the rate at which the world’s plants take up carbon, [Lina M. Mercado, an ecosystem modeler at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Wallingford, England] and her colleagues adjusted an ecosystem model to include the effects of diffuse radiation on vegetation. Then the team plugged in meteorological data gathered worldwide since 1901....
“I’m quite impressed that they’ve improved their [ecosystem] model to include the effect of diffuse radiation,” says DENNIS BALDOCCHI, A BIOMETEOROLOGIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. The productivity-boosting effect of diffuse radiation has been measured at many individual sites but hasn’t been estimated on a long-term basis at the global level with such models before, he adds.... Full Story
13. Does our health actually get better in some ways during a down economy?
Oregonian
April 22, 2009
People smoke less during economic downturns, which has a positive benefit on overall health....
You'd expect our health to suffer as a result, but a growing number of studies suggest the opposite occurs: The health of a population tends to improve slightly when the economy goes south....
Some experts remain skeptical, in part because of overwhelming evidence that people who lose jobs suffer poor health because of it....
And economic stress can distract or prevent some people from maintaining healthy habits, said RALPH CATALANO, A PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC HEALTH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY. In a recent study of women with newly diagnosed breast cancer, Catalano and colleagues found that during bad economic times, more cases were diagnosed in an advanced stage, suggesting women skipped or delayed getting mammograms.
Catalano questions the certainty of the statistical methods used by researchers who've reported a link between recessions and lower death rates. He said researchers using different methods to study the same times and places continue to reach conflicting conclusions about the overall effect of a shrinking economy.
"The old intuition, that bad economic times are bad for us, is probably closer to the mark," Catalano said.... Full Story
14. We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Summer Games Over Here
Bloomberg
April 22, 2009
Tokyo is flush with Olympic fever....
Count me among those who are less than enthused about welcoming the five-ring circus that is the summer games. Really, guys, please do Tokyo a favor and award the event to Chicago, Madrid or Rio de Janeiro...
...Japan doesn’t need it. The long-term benefits of staging the Olympics are highly debatable. The games precipitate construction booms, draw visitors and create jobs, albeit temporary ones. Those advantages clash with the extreme cost of staging a mega-event in the post-Sept. 11 world, the risk of fiscal waste and the disruption of unrelated businesses.
There’s much talk about the “Olympic Effect.” ECONOMISTS ANDREW ROSE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, and Mark Spiegel of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, for example, conclude that events such as the Olympics boost trade by 30 percent for host countries.
China joined the World Trade Organization just after it was awarded the 2008 games. The 1988 games in Seoul dovetailed with South Korea’s political liberalization. Spain joined the European Economic Community in 1986, the year Barcelona got the nod to host the 1992 games. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics coincided with Japan joining the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.... Full Story
15. An Effort to Save Flint, Mich., by Shrinking It
New York Times (*requires registration)
April 22, 2009
Flint, Mich. — Dozens of proposals have been floated over the years to slow this city’s endless decline. Now another idea is gaining support: speed it up.
Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods....
Planned shrinkage became a workable concept in Michigan a few years ago, when the state changed its laws regarding properties foreclosed for delinquent taxes. Before, these buildings and land tended to become mired in legal limbo, contributing to blight. Now they quickly become the domain of county land banks, giving communities a powerful tool for change.
Indianapolis and Little Rock, Ark., have recently set up land banks, and other cities are in the process of doing so. “Shrinkage is moving from an idea to a fact,” said KARINA PALLAGST, DIRECTOR OF THE SHRINKING CITIES IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. “There’s finally the insight that some cities just don’t have a choice.”... Full Story
16. Balancing Act: Is Tenure a Trap for Women?
Not if the tenure system is adapted to suit the modern realities of professors' lives.
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
April 22, 2009
The fear of failure influences many female academics to delay starting a family until after they have earned tenure. That same fear influences other women to avoid the tenure track entirely and decide that they must choose family over career....
Would women be better off without a 19th-century career model that was conceived when only men were professors and their stay-at-home wives cared for the children?
Certainly the timing of tenure is terrible for women. Today, the average age at which women can expect to receive a Ph.D. is 34. That puts the five to seven years of racing the tenure clock squarely at the end of the normal reproductive cycle. Those are the "make or break" years for female academics, in terms of both career and childbearing, not to mention the demands of raising young children. Difficult choices must be made....
The tenure system, for all its faults, must be promoted, not extinguished. But it must be made more flexible to level the playing field and suit the modern realities of professors' lives.
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
17. Blacks - African American, Immigrant and Refugee Forge Common Agenda
New America Media
April 21, 2009
In just three days, the lie that said that U.S. born African Americans reject humane immigration reform was utterly destroyed. In Baltimore, MD this weekend over fifty blacks from throughout the United States joined together to build the Black Immigration Network (BIN). The network will be made up of organizations and people of African descent who reside in the United States.
Convened by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration; Which Way Forward: African Americans, Immigration and Race; and the Third World Coalition of the American Friends Service Committee, BIN is the first national network concerned about immigration issues and racial equity issues surrounding both African Americans and immigrants of African descent....
The hate group the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has used dubious data to argue that economically immigrants negatively impact U.S. born black families. Like most of FAIR’s assertions these bigoted myths were debunked by STEVEN PITTS AT THE UC-BERKELEY LABOR CENTER, who in his presentation to BIN, showed that in a study of metropolitan areas there was no correlation between black employment and immigrant populations.... Full Story
18. Silicon Valley grows latest Calif. political class
San Francisco Chronicle
April 22, 2009
Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- Silicon Valley, the nation's center of high-tech innovation, is exporting a new kind of product — frustrated former CEOs leaping from the boardroom to politics with promises to return economic luster to the Golden State....
All the leading GOP candidates for governor next year have ties to Silicon Valley — former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who headed a tech startup, and former Rep. TOM CAMPBELL, a former Stanford business professor who represented the area in Congress for five terms....
Campbell, a FORMER business professor at Stanford and BUSINESS DEAN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, said his Silicon Valley constituents always gave him a fair hearing when he served in Congress, rather than approaching issues ideologically.
"Maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong. But there was no 'Wait a minute, the Republican Party position is X,'" said Campbell, who has since moved to Southern California....
[This story also appeared in the Sacramento Bee] Full Story
19. Welcome to the Experimental Man Blog
A blog about how leading-edge bio-science and technology is impacting individuals and society.
Technology Review
April 22, 2009
Today the Experimental Man blog moves to the Technology Review website.
This blog is an outgrowth of my new book, Experimental Man: What one man's body reveals about his future, your health, and our toxic world. In the book I report taking over 250 tests in the realms of genes, environment, brain and body and explore what these tests can tell us about one person's health, past, present, and future....
Are these tests useful? What do they tell us? And do we want to know?...
One aim is to cover how science and technology--and common sense--could reshape American healthcare as the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress debate health reform. We are living in one of those critical moments in history when crisis could shape great improvements for society--or not. Full Story
20. Animal rights activist on FBI terror list
San Francisco Chronicle
April 22, 2009
San Francisco -- The FBI added an alleged animal rights bomber from Sonoma County to its list of "Most Wanted" terror suspects Tuesday, underscoring the agency's increasing focus on such activists by lining him up next to Osama Bin Laden and 22 other Islamic extremists.
Daniel Andreas San Diego, 31, a former resident of tiny Schellville who is believed by authorities to be hiding out in Costa Rica, is the first domestic terror suspect to be added to a list that officials created a month after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001....
The FBI action comes a month after four animal rights activists were indicted on federal terrorism-related charges for allegedly harassing and threatening researchers at UC BERKELEY and UC Santa Cruz. Those protesters said their free-speech rights had been violated....
There is a $250,000 reward for information leading to San Diego's capture. Anyone with information is asked to call local police, the FBI or 911. Full Story
21. Book Review: 'Who Is Mark Twain?'
Previous uncollected stories and essays drawn mostly from his papers and correspondence show why he is so beloved.
Los Angeles Times
April 22, 2009
When he died 99 years ago this week, Mark Twain was this country's most beloved writer, yet his status as both an author and protean example of the now-familiar pop cultural celebrity seems to grow with each passing decade.
"Who Is Mark Twain?" -- a collection of 24 previously uncollected stories and essays drawn mostly from the vast archive of the author's papers and correspondence at UC BERKELEY'S BANCROFT LIBRARY -- is an entertaining reminder of why that's so....
For Twain's fans, these 24 short -- six, in fact, incomplete -- pieces are a wonderful example of that survival mechanism in operation and how it's one of the things that gives the author's relationship with both his audience and posterity the contours of what we recognize as celebrity. (They also bring into high relief the fact that Twain's progeny these days can be watched nightly on Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert shows.) Although Twain was unafraid of exposing -- to those who came after him, at least -- his process of "becoming" an artist, he also had a keen sense of just what his readers would and would not accept.
As ROBERT HIRST -- GENERAL EDITOR OF BERKELEY'S MARK TWAIN PROJECT and the selector of these pieces -- points out in his excellent and accessible introduction, Samuel Clemens liked to try things out before publishing under his pen name. One of the stories in this volume is "The Undertaker's Tale," whose conceit was, in Hirst's words, "to throw a typical Horatio Alger hero into a family of undertakers" and let things take their course.... Full Story
22. Marshall & Friends: Self-Confidence for Leaders
You won't get to the top without it. To build your self-confidence, believe in yourself, don't worry about being perfect, and put up a brave front
Business Week
April 21, 2009
I was recently teaching in a seminar for MBA STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS. A young second-year student seemed anxious to talk with me. He finally asked: "I have read your book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. In the book you talk about classic challenges faced by your clients. I noticed that you never discuss self-confidence problems. How do you deal with your client's self-confidence problems?"
This was a great question. It made me realize that I rarely encounter self-confidence problems in my work with CEOs and potential CEOs....
I will share a few suggestions about how you can build your self-confidence, as it is a key quality that leaders must possess....
*Don't worry about being perfect....
*Learn to live with failure....
*After you make the final decision—commit!...
*Show courage on the outside—even if you don't always feel it on the inside....
*Find happiness and contentment is your work.... Full Story