EFTA02677625.pdf

From: Gregory Brown < Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2014 11:00 AM To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 1/12/2014 Attachments: Untitled attachment 00303.docx; Untitled attachment 00306.docx; Untitled attachment 00309.docx; Untitled attachment 00312.docx; Untitled attachment 00315.docx; Not Just About Us Thomas Friedmand_NYT_January 7, 2014.docx; Untitled attachment 00318.docx; Untitled attachment 00321.docx DEAR =RIEND Saying Farewell to a Rock Icon <http://wa.w.nytimes.com/video/2014/01/04/arts/music/100000002633285/saying- farewell-=o-a-rock-icon.html> A dear friend chas=ised me for not mentioning Phil Everly in last week's offering, because he die= last weekend at the age of 74. <=r> Web Link: http://nyti.ms/1gyyD7V =A0 Phil Everly, as half of the Everly Brothers, =nspired the Beatles, Linda Ronstadt, Simon and Garfunkel and many others who recorded t=eir songs and tried to emulate their ringing vocal alchemy. During the late =950s and early 1960s, Phil Everly and his brother, Don (now 76), ranked among the elite in the music w=rld by virtue of their pitch-perfect harmonies and emotive lyrics. Singer=Phil Everly died a week ago Friday at 74 at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank CA (an institution that I know intimately). Rolling Stone labeled the Everly Brothers "the most important vocal duo in rock," having influenced the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel and many other acts. Along the way, they notched 35 Top 100 songs -- more than any other vocal pair. The Everly Brothers' sound -- with Don's lower register generally complementing Phil's higher =oice -- was the backbone of dozens of hits. Phil and Don were born in the business, the offspring of country and western singers Margaret and Ike Everly. The Everlys sang with their parents in live shows and on the radio. In the mid-'50s, while still teenagers, they moved to Nashville to be song=riters. In 1957, they found a Felice and Boudleaux Bryant song, "Bye Bye Love." According to "The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll," 30 acts had rejected the song, but the Everlys -- with the key guitar contributions of =het Atkins, who played on many of their hits -- took the song to No. 2 on the p=p charts. "They added EFTA_R1_01972710 EFTA02677625 Bo Diddley riffs, teenage anxieties and sharkskin suits but -- for all that -- the core of their sound remained country brother harmony," read their bio on the Country Music Hall of Fame's website. After averaging a Top 10 hit every four months over the next few years, the Everl= Brothers inked a 10-year pact with Warner Brothers Records (formerly=part of CNN's parent company, Time Warner, though now ow=ed by Access Industries) in 1960. More success followed -- including "Cathy's Clown," which the duo wrote -- and they stayed particularly popular in Britain. apan style="font-size:12ptfont-family:Georgia,seritcolor:rgb(51,51,51)"= By the 1970s, the pair was performing in a band that also included legends Warren Zevon and Waddy Wachtel. But their time together=came to a sudden end in 1973, when Phil stormed off the stage during a show in California. Th= brothers reunited on stage and in the studio 10 years later, leading to more albums, including "EB 84" (including the McCartney- written "On the Wings of a Nightingale") and "Born Yesterday." Their remaining years were highlights by occasional shows, hall of fame induction= and various other honors, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. Who are the Millennials? <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?=i=2&ik=875c48a476&view=att&th=1436f30dd757c867&att=d=0.1&disp=safe&rea lattid=ii_1436130dd757c867&zw> Having two childre= born between 1982 and 2002 I should know something about Millennials Baby Boomers and there was a generation called Generation X that is in between. As a result of doing research for this piece, I discovered that prior to the Baby Boome=s, Americans born from 1901 through 1945 are called the Greatest Generation as this generation was shaped by two World Wars and the Grea= Depression and transform the United States into the greatest country in the world. And depending on what you read there are a number of sub-categories, GI Generation (1901 to =924), Silent Generation (1925 to 1925), Hippie Generation (=946 to 1964), Baby Busters (1965 to 1980), Generation X (1975 to 1980), Generation YGeneration Z (1995 to now). And as you will see some of these generations overlap because there are no =recise dates when a generation begins or ends. But again, who are th= Millennials? List of Generations Chart, web link: http://ww=.esdsl.pt/site/images/stories/isacosta/secondary_pages/10%C2%BA_blockl/Gen=rations%20Chart.pdf <http://www.esdsl.pt/site/images/stories/=sacosta/secondary_pages/10%C2%BA_blockl/Generations%20Chart.pdf> The Millennialab> generation is the generation of children born between 1982 and 2002, some 81million children who have t=ken over K-12, have already entered college and the workforce. This generati=n will replace the Baby-boomers as they retire. The Millennials have different characteristics th=n any generation before them and in order to serve them better, K-12 education and colleges =nd universities are having to change the way they do business. The Millenni=ls have grown up in a society that is very different than any group before them. They have been plugged i=to technology since they were babies, are a safe generation, are the first generation for which Hispanics/Latinos will be the largest minority group instead of African Americans and have the most educated mothers of any generation before them. They are the most scheduled generation ever, are true multi-taskers, expect to have 6-8 careers in their lifetime and are attracted to diverse environments. The=Millennial student has been a different animal for their teachers. K-12 institution=, colleges, universities and now the work force are wondering how to motivate and meet the expectations =f this generation. 2 EFTA_R1_01972711 EFTA02677626 Some have argued that the Millennials have transcended the ideological battles spawned by the counterculture of the 19=0s, which persist today in the form of culture wars. This is further documen=ed in Strauss & Howe's book titled Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation<=i>, which describes the Millennial generation as "civic-minded," reject=ng the attitudes of the Baby Boomers and Generation X. Since the =000 U.S. Census, which allowed people to select more than one racial group, "Millennials"=in abundance have asserted their right to have all their heritages respected, counted, and acknowledged. A 2013 po=1 in the United Kingdom found that Generation Y was more "o=en- minded than their parents on controversial topics". Of thos= surveyed nearly 65% supported same-sex marriage. While there was a "near-equal split" Millennials came of age in a time where the entertainment industry was affected by the Internet. American sociologi=t Kathleen Shaputis labeled Millennials as the boomerang generation or Peter Pan generation, because of the members' perceived tendency for delaying=some rites of passage into adulthood, for longer periods than most generations before them. These labels were also a reference to a trend toward members living with their parents for longer periods than previous generations. According to Kimberly Palmer, "High housing prices, the rising cost of higher education, and the relative affluence of the older generation are among the factors driving th= trend." However, other explanations are seen as contributing. Questions regarding a clear definition of what it means to be an adult also impacts a debate about delayed transitions into adulthood and the emergence of a new life stage, Emerging Adulthood. For instance, one stu=y by professors at Brigham Young University found that college students are more likely now to define "adult" based on certain personal abilities and characteristics rather than more traditional "rite of passage"=/i> events. And if you have be=n in the presence of any Millennials, they are addicted to social media and would rather text then speak. But =f there is one thing that singularly defines Millennials, it is that they are absorbed by themselves with an insatiable need for immediate gratificat=on which is often in contrast to their tolerance for others, as such they are =n interesting bunch with a world of challenges ahead and the access to an unprecedented amount of information, far more than any other previous generation. =/p> Obviously this is not true in many other countries, as Millennials in the Middle East and in European countries who have been hard hit by =he 2007/8 recession where the young people have limited employment and career prospects. These groups can be=considered to be more or less synonymous with Generation Y, or at least major sub-groups in those countries. Needless to say they are much less optimistic than their American counterparts in the Western Hemisphere =nd in Asia. Even still these people have more opportunities than previous generations. =br> As many of you may have surmised television is t=uly my mistress, but that's what happens when you grow up watching the neighbor=92s television on Sunday nights when they opened their door so that the kids an= other adults in the 3 EFTA_R1_01972712 EFTA02677627 building could sit on the stairs and watch along with t=em. At the age of eleven, I saved up enough so that I could buy my mother and me a 19 inch Philco television set. And ore of my perennial favorite television shows over the decades has been 60 Minutes. So I was truly=surprised at the hatch job journalism of last Sunday's segment, 'Cleantech Crash,'=which critics have called a "hit job," a "debacle," an =i>"about face" and even "Dumb & Dumber Part 3.&q=ot; Web Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-cleantech-crash <http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-cleantech- cr=sh> The segment is drawing sharp criticism for its pessim=stic take on the green technology sector, which questioned whether clean tech ha= become a "dirty word," arguing that renewable energy and other types of clean technology are a dying indus=ry. One of the biggest issues with the segment, critics charge, is that it conflated the Silicon Valley clean tech venture capital scene with the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program fo= renewable energy. Climate Progress' Joe Romm contends that CBS=/b> missed the point by focusing on the failure rate of private-sector startups and "(failed] to understand that the successes more than pay for the failures." =A0lt's worth noting that as many as three-quarters of all venture-backed businesses fail, the Wall Street Jo=rnal explained in 2012. Only three in 10 startups in the clean tech sector yield favorable returns for investors, according to a 2004 estimate.=/span> The New York Times recently profiled the U.S. solar industry in a front-page story, noting tha= companies are benefitting from a "solar power craze that is sweeping Wall Street." Despite =he recent U.S. oil and gas boom, the country "has more than doubled electricity generation from wind and solar" in the past four years, notes the San Jose Mercury News' Da=a Hull. "If 60 Minutes had taken just two minutes to call us, they could have gotten so=e of their facts straight," Ken John, a vice president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, told the Washington Examiner. "In truth, America's solar energy industry just closed the books on a record-shattering year in 2013." The "60 Minutes" segment also focused on th= Department of Energy's loan guarantee program, which has funneled billi=ns of dollars into low-carbon and clean-energy projects since the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The goal of the program "is not to make money," Romm notes, but to accelerate the deployment of clean ener=y technology, while dropping prices and creating jobs. Jonathan Silver, th= former head of the DOE's loan guarantee program, testified before Congress in 2012 that the portion =f grants given to ventures that later failed "represent's] less than 3% of the total portfolio." He told Fortune in June t=at the program "has been a significant success." "Markets will always have difficulty deploying innovative technologies=at scale," he explained. "Fundamentally, a program like th=s is necessary to address that market failure." Despite the successes of the program and analyses sho=ing its cost-effectiveness for taxpayers, Sunday's segment focused on two n=table failures -- automaker Fisker and solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. Whil= interviewing former Energy Department undersecretary Steven Koonin, "60 Minutes" host Les=ey Stahl rattled off seven other failures of the 4 EFTA_R1_01972713 EFTA02677628 DOE program before declaring,="I'm exhausted." Their focus on those outliers in =he DOE program, however, was "both stale and overblown," GigaOM's Katie Fehrenbacher argues. =p classeMsoNormal") To CBS' credit, it has been a rocky road for some=venture capitalists in the clean technology sector, Fehrenbacher notes. There was a bubble, but "only in the venture capital, Silicon Valley ecosystem," she explains. "60 Minutes" did itself a disservice by combining the "totally separate and different" stories of venture capital and federal support for green technology. One problem, according to Fehrenbache= is that clean tech is a "convoluted term," that "can mean many things, and isn't all that helpful as an organizing group." The segm=nt makes reference to the "general cleantech area," while discussing biofu=ls, solar panels, electric vehicles, and other widely divergent industries. Critics have also noted that the words "climate change," "global warming," "greenhouse gas emissions&qu=t; or "carbon dioxide" were never uttered in the "60 Minutes" segment. "Si=ply put, 60 Minutes is flat wrong on the facts," U.S. Department of Energy spokesman Bill Gibbons said in a= emailed statement. "The clean energy economy in America is real =nd we are increasingly competitive in this rapidly-expanding global industry. This is=a race we can, must and will win." =span style="font-size:12ptline-height:107%;font-family:Georgia,serif"><=> But for me the real issue is that it is not the failu=es that make us great, it is our successes. People forget that NASA's first launches were disasters and that 90% of start-ups fail and that is even in Silicon Valley. I wonder how many people sailed west before Columbus. And the personal computer or the cell phone did not start with Apple. We have to=get away from this sense of immediate gratification and do what the Chinese are doing taking a Ion= term view As for 60 Minutes, their resent shoddy journalism makes diehards like me long for Don Hewitt to return from=the grave, but then even under his rein the show stumbled and one of the reason= maybe because morphing journalism into entertainment to achieve ratings wit=out offending sponsors and political heavyweights in itself will lead to these types of problems/issues. It seems like every week there is a new po=itical scandal ("bridge-gate") in the country that diverts everyone's attention from fixing the many proble=s and issues currently facing the country, with the latest is the four-day closur= last September of several lanes of the George Washington Bridge that connects th= states of New York and New Jersey and is the busiest traffic bridge in the nation — the result of what New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said was polit=cal retribution by his staff. Not only was the decision to close access roads in Fort Lee, N.J. skullduggery, it may have =iolated Federal Law and the laws of both States. More importantly it caused a massive traffic jam inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of commuter and business traffic, as well as potentially endan=ering lives. Emails released earlier this week suggest that Christie's senior advisors had concocted a plan to cause a massive traffic jam in Fort Lee to punish t=e town's Democrat mayor, Mark Sokolich, for not endorsing Republican Christ=e's November reelection. At a lengthy news conference Thursday, Christie apologized for the action and said he had no idea his aides had be=n involved. Even if we take him for his word we should be outraged that a =roup of Americans believed that this type of behavior was okay. 5 EFTA_R1_01972714 EFTA02677629 =p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center"> <http://www.toledoblade.com/image/2014/01/09/800x_bl_cCM_z/Traff=c-Mystery.jpg> At the news conference Thursday, Christie =eferred to the lane closings as a "rogue political operation." "I am =tunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here," Christie said. "This was handled in = callous and indifferent way, and this is not the way this administration has conduc=ed itself over the last four years." Christie took reporters' questions at the packed news conference in his office t=at lasted nearly two hours. He appeared contrite, describing himself repeatedly as "heartbroken" and apologizing several times to the public, and even to the media. Toward t=e end of his lengthy appearance he visibly relaxed, leaning against the podium, and resorted to more typical f=rm, calling one reporter's question "crazy." He later visited For= Lee and apologized to Mayor Mark Sokolich, who told reporters he accepted the apology. On Thursday Christie fired one of his top aides, Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly "because she lied to me"."callous indifference" displayed by Stepien in the emails released Wednesday. Stepien had widely been seen as a potential campaign manager for Christie if he runs for president. C=ristie said he is still looking into the traffic jam episode and will take action against other senior staff members=if it is warranted. Christie said he is still looking into the traffic jam episode and will take action against oth=r senior staff members if it is warranted. Over =nd over at Thursday's press conference, Christie took responsibility for the affair by virtue of his role as governor while simultaneously blaming his staff for doing something "stupid" and=for not telling him the truth when he asked. He said he saw the emails and text messages for the first time on Wednesday and was "blindsided" by what he read and outraged by th= callous language. He said he was left "heartbroken" and "betrayed" by his tight-knit circle of advisers. "I ha= no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or execution," Christie said of the lane closings. "And I am stunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here." Emails released Friday by the New Jersey Assembly undersco=e the dangerous situation New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's aides created =y closing access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, with the head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey worrying that people may h=ve died. In an email to subordinates the morning of Sept. 13 -- several days into the lane closures -- Patrick Foye, Port Authority executive director, said he believed traffic congestion may =ave hindered first responders. "This hasty and ill-advised decision has resulted in delays to emergency vehicles=/i>," he wrote. "I pray that no life has been lost or trip of a hospital-or hospice-bound patient delayed."=A0 The lane closings did delay emergency personnel from responding to four incidents, including a 91-year-old suffer=ng cardiac arrest, who later died. =/p> 6 EFTA_R1_01972715 EFTA02677630 I don't want to say anymore on this issue becau=e the tabloid media, blogosphere, cable news pundits, Jersey Democrats and politi=al rivals in his own Republican Party will chew on this bone with the zeal of Donald Trump's demanding Barrack Obama producing his long-form birth certificate and Congressman Darrell Issa's continual attempt to link Hill=ry Clinton to the terrorist attack in Benghazi in 2012. My question is that=if Christie is telling the truth, why would his aides believe that they could use "dirty tric=s" as retribution because politician from a different party did not support their man? =e are seeing this type of dysfunctional, dangerous and divisive behavior across the country. This week I saw a news piece on NBC where RNC Chairman Reince Priebus presented a list of fantasy scandals that include the Rose Law Firm, the attempt to reform healthcare in 1992, to Fast and Furious gun policy and Benghazi as a reason that Hillary Clinton is unqualified to run for Preside=t even though all of those were manufactured and all have been proven to be false, and she hasn't even announced her candidacy. W=ether these are Republicans or Democrats perpetuating this type of behavior, or the dog eat=dog 24/7 broadcast cycle that presents this as news instead of trying to tackle some of the major challenges facing the country, such as our deteriorating infrastructure, disastrous public education system, chronic long-term unemp=oyment, culture of violence, worsening environmental situations across the country =nd the weakening of the safety net protecting the elderly, poor, children and infirmed. We have to stop hating? And the currently Christie scandal is the latest example of how this type of ha=red can manifest into people believing that they can subvert their authority to damage others without consequence. The country is spending tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars each year t= protect us from North Korea, Iran and other imaginary threats when the one thing that can and will destroy us is rot from within. I hope that you are as disgusted as I am, not because of the latest specific event but because a group of Americans felt that this type of behavior is okay.=br> <=b> <http://i.huf=post.com/gen/1056441/thumbs/r-CITIGROUP-MONEY-LAUNDERING-large570.jpg> This week Reuters posted the article — Feds Probe Banks For Mortgage Misdeeds After Financial Crisis. The article said that although federal regulators are probing whether several big banks deliberat=ly mispriced mortgage bonds in the years following the financial crisis, the <=>Wall Street Journal reported, citing people close to the inquiry, that a new investigation is a potential blow t= the banks as they have already paid billions of dollars in penalties and fines =o various federal agencies following scrutiny of their conduct leading up to =nd during the market panic of 2008. Banks continued to hold billions of dollars in h=rd-to-price assets on their books even in the aftermath of the credit crisis. Regula=ors are now seeking information about whether banks made "significant misrepresentations" about some of those assets to make deals, the Journal said. The probe focuses on whether =raders bought or sold residential mortgage-backed securities at artificially depre=sed or inflated values from around 2009 through 2011, the paper said. The ot=er parties in such deals would typically be rival banks, hedge funds and other large investment firms, according to the paper. The banks being probed include Barclays Plc, Citigroup=Inc, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and UBS=AG. The investigation, which began less than a year ago, is still 7 EFTA_R1_01972716 EFTA02677631 at an early stage and may not lead to enforcement action. Subpoenas have been sen= to several firms to gather information, according to the newspaper. The pro=e is being conducted by the Securities and Exchange (SEC) and the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Sigtarp). Spokesmen for the SEC, Sigtarp and JPMorgan declined to comment to the newspaper. RBS spokeswoman Mary Taylor declined to comment to Reuters on the Journal report. The d=maged U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on September 12, 2012. In an art=cle this month in The Atlantic Magazine — <=pan style="font-family:Georgia,seritfont-size:12pt;line- height:107%">=A0David Rohde wrote — How Partisan Bickering Sabotaged America's Middle East Policy — ba=ed on an recent New York Times investigation which investigation questioned the cent=al tenet of the Republican assault on the White House regarding Benghazi in Se=tember 2012, with both Republicans and Democrats, however, remained focused on win=ing their daily messaging battle in Washington. Neither the American left nor the right has offered a serious strateg= for how to respond to the emergence of new types of militant groups across =he Middle East. President Barack Obama's approach consisted of trusting unchecked CIA drone strikes and NSA eavesdropping to secure the United States. Republicans used the region's instability as a cudgel to beat the president with. Here are three of 2013's most troubling development= in the Middle East—and Washington's perfunctory responses that were a disservi=e to all Americans. Benghazi's Meaning: As Amy Davidson correctly noted in The New Yorker=this week, Washington's response to months of investigation on the ground in Libya and Egypt by Times reporters Kirkpatrick, Suliman Al= Zway, Osama Alfitori, and Mayy El Sheikh quickly devolved into a useless de=ate over the term "al Qaeda." Representative Darrell Issa (R-Cali=.)— eager to undermine Obama administration statements that core al Qaeda has been weakened—insisted that the group involved in the attack "claims an affi=iation with al Qaeda," as if that was the same as an actual relationship with co=e al Qaeda's remaining leaders. Fox News commentator and Washingt=n Post columnist Charles Krauthammer dismissed the story as an effort "to protect Hillary [Clinton]." Fox News terrorism analys= Walid Phares absurdly argued that Kirkpatrick was "known to side with Islamists." <=span> The broad message from the left, meanwhile, was that =he United States only makes things worse in the Middle East when it acts there= On MSNBC, Karen Finney said the story exonerated the Obama administration because it found that a fake Hollywood video mocking the Prophet Muhammad did, in fact, help spark the attack. =solationists on the left and the right argued that any military action—particularly one carried out by the Unite= States—was destructive. What was lost when each side cherry-picked conclusions that fit their worldview? The Liby=n people's growing disdain of militias, both jihadi and tribal. In Novem=er, Libyans outraged by rising lawlessness drove militias out of Tripoli. Libya's weak central governmen=, however, lacks the properly trained security forces needed to assert contro=. Libya's first democratically-elected prime minister=97a pro-Western moderate—asked in June for American and NATO forces to help t=ain government security forces. Washington's response? After five months o= talk, the United States 8 EFTA_R1_01972717 EFTA02677632 agreed in November to train 6,000 to 8,000 Libyan soldiers at a military ba=e in Bulgaria. This paltry effort will not be nearly enough to aid Libyans who oppose militancy. U.S. and NATO mili=ary forces should not enter Libya—a move we know from past experience will strengthen jihadists there. But a far larger training effort should be mounted outside Libya. The Muslim Brotherhood: In 2013, the biggest gamble in the region was the Egyptian army's decision i= July to violently crush the Muslim Brotherhood and remove that nation's first democratically elected president. The military-dominated government seems to announce each week a new crackdown o= the Brotherhood and other critics. But it is not clear that the use of force is working. The Egyptian military =ampaign against the Brotherhood has now killed more people than the Iranian government's 2009 crushing of the "Green Revolution." Yet Cairo has failed to s=op regular demonstrations by the Brotherhood. It has also failed to halt a series of car bombings by Islamic extremist group= that are urging Brotherhood members to take up arms. The stakes in Egypt=are enormous. The crackdown could succeed— or drive tens of thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) of conservative activists into t=e arms of al Qaeda. The reaction of Republican and Democrats to these developments? Collective silence. The Obama administration should suspend all U.S. military aid to Egypt and stop embracing the Saudi fantasy that autocrats are the region's low-risk cure=all. Over the long-term, autocrats foster instability and economic stagnation—=ot stability—in the Middle East. =/p> Syria: 2013 will be viewed as the yea= that President Bashar al-Assad turned the tide in the war in Syria. As Adam Entous and =iobhan Gorman detailed in a Wall Street Journal story this week, "all-in" military support from Iran and Hezbollah allowed Assad to retake crucial territory. The Obama administration, however, blinked. Obama had vowed to punish Assad for any chemical weapons attacks. Yet the president held of= on air strikes or fully arming the rebels, citing fears of getting embroiled in another Midea=t conflict. The result is a conflict in Syria that could drag on for years. Assad can hold much of the country, but=not all of it. Jihadists, meanwhile, are taking control of the oppos=tion. Thousands of militants from Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia have flocked to Syria. An estimated 1,500 to 2,000 Europ=an citizens and dozens of American citizens have joined the fight there as wel=. An unknown number are being radicalized. Some of these jihadists will likely return home, as it becomes clear that Assad will not be toppled in 2014. The Obama administration is gambling that CIA drone strikes and NSA surveillanc= will somehow hold them at bay. More likely, the blowback from Syria will resemble that of the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. Jihadists from that conflict sparked a decade-long ci=il war in Algeria that killed 50,000—and, of course, carried out the 9/11at=acks. The Obama administration's only remaining leverage =n Syria is its economic sanctions on Iran, Assad's primary military backer. Any n=clear agreement with Iran that involves a reduction in economic sanctions should include Iranian support for a peace settlement in Syria. The chances of =ashington agreeing on such a strategy are low. Our political elite was 9 EFTA_R1_01972718 EFTA02677633 so deeply divided in 2013 that we could not define a common enemy. We turned a blind eye to the revival of Mideast authoritarianism. And we fashi=ned no plans for how to respond to Syria becoming a new Afghanistan. The dam=ge that Washington's partisanship wrought on domestic affairs in 2013 was chronicled daily in the media. l=s destructive impact on the Middle East—and our national security—will emerge for years to come. And for Represent=tive Darrell Issa, Charles Krauthammer, Walid Phares and others where is your shame? And to President Obama, please don't bite the bait and stay out of Syria, because getting =n will result in America being responsible for a solution as well as the dama=e that this continuing conflict is causing. =span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Georgia,serif"><=r> <1=> Here's What GOP Obstruction Of Health Care Does To People In One Chart <http://i.huffpost.comigen/1549241/thumbqr-HEALTH-CARE-huge.jpg> While Republicans at the national level have thu= far been completely unsuccessful in attempts to repeal or defund the Affordable Care Act, Republicans at the state level have succeeded in preventing people fro= obtaining health coverage under the new law. Data compiled by Theda Skocpol of Harvard University for the Scholars Strategy Network, a progressive group of academics, illustrates how states&=39; decisions to not create their own health care exchanges or expand Medicaid under the ACA have suppressed enrollment. According to Skocpol's resear=h, the 14 states that are expanding Medicaid and running their own exchanges have =een enrollment in Medicaid and exchanges at around 40 percent of projections. 1= contrast, in the 23 states that refused to expand Medicaid or cooperate whe= it comes to an exchange, enrollment percentages are in the single-digits. The chart illustrates the vastly different experiences with Obamacare from state to state. Texas, which has the highest percentage of uninsured in the country and whose governor, Rick Perry (R), opted not to expand Medicaid and has called Obamacare a "criminal act," saw on=y about 14,000 people sign up using the exchange through the end of November, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. California, which=has a higher number of uninsured than Texas but a lower proportion, saw 107,087 people sign up through the state's exchange and 181,817 qualify for the=state's Medicaid program through the end of November, according to federal data reported by the Los Angeles Times. Tens of thousands more signed up in California in December. Under the Affordable Care Act= states can either run their own exchange or have the Department of Health and Human Services run it for the=. Alternatively, seven states have opted for a federal-state partnership exchange. Many Republican governors wanted no ownership over the Obamacare exchanges and deferred to the federal government. The website of the federa= marketplace, HealthCare.gov, has been plagued by a botched rollout with man= glitches. Thanks to the Supreme Court decision that declared the law constitutional, governors are free to decline the federal money to expand Medicaid without losing the federal money they already received to insure low-income people. For reasons similar to why they didn't set up exchan=es, many Republican governors decided not to expand Medicaid under the law, des=ite the fact that the federal government plans to pick up all of the cost for n=wly eligible enrollees in the first three years and no less than 90 percent permanently. While community organizers in red states with high populations=of uninsured have tried to organize their own campaigns, the data suggests tha= it takes the power of a state to implement the health care law. 10 EFTA_R1_01972719 EFTA02677634 <=> The Atlantic's '5= Greatest Innovations' misses the Mother of them all =span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:17px;font-family:Georgia,serir>T=e Atlantic's columnist James Fallows recently listed the top=50 innovations by polling "a panel of 12 scientists, entrepreneurs, engi=eers, historians of technology, and others." Strangely, I counted onl= 11 panelists (math wasn't on the list), which included Silicon Valley V= John Doerr; Joi Ito from MIT Media Lab; and the perennial favorite of =very editor: whoever happens to be around the office at the time, which in=this case was The Atlantic's senior editor Alexis Madrigal. The li=t starts off with: - The printing press (1430s not th= earlier Chinese one). Then you have all the ones you'd expect: electricity, semicondu=tors, optics, internal combustion engine, Internet, of course. But they mi=sed the most important technology breakthrough of all time: Gastronomy. =The editors said they wanted to list the most important innovations since =he wheel, or about 6,000 years ago, so that they could avoid listing fire.= But that makes little sense because fire is not an invention but a natu=al phenomenon. And some recent civilizations, such as those in the Amer=cas, didn't use the wheel for transportation, or like the Mayans used th= wheel only for toys. Atlantic could have just said 50 most important b=eakthroughs (fire and wheel not included). The Atlantic asked each panelist to mak= 25 selections and to rank them, despite the impossibility of fairly compa=ing, say, the atomic bomb and the plow. (As it happens, both of these made=it to the final list: the discovery and application of nuclear fission, wh=ch led to both the atomic bomb and nuclear-power plants, was No. 21 of the=top 50, ahead of the moldboard plow, which greatly expanded the range of l=nd that farmers could till, at No. 30.) They also invited panelists to =dd explanations of their choices, and I followed up with several of them a=d with other experts in interviews. One panelist ranked his choices not by =mportance but by date of invention, oldest (cement) to newest (GPS satelli=es). Some emphasized the importance not of specific breakthroughs but o= broad categories of achievement. For instance, Joel Mokyr, an economic=historian at Northwestern, nominated in his top 10 "modularity."=A0 By that he meant the 11 EFTA_R1_01972720 EFTA02677635 refinements in industrial processes that all=wed high-volume output of functionally identical parts. This enabled ma=s production and the Henry Ford—style assembly line (49 on The Atlantic=92s list), and the profound shift from handmade to volume-produced version= of everything. Modularity didn't make it onto Atlantic's final lis=; the adoption of standardized shipping containers, which extended the sam= logic in a different realm, just missed the cut. The Author: In short, these scientis=s and creative types decided to answer the question they wanted us to ask,=rather than the exact one we posed. We have new sympathy for people attemp=ing to manage universities and R&D labs. But in the end we had enough =omparable and overlapping suggestions, from enough people, with enough spe=led-out explanations, and enough force of experience and insight behind th=m, to be comfortable presenting The Atlantic's survey of humanity's 50=most important technical breakthroughs since the wheel. We converted all t=e responses into values we could enter on a spreadsheet; we weighted, as r=asonably as we could, the intensity and breadth of support; we watched the=combined rankings go up and down as each new response arrived; and we came=up with the final ranking you see here. The List The Atlantic ask=d a dozen scientists, historians, and technologists to rank the top innova=ions since the wheel. Here are the results. 1. =AOThe printing press, 1430s The printing press was nomi=ated by 10 of our 12 panelists, five of whom ranked it in their top three.=Dyson described its invention as the turning point at which "knowledge b=gan freely replicating and quickly assumed a life of its own." 2. =AOElectricity, late 19th century And then there was light—and Nos. 4, 9, 16, 24, 28,=44, 45, and most of the rest of modern life. <=f> 3. Penicillin, 1928=/b> Accidentally discovered in =928, though antibiotics were not widely distributed until after World War =1, when they became the silver bullet for any number of formerly deadly di=eases 12 EFTA_R1_01972721 EFTA02677636  4. =A0Semiconductor electronics, mid-20th century The physical foundation of the virtual world</=> 5. Optical lenses, 13th ce=tury Refract=ng light through glass is one of those simple ideas that took a mysterious=y long time to catch on. "The Romans had a glass industry, and there's=even a passage in Seneca about the optical effects of a glass bowl of wate=," says Mokyr. But it was centuries before the invention of eyeglasses d=amatically raised the collective human IQ, and eventually led to the creat=on of the microscope and the telescope. 6. =A0Paper, second century "The idea of stamping images is natural if you have=paper, but until then, it's economically unaffordable." — Charles C.=Mann 7. =A0The internal combustion engine, late 19th century Turned air and fuel into power, eventually replacing =he steam engine (No. 10) 8. Vaccination, 1796</=> The British doctor Ed=ard Jenner used the cowpox virus to protect against smallpox in 1796, but =t wasn't until Louis Pasteur developed a rabies vaccine in 1885 that med=cine—and government—began to accept the idea that making someone sick =ould prevent further sickness. 9. =A0The Internet, 1960s The infrastructure of the digital age 10. The steam engine, 1712=/span> Powered the factories, trains, and shi=s that drove the Industrial Revolution 13 EFTA_R1_01972722 EFTA02677637  1=. Nitrogen fixation, 1918 The German chemist Fritz Ha=er, also the father of chemical weapons, won a Nobel Prize for his develop=ent of the ammonia-synthesis process, which was used to create a new class=of fertilizers central to the green revolution (No. 22). 12. =A0Sanitation systems, mid-19th century A major reason we live 40 years longer than we did in=1880 (see "Die Another Day") 13. Refrigeration, 1850s "Discovering how to make cold would chang= the way we eat—and live—almost as profoundly as discovering how to cor=k." —George Dyson 14. =A0Gunpowder, 10th century Outsourced killing to a machine 15. The airplane, 1903=/b> Transformed travel, warfare, and our view of =he world (see No. 40) 16. =A0The personal computer, 1970s Like the lever (No. 48) and the abacus (No. 43), it a=gmented human capabilities. 17. The compass, 12th century=/span> Oriented us, even at sea 14 EFTA_R1_01972723 EFTA02677638  18. =AOThe automobile, late 19th century Transformed daily life, our culture, and our landscap= 19. Industrial steelmaking, 1850s Mass-produced steel, made possible by a me=hod known as the Bessemer process, became the basis of modern industry. 20. =A0The pill, 1960 Launched a social revolution 21. Nuclear fission, 1939<=span> Gave humans new power for destruction, =nd creation 22.= The green revolution, mid-20th century Combining technologies like=synthetic fertilizers (No. 11) and scientific plant breeding (No. 38) huge=y increased the world's food output. Norman Borlaug, the agricultural ec=nomist who devised this approach, has been credited with saving more than = billion people from starvation. 23. =A0The sextant, 1757 It made maps out of stars. 24. The telephone, 1876 Allowed our voices to travel 15 EFTA_R1_01972724 EFTA02677639  25. =A0Alphabetization, first millennium B.C. Made knowledge accessible a=d searchable—and may have contributed to the rise of societies that used=phonetic letters over those that used ideographic ones 26. =A0The telegraph, 1837 Before it, Joel Mokyr says, "information could move=no faster than a man on horseback." 27. The mechanized clock, 15t= century It quantified time. 28. =A0Radio, 1906 The first demonstration of electronic mass media's =ower to spread ideas and homogenize culture One of the firs= practical applications of Louis Pasteur's germ theory, this method for =sing heat to sterilize wine, beer, and milk is widely considered to be one=of history's most effective public-health interventions. 34. The Gregorian calendar, 1582 Debugged the Julian calendar, jumping ahead 10 days t= synchronize the world with the seasons <=> 35. Oil refining, mid-19t= century Without it, oil drilling (No.=39) would be pointless. 36= The steam turbine, 1884 A less heralded cousin of s=eam engines (No. 10), turbines are the backbone of today's energy infras=ructure: they generate 80 percent of the world's power. 16 EFTA_R1_01972725 EFTA02677640  37. =A0Cement, first millennium B.C. The foundation of civilization. Literally. =p class="MsoNormal"> 38. Scientific plant bre=ding, 1920s =umans have been manipulating plant species for nearly as long as we've g=own them, but it wasn't until early-20th- century scientists discovered a=forgotten 1866 paper by the Austrian botanist Gregor Mendel that we figure= out how plant breeding—and, later on, human genetics—worked.</=> 39. Oil drilling, 1859 Fueled the modern economy, established its geopolitic=, and changed the climate 40. The sailboat, fourth =illennium B.C. Transformed travel, war=are, and our view of the world (see No. 15) =41. Rocketry, 1926 "Our only way off the planet—so far." — Georg= Dyson 42. Paper money, 11th =entury The abstraction at the core of =he modern economy =A0 43. The abacus, third millennium B.C. One of the first devices to augment human intelligent= 17 EFTA_R1_01972726 EFTA02677641  44. Air-conditioning, 190= Would you start a business in Houston=or Bangalore without it? =A0 45. Television, early 20th century Brought the world into people's homes 46. Anesthesia, 1846</=pan> In response =o the first public demonstration of ether, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. wrote= "The fierce extremity of suffering has been steeped in the waters of fo=getfulness, and the deepest furrow in the knotted brow of agony has been s=oothed forever." 47. =A0The nail, second millennium B.C. "Extended lives by enabling people to have shelter.=94 — Leslie Berlin 48. The lever, third mill=nnium B.C. The Egyptians had not yet d=scovered the wheel when they built their pyramids; they are thought to hav= relied heavily on levers. 49. =A0The assembly line, 1913 Turned a craft-based economy into a mass-market one</=pan> 50. The combine harvester= 1930s Mech=nized the farm, freeing people to do new types of work