Seems it never rains in Southern California …
Yesterday was the kind of Southern California day for which this song was written:
You know, the kind of day in which you can’t gloat to all your East Coast family about the weather. A friend told us in the evening that the snow level was supposed to be down to 1500 feet, which is not all that much above our own elevation. We need the rain, of course, but if we get more of it, I think I’ll need sturdier rain gear at work; I gave up on my lunch time walk halfway through when I got too drenched. I was practically the only person outside.
I was hoping I could catch Men of a Certain Age on TNT or Hulu the day after it showed, since we don’t have cable, but it looks, so far, as if it isn’t one of the shows they’re releasing on the net. TNT has sneak previews and behind the scenes clips of the show, but no online pilot. I’ll keep my eye out for it online, since I don’t want to get cable just for the one show; we use our TV for DVDs, which suits me, since it means I don’t tie myself to a schedule of when I watch things. I did, though, while scouring the net, find another way of getting an Andre Braugher fix online; old Thief episodes can be found here.
Also, it turns out that Vanessa Williams’ kid brother, my own kid brother’s childhood friend, is going to guest star on Ugly Betty as a Wilhelmina Slater impersonator in drag. Go, Chris! I’m sure he’ll do a good job.
The high point of the day was chatting with one of my nephews on Facebook, at around midnight.
On a more serious note, here’s some of the news I’ve gotten off Twitter and Facebook:
Mistresses of Tiger Woods March on Washington. Crowd Estimated at Over One Million.
OK, for real serious news this time:
The UK Ministry of Defense has announced that it will no longer investigate UFO sightings. You guys are just going to have to find that secret Torchwood headquarters if you have anything to report.
Even more serious news (though that last was in fact real):
Production of H1N1 vaccine has increased, and availability may soon expand beyond high risk groups.
Trapped – Mental Illness in America’s Prisons.
Jean, your alma mater is doing good things: Launching New International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins.
Vaccine access is what is achieved when countries have access to the right vaccines for their populations, and when the populations of those countries, however resource-poor, can access them through robust systems for safe, effective vaccine delivery. We have learned over the years that it can take as long – or longer – to roll out a life-saving vaccine to the world’s neediest children as it did to discover and manufacture the vaccine in the first place – making a focus on vaccine expansion an urgent priority.
For example, only two developing countries in Africa currently have access to pneumococcal vaccines, despite the fact that 98% of pneumococcal deaths occur in the developing world and pneumococcal vaccines have been available since 2000. On top of that, nearly one-quarter of children are still not consistently reached by systems that deliver the vaccines. Simply put, ensuring that all children of the world have access to life-saving vaccines represents the goal that should be behind nearly all of our collective efforts in vaccine development and introduction.
…
A colleague of mine likes to say, “The road to inaction is paved with research reports”. When evidence drives policy it improves the likely acceptance of the policy by everyone involved, but we need to be realistic. We have learned that it is not enough to generate the evidence, we also need to make sure that evidence reaches the people who need it: policymakers. That’s why IVAC will combine our research with evidence-driven communications….
The Economist reports: Say “aaaarrrghhhh”! Which countries’ children have the worst teeth?
Latest Updates on New Protests in Iran from the Lede blog at the New York Times.
In Greece, the government has taken a zero tolerance policy to the last couple of days of rioting, to prevent rioting on the scale that occurred last year, showing that center-left PASOK isn’t any easier on demonstrators than center-right Nea Demokratia was. More than 850 were detained by authorities over the weekend. eKathimerini reports some lobbying for revision of the university asylum law:
Meanwhile, as academics called for a review of a law banning police from entering university grounds, a dispute broke out between Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis and Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA). In a statement, SYRIZA accused Chrysochoidis of engaging in a “vendetta against anarchists” and called on the government to “intervene to stop the unchecked police repression being enforced by its minister.” Chrysochoidis reacted to the SYRIZA statement with “genuine surprise,” claiming to have spoken to Tsipras several times by telephone during the course of the rioting and noting “a gulf between the content of our conversations and SYRIZA’s announcement.”
Note that Greece, like many other countries with a parliamentary system, has more legislative representation for small parties than the US, so, though Nea Demokratia and PASOK hold the bulk of the seats in Parliament, SYRIZA also has seats there.
Demonstrators are complaining that the zero tolerance policy is also affecting peaceful demonstrators. Here, for example, is the blogger Teacher Dude:
On epersonal example involves the march on Sunday here in Thessaloniki when the police went into action almost immediately after it started. Just moments after the protest moved off the people from the anarchist block started attacking shops selling religious goods, a supermarket and banks, quickly prompting the riot police and motorcycle units to intervene. The sight of police officers on motorbikes mounting pavements and driving through crowds of people running in panic through clouds of tear gas is not one I’ll forget soon.
In the general mayhem the marchers, who are nearly always organised in blocks according to political affiliation, soon scattered and mixed and that is how I ended up with about two hundred other just below the ex-ministry of Macedonia and Thrace surrounded by riot squads who fired tear gas rounds into the group and beat anyone who tried to move away from the area.
Even after it was clear that they had control of the area, officers continued to club and kick those on the ground and refused medical help to the injured. Instead they shouted insults and threats at anyone who looked at them.
Demotix has photos up of the more peaceful protestors.
@greekdude this morning Tweeted
Good new of the day: Greek police to stop using teargas
I haven’t been able to find a confirming news report, though.
Steve at Alexandria asked the other day about how the European Union is likely to respond to Greece’s economic woes, so I thought I’d close with a few links related to the Greek economy:
The European Commission of Economic and Financial Affairs web page on Greece (this one I already included in a comment on Alexandria).
The Economist, last month, chided Greece for creative statistics in reporting on the economy. Matina Stevis in the Guardian agreed that successive Greek administrations had developed a habit of creative statistics, but argued that the European Union bore part of the blame for letting its members fudge statistics.
Hoping I can report better news from Greece soon. I can definitely report better weather today than yesterday from Orange County, California.