CERN finds Higgs Boson, Fox News blames Obama for losing it

Happy Higgs Boson day. You can write your own fake Fox News take on the news if you like.

Today CERN announced the discovery of a new fundamental particle with properties consistent with it being a Higgs Boson. This is a huge achievement for CERN and the theory community if the particle is confirmed as the Higgs boson and an even bigger achievement for CERN otherwise as they have discovered something the theorists missed.

As someone who spent two years working at CERN, I am however a little disappointed at the way some of the US media have presented this as a European discovery and the choice of the 4th of July to make the announcement as a dig at the US. CERN is an international lab with people from every country with a high energy physics program. When I was there I worked with Australians, Indians, Pakistanis, Israelis and Americans. In fact the US pays for quite a large chunk of the CERN budget by buying into various experiments.

Update: Fixed the typo. Read the rest of this post...

Barbecue Bob - It's a Funny Little Thing

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Music: James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy

Posting this for Fourth of July fun.

James Cagney was one of the great actors of the golden age of film, but not many know him as a singer and dancer. At both he was excellent.

Two videos: The first is the song-and-dance number "Yankee Doodle Boy" from the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) about the quintessential Broadway showman, George M. Cohan.

We could go on about Cohan and this movie, but won't. Just enjoy the song.

(Er, you have to click to enjoy; the property rights freaks won't allow embeds from any long scene of that film.)

Some context — The scene is a play within a play. Because Cohan was an actor, the movie contains many of his stage performances (as seen through the Hollywood lens). In this scene Cohan, played by Cagney, is an American jockey who goes to England to ride (and win) in a famous British horserace.

To spite the property rights freaks (in my totally minimalist and ineffective way), here's another version of the same song, by Spike Jones and his orchestra:



By the way, that "cocky American" theme was everywhere in that period. For a treat, watch A Yank at Oxford (1938).

Second video: At the end of the film, Cohan, now elderly, is invited to see the president — FDR, played by a very good impersonator. It's WWII, remember, and the president needs Cohan to do his Yankee-Doodle optimistic thing again.

In the scene, we learn they both love America, and we realize that the whole movie was Cohan's life story, as narrated to FDR. At the end, FDR gives Cohan/Cagney the "Congressional Medal of Honor" [but see here], and Cohan leaves the Oval Office, feeling pretty good.

Here's Cohan dancing down the staircase after the meeting. The limberness, lightness, of Cagney the dancer is a delight to watch:



For the full lead-up to this moment, play the whole scene. It's pretty good. (Can't embed; same control-freak reason.)

I know — the film is loaded with war fever. We'll talk about that later. Remember this was 1942, and we weren't winning yet.

Happy Fourth all. Long may we wave, all of us. (Except for the property rights freaks; they can rot.)

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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We owe a good part of our independence to France

A little fact the Republicans conveniently forget every time they bash France.  Then again, far too much Republican "patriotism" isn't based on fact, since facts, you know, have a liberal bias.  From the Library of Congress:

From beginning to end, France supported the Americans in their struggle for independence. In the early stages of fighting, assistance came from idealistic young officers such as Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette (1757-1834), who volunteered his military expertise to help train and lead the Continental Army. Under the guise of neutrality, the French Crown secretly provided arms, uniforms, and other supplies.

When the British defeat at Saratoga in 1777 presented the prospect of American success, however, France began to openly support the rebellion. In 1778 France formally recognized the colonists in the Treaties of Amity and Commerce, negotiated by Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), a longtime friend of leading French scientists and philosophers and the first American ambassador to Paris. Franco-American relations were far from perfect, but the mutually beneficial relationship endured for many years.

In no other battle was French military assistance more decisive than in the 1781 Battle of Yorktown. Conceived by French General Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807) and General George Washington (1732-1799), the Yorktown campaign involved a combined overland and naval assault on the British troops led by General Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805). Having landed five battalions of infantry and artillery at Rhode Island the year before, Rochambeau and several thousand of his troops joined Washington’s Continental Army in Virginia. By mid-September French naval forces from the West Indies, under the command of Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse (1722-1788), and Continental forces under General La Fayette, had trapped Cornwallis on the Yorktown peninsula.

With the arrival of Washington’s forces on September 28, the Franco-American force laid siege until the British surrender of October 19, 1781. The capture of Yorktown gave the Continental Army control of the Chesapeake and forced the British to enter the peace negotiations that led to British recognition of American independence.

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Romney now says ACA is a tax, contradicting own Web site

We're trying to take the day off of hard politics, but this is just too good not to share.

Earlier this week Mitt Romney's senior adviser said that the health care reform personal mandate penalty was NOT a tax. Romney was understandably concerned about being tarred by his own health care reform program in Massachusetts, which contains the same penalty.

“The governor disagreed with the ruling of the court. He agreed with the dissent that was written by Justice Scalia that very clearly said that the mandate was not a tax,” Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to Romney, said on MSNBC. “The governor believes what we put in place in Massachusetts was a penalty, and he disagrees with the court’s ruling that the mandate was a tax.”

Then, today we find out that Mitt has changed his mind. It seems that indeed Obama's health care reform mandate penalty is now a tax, while Romney's still isn't.

”The majority of the court said it is a tax, and therefore it is a tax,” Romney said in an interview with CBS Wednesday, citing the Supreme Court’s health law ruling last week that the individual mandate fell under the federal government’s authority to levy taxes and was therefore constitutional.

Now, while I'm sure Romney would claim that the senior staffer didn't know what he was talking about, there's the matter of Mitt Romney's own campaign Web site (and spokeswoman), which still, at this moment, reports that Mitt thinks the penalty is NOT a tax (h/t Sam Stein).

So it's either an unconstitutional penalty or a constitutional tax? And Romney is now saying that he agrees with the court, that the federal health care reform penalty is a tax. So that means that Romney is endorsing the majority opinion and that Romney thinks ObamaCare is constitutional.

Someone should ask him. Read the rest of this post...

Oyster tonging on the Chesapeake

As a kid growing up in Maryland, I never thought much about the uniqueness of the watermen of the bay because it's just the way it was. I always knew that it was a tough way to make a living but I thought that's what they did elsewhere. After moving away and traveling around the world I now appreciate it a lot more.

Besides tonging, there is still a small fleet of skipjacks remaining that drag for oysters under sail certain days of the week. You can see in this video that they're in pretty rough condition, yet still are on the water.

Seeing the watermen working the estuaries and the bay is what makes the Eastern Shore, the Eastern Shore. A few years back, one DC insider decided to follow his colleague and buy a house in St. Michaels, overlooking the Miles River. The Miles is often full of working watermen and it's been that way for centuries. According to the locals, the new DC arrival wasn't pleased with watermen "blocking his view" of the river and sent the authorities out to move them along so he wasn't bothered. It's difficult to imagine such an idiot, but that's what people were saying.

The same new arrival to the region also managed to disturb the locals by entering the small town either via helicopter (which is loud) or motorcade, with sirens and flashing lights and people barking out demands to get inside their houses. The area is the more conservative part of Maryland but even so, the locals soon strongly disliked the new arrival and his obnoxious ways. If you guessed that the new arrival was Dick Cheney, you'd be right. Read the rest of this post...

Video: NYC Subway stop that's a little different

New York City Subway Stairs from Dean Peterson on Vimeo.

Bad engineering or a joke by the designers? Read the rest of this post...

CNN poll: Americans increasingly optimistic about economy

Are they right?

"Americans are usually optimists, but in 2011, polls for the first time found that more than half the country thought that economic conditions would worsen in the next 12 months," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Now that trend has reversed itself, with only four in ten saying that the economy will be in poor shape a year from now."

Sixty percent of those questioned say the economy will be in good shape next year, a surge from 39% who felt that way last October. Despite that jump, three-quarters say that current economic conditions are poor, a slight worsening of opinion since May, but better than where things stood in January.

"Not surprisingly, the poll indicates that the economy's the public's top issue, the only topic that more than half say will be extremely important to their presidential vote in November," adds Holland.

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4th of July

Since today is a big holiday in the US, we will have limited posts and mostly less political posts for the day. Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday and spending time with friends and family.

So what's everyone cooking on the BBQ today? Read the rest of this post...

French police raid Sarokozy's home

Nicholas Sarkozy made a lot of enemies on both sides of the aisle over the years so it's not much of a surprise that someone is continuing the fight. The Guardian:

French police have raided the home and offices of the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy as part of an investigation into illegal campaign financing and alleged brown envelopes of cash from France's wealthiest woman, the L'Oreal hairspray heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

Police searched the mansion rented by Carla Bruni in a chic gated community in the west of Paris, where she and Sarkozy live with Bruni's 11-year-old son and the couple's new baby daughter. Officers also searched the office of the legal firm where Sarkozy is a partner and the new office he moved into after losing the presidential election to Socialist Francois Hollande in May.

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China now building ghost towns in Africa

China has been building ghost cities at home for a few years, but now it's done the same in oil rich Angola as well. It must be nice to have that many billions to throw down the toilet like this.

Nova Cidade de Kilamba is a brand-new mixed residential development of 750 eight-storey apartment buildings, a dozen schools and more than 100 retail units.

Designed to house up to half a million people when complete, Kilamba has been built by the state-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) in under three years at a reported cost of $3.5bn (£2.2bn).

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