Tiger receives first recorded hip replacement

Why not?

The eight-year-old Malayan tiger, called Girl, had been suffering from arthritis in her right hip since spring. Now she has been given a prosthetic hip of the kind first developed for dogs.

The operation was not easy. During the three-hour procedure last week, Girl's heart almost stopped, the university said in a statement, before anaesthetist Michaele Alef saved her life.

Girl is recovering in a separate enclosure back in Halle Zoo in Saxony-Anhalt, away from visitors. She is being carefully monitored for the next six weeks, when the risk of dislocation is highest.

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Feds tell Americans to eat less

Fat chance. Read the rest of this post...

Egyptian govt offers to talk with protesters after Army refuses to fire

NYT:

The political forces aligned against President Hosni Mubarak seemed to strengthen on Monday, when the Army said for the first time that it would not fire on the protesters who have convulsed Egypt for the last week. The announcement was followed shortly by the government’s first offer to talk to the protest leaders.

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Huge winter storm to affect 1/3 of US

I know back home in Chicago they're talking about this storm quite possibly breaking the record snow we had back in 1967 (with snows drifts of 4 to 8 feet in some areas of the country).

NWS:

A major winter storm is still expected to develop over Texas tonight, and intensify rapidly as it moves northeast into the Ohio Valley Tuesday night and Wednesday, then eventually re-form off the mid-Atlantic or New England coast late Wednesday. The storm has the potential to produce one to two feet of snow for a large swath of the central and northeastern states, from Oklahoma to Maine, with a swath of heavy freezing rain (quarter inch or more) to the south and east of the heavy snow area, including along the Mason-Dixon line north of Washington, D.C. Get the latest updates from your local Weather Forecast Office by clicking on the map.

More from Weather.com, here too. Read the rest of this post...

Gibbs squirms again on marriage equality

Why can't he just answer a simple question about the President's position? Read the rest of this post...

Another Federal Judge rules mandate in health care law is unconstitutional

Another blow to the health care law from a federal judge:

A second federal judge ruled on Monday that it was unconstitutional for Congress to enact a health care law that requires Americans to obtain commercial insurance, evening the score at two-to-two in the lower courts as the conflicting opinions begin their path to the Supreme Court.

Judge Roger Vinson of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., ruled that the law will remain in effect until all appeals are concluded, a process that could take two years. However, Judge Vinson determined that the entire law should fall if appellate courts agree with his opinion that the insurance requirement is invalid.

“The Act, like a defectively designed watch, needs to be redesigned and reconstructed by the watchmaker,” Judge Vinson wrote.

In a 78-page opinion, Judge Vinson held that the insurance requirement exceeds the regulatory powers granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Judge Vinson wrote that the provision could not be rescued by an associated clause in Article I that gives Congress broad authority to make laws “necessary and proper” to carrying out its designated responsibilities.

This decision will provide endless fodder for the talking heads on cable news. And, it will surely provide some glee to GOPers. Expect a lot of clucking from them. They're going to spend this whole year obsessing over the health care law -- instead of worrying about the economy and jobs.

It's pretty clear this is ultimately going to be decided by the Supreme Court. Read the rest of this post...

Turning off 'Instant Personalization' — How to keep Facebook from selling your public information to 'partner sites'

Facebook has yet another "feature" — they're calling it "Instant Personalization" of your browsing "experience" on "partner sites" — but it's really just one more way to monetize your info. In this case, it's info "you've already made available to everyone". That makes it your fault, I guess. But since it's a brave new Elizabeth Warren world, someone must have told them to warn you, just in case.

They're presenting it as a benefit to you, one of those "for your convenience" changes. You know, as in "For your convenience, the grocery carts are now located outside the store" (and in the rain).

By the way, "for your convenience" actually has a perfect replacement phrase. Substitute "for our convenience" whenever you see it and the situation will always make sense. (For instance, at the grocery store: "We need the space inside, so the carts are in the rain. Since it's for our convenience, we're telling you the opposite, 'cause that's how smart we think you are.")

In Facebook's case, the convenience is the money they get from "partner sites" to back-door the partner's access to your info.

The new setting is Enabled by default. Here's how to turn it off:

1. Go to Account > Privacy Settings in the top right corner.
2. Look for "Apps & Websites" at the bottom of the next page and select "Edit your settings".
3. Find "Instant Personalization" and click "Edit Settings".
4. Dismiss the annoying video (watch first if you like).
5. Uncheck "Enable" and click "Confirm" when they try to talk you out of it.

For good measure, you could also neuter all the apps:

1. Click "Back to Apps" near the top of the smiling Instant Personalization page.
2. Under "Apps you use" click "Turn off all platform apps".
3. In the annoying talk-you-out-of-it popup, click "Select All" at the bottom.
4. Then click "Turn off platform".

Of course, now Mafia Wars won't be able to see that your uncle's daughter has a new lover, but hey, that's too bad, isn't it.

Can't say Facebook isn't entirely predictable. The Facebook motto: You supply the content; we collect the cash.

There's more after the break.

GP

Here's the full text of their attempt to convince you to leave the setting Enabled. This appears on the page you get to from the above instructions. (Note, by the way, the subtle use of guilt — twice — in the phrase "content you've already made available to everyone". Translation: Why do you care what we do; you've already given that stuff away.) My emphasis below:

Our goal is to give you a great social and personalized experience with every app and website you use. We've worked with a select set of partners to personalize your experience as soon as you arrive on their sites.

These partner sites (currently limited to Bing, TripAdvisor, Clicker, Rotten Tomatoes, Docs, Pandora, Yelp, and Scribd), can only access the information and content you've already made available to everyone. All our partners are required to respect your information and we've worked closely with them to make sure they do.

When you arrive at one of these sites, you'll see a notification message and a way to turn off the personalized experience on that site.

Instant personalization is different from social plugins. Social plugin content comes directly from Facebook and no information is shared with the websites themselves.

To turn off instant personalization on all partner sites, uncheck the box below. This will prevent these partners from receiving any of your information through instant personalization, even content you have made available to everyone.

The modern ad and PR industry at work; they have much to answer for. Read the rest of this post...

New PETA Super Bowl ad: Brilliant or sexist?

Wow. I really can't decide if this new PETA ad is brilliant or gross. I feel like there's a spark of genius in the idea, whereas the execution kind of sickens me. The ad is called "Veggie Love" - well, actually, that was the name of a 2009 proposed PETA Super Bowl ad that was banned from the airwaves. This newest ad is the "casting call" from Veggie Love - which is a very funny idea.

I'm not not sure if the ad works as parody (or satire) since, in the end, it really is a video about chicks getting hot with phallus-shaped veggies. It doesn't make fun of porn as much as it is porn, I fear. Not sure. You?

Again, this is not safe for work.

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House Dems will force GOP to take tough votes

One can only hope.

House Democrats have launched a floor strategy aimed at forcing freshman Republicans to take tough votes on politically sensitive topics, mirroring a tactic that the GOP deployed when it was in the minority.

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Egyptian banks fear run when they re-open

As if Egypt needs one more problem to worry about during this transition. Bloomberg:

Egypt’s banks may risk a surge in customer withdrawals when they open for business, placing them among companies worst hit by the nationwide uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.

“A run on the banks would be the biggest concern, which is possible in the current situation,” Robert McKinnon, chief investment officer at ASAS Capital in Dubai, said in a telephone interview. Authorities are likely to keep the financial system closed to avert the risk, he said.

Egypt’s banks and markets stayed shut yesterday after six days of clashes in the most populous Arab country that left as many as 150 people dead. Tanks are guarding banks and government buildings in Cairo that are vulnerable to looting, state television said. The EGX 30 stock index had a two-day drop of 16 percent through Jan. 27, with Commercial International Bank Egypt SAE, which accounts for more than one-fifth of the benchmark, falling 12 percent. Markets throughout the Middle East declined yesterday on concern the unrest may spread.

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Warnings of a 2015 financial crisis at Davos

Whether it's 2015 or a few years later, this sounds like a fairly likely scenario. The financial reform was gutted by the bankers who threw money at lobbying to limit the extent of the reform. The Democratic reform was mild but now we have Republicans in the House who want even less oversight. Of course this can't end well.

Wilkinson’s report, titled “The Financial Crisis of 2015: An Avoidable History,” isn’t so sanguine. The 24-page study describes how banks, unwilling to accept the lower returns on equity, or ROEs, that result from higher capital requirements, may fuel a new bubble by chasing high returns in commodities or emerging markets. Regulators, by focusing their restraints on banks, may drive risk-taking into unregulated funds that also pose danger to the system.

The report urges bank executives and shareholders to accept that returns of the past are unsustainable and that they need to do a better job of monitoring risks, especially in areas that produce unusually high profits.

“Banks need to be less leveraged,” said Wilkinson, 38, who has an engineering degree from the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College and has worked since 1993 at Oliver Wyman, where he focuses on risk management. “The true test for me of whether they’ve deleveraged is if the industrywide ROEs come down. If they don’t, I’m very suspicious that there are hidden risks in the system.”

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Americans turning to Al Jazeera for Egypt crisis

Though it's often not possible to watch the channel in the US for some strange reason, the website has experienced significant growth from the US in recent days. Somehow the basket weaving channel and a few hundred other mostly boring and worthless channels - jam packed with commercials, naturally - is part of the basic package, but not a foreign news service. Interesting. Huffington Post:

Other than in a handful of pockets across the U.S. - including Ohio, Vermont and Washington, D.C. - cable carriers do not give viewers the choice of watching Al Jazeera. That corporate censorship comes as American diplomats harshly criticize the Egyptian government for blocking Internet communication inside the country and as Egypt attempts to block Al Jazeera from broadcasting.

The result of the Al Jazeera English blackout in the United States has been a surge in traffic to the media outlet's website, where footage can be seen streaming live. The last 24 hours have seen a two-and-a-half thousand percent increase in web traffic, Tony Burman, head of North American strategies for Al Jazeera English, told HuffPost. Sixty percent of that traffic, he said, has come from the United States.

Al Jazeera English launched in the fall of 2006, opening a large bureau on K Street in downtown Washington, but has made little progress in persuading cable companies to offer the channel to its customers.

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Rep. Steve Lynch (D-MA) tells liberals: Don't primary incumbents (even if we screw you over)

In 2010, the Tea Party waged a series of primary challenges against incumbents. They won some and lost some. In 2010, a number of Democratic incumbents were challenged in primaries by progressives. Some won, some lost. Primaries are a vital part of the process. But, members of Congress often think they're royalty who should never be challenged by their "friends." Via The Hill, a case in point:

Rep. Steve Lynch:Liberal groups need to stay out of Democratic primaries if the party is going to retake the House majority, according to a conservative Massachusetts Democrat.

Rep. Stephen Lynch was one of several Democrats who faced an aggressive primary challenge from the left in 2010. His challenger Mac D'Alessandro, a former top official with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), received almost $300,000 from labor groups for his campaign.

“There was a lot of money spent against Democrats by Democrats,” Lynch told The Ballot Box. “That contributed to the scale of our losses."

As if. But, it gets worse. Here's the solution from Lynch:

Clearing primaries for members and discouraging liberal groups from spending against incumbents should be a priority for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he said. “It would definitely help, I think. You need to talk to those groups.”

Here's a better idea: Vote like Democrats and you won't get a primary.

Lynch apparently cited the primary in New Hampshire's Second District as an example. That race featured Annie Kuster against Katrina Swett. Kuster won big, then in a huge year for GOPers in the Granite State, nearly beat her Republican opponent:

Kuster's camp, meanwhile, argued the primary produced a stronger candidate and noted that despite the environment her performance was better than Swett had done in her previous run.

"Kuster lost to Bass by 1 percent in 2010; Swett had lost to Bass by 16 percent when she faced him back in 2002," said Colin Van Ostern, Kuster's former campaign manager. "So it is hard to draw any conclusion except that the primary caused Democrats to put up the strongest possible candidate."

Lynch's whining is so typical of entrenched Democrats in DC. If incumbents start voting against their base, there should be more primaries. No one should have a free ride. Read the rest of this post...

Massive demonstations planned today in Cairo

When this started, it hardly seemed likely that Mubarak was seriously in trouble. As each day goes on, one wonders how he can possibly stay any longer. ElBaradei says "what we have begun cannot go back" and there's no way to argue against that. The longer the old regime stays, the more complicated the transfer of power will be due to probably violence. Mubarak must be negotiating his departure though he can't cling to power for much longer. Al Jazeera:

The so-called April 6 Movement said it plans to have more than a million people on the streets of the capital Cairo, as anti-government sentiment reaches a fever pitch.

Several hundred demonstrators remained camped out in Tahrir square in central Cairo early on Monday morning, defying a curfew that has been extended by the army.

"It seems as if they are saying: 'We are here to stay. We are re-invigorating our movement and we are not going anywhere'," one of Al Jazeera's correspondents in Cairo said.

Protesters seem unfazed by Mubarak's pledge to institute economic and political reforms. Our correspondent said that people feel that such pledges "are too little, too late".

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Southern Sudan votes for independence

The vote wasn't even remotely close.

The peace agreement that ended the war gave southerners the option to secede through a referendum after a six-year interim period. Such was the anticipation before the vote that hundreds of thousands of people queued before dawn across the vast, undeveloped south to cast their ballots on 9 January even though the voting booths were open for a week.

The ballot has been commended by observer groups, though some problems with tallying have been reported. Many feared President Omar al-Bashir's regime in the north – which opposes secession – would use violence or other means to disrupt the vote, but it did not happen. This, added to Bashir's comments that he wanted to enjoy "brotherly" relations with the south should it secede, led to rare praise for the often-maligned leader, both internationally, and in southern Sudan. "Omar al-Bashir took the bold decision to bring peace. Bashir is a champion and we must stand with him," said Kiir today. He urged his people to remain patient over the next few months as his government was "not going to put down the flag of Sudan until July 9. The project has not finished ... We cannot declare independence today. Let us respect the agreement. We must go slowly so we can reach safely to where we are going," he added.

Voting was open to southerners living anywhere in Sudan, while those abroad could vote in eight countries, including Britain. The results showed that in southern Sudan itself 99.57% of voters chose secession, with only 16,129 out of 3.7 million people choosing unity. The result in favour of a split was overwhelming in all 10 southern states, ranging from 95.5% in Western Bahr el Gahzal to 99.98% in the oil-rich Unity state.

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