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Our man in Cairoshould the U.s.cut off aid toEgypts military?p.4

Michael Bloomberg

auGust 30, 2013

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The main stories... 4 news

What happened The Obama administration said this week that it was review-ing whether to continue U.S. military and economic aid to Egypt, as the countrys ruling generals intensied their bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. Demonstrations by supporters of deposed President Mohammed Morsi were put down with brute force, with security forces killing more than 1,000 civilians during raids on protest camps and mosques, and soldiers ring into crowds of unarmed people. In another blow to the Islamist movement, security forces arrested the Brother-hoods 70-year-old spiritual leader, Mohamed Badie, at a Cairo apartment, charging him with inciting violence. The government said the crackdown was necessary to ght terrorism, pointing to a bloody attack this week in the Sinai Peninsula, in which unidentied gunmen killed 25 police recruits. Egypts military took control of the country last month, following massive demonstrations against Morsi, who alienated much of the population in the one year he governed as Egypts rst democrati-cally elected leader. President Obamawho has refused to call the militarys power grab a coupappealed to Egypts de facto ruler, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, to end the violence, and canceled an upcoming U.S.-Egyptian military exercise, saying traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual when civilians are being killed in the streets and rights are being rolled back. With members of Congress demand-ing action, the president convened his Cabinet and the National Se-curity Council and ordered a case-by-case review of the $1.3 billion in annual U.S. aid to Egypt, most of which goes to the military.

What the editorials said The militarys horric violence does not alter the U.S.s calculus, said NationalReview.com. Egypt has been a critical U.S. ally in the region, providing cooperation on terrorism, preferred access through the Suez Canal for American naval vessels, and a peace treaty with Israel. For that reason, we must hold our noses and stand with the generals, who are a better bet for Egypts long-term prospects of democracy and stability than are anti-democratic Islamists.

But if the violence continues, Egypt could fall into civil war, and devolve into a failed, fractured state like Syria, said The Washington Post. Obama needs to send an unambiguous message that continued repression of the Brotherhood, or the permanent installation of a new autocracy, will leave Egypt isolated from the West. That means the immediate suspension of all aid and the promise of further sanctions if the deliberate killing of

civilians does not stop.

What the columnists said If there was any doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood could not be trusted with pow-er, said Rich Lowry in the New York Post, its rampaging supporters have removed it. Islamist mobs have burned and looted more than 50 Coptic Christian churches in recent weeks, accusing the beleaguered minority of

supporting the militarys takeover. Clearly, our least worst option is to back the military, said Bret stephens in The Wall Street Journal. If we cut off aid and remove any remaining inuence in Cairo, the generals will simply buy their ghter jets from Russiapaid for with the $12 billion Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia pledged to Egypt following Morsis removal. Egypt stands as Obamas greatest failure, said Peter Beinart in TheDailyBeast.com. His foreign policy has been marked by nu-ance, caution, and reluctance to meddle in other countries internal affairs. But in Egypt, his attempt to nd a middle path has pro-duced the worst of all possible outcomes. His failure to respond to the coup has emboldened the generals violent crackdown, and its now clear to everyone in the Muslim world that the U.S. favors democracy only when our side wins. Egypts experiment with democracy was likely doomed from the start, said walter Russell Mead in The-American-Interest.com. The countrys liberals are too weak and too disconnected from the main currents of their society to govern, while the Islamists had no interest in building an open, pluralistic society. So we are left where we started in 2011, with a military junta ruling a deeply divided nation. This Egypt might not be the partner America wants, but its the one weve got.

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

egypts crackdown sparks review of U.s. aid

On the cover: Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, illustration by Howard McWilliam. Cover photos from Getty, NASA, AP

Gen. el-Sissi: Meet the new boss.

A woman with Down syndrome has been hailed as a hero by disability rights advocates after winning indepen-dence from her parents. A Virginia judge ruled earlier this month that Jenny Hatch, 29, could choose where she lives, rejecting a guardianship request from her parents. Hatchs

father had wanted her to live in a group home, but Hatch preferred living with friends she made working at a thrift store. Since the ruling, she has received speaking invita-tions from across the nation. She really has be-come a symbol of hope, said supporter Denille Francis, and to so many families, she is a hero.

When a bride-to-be in Kent, Wash., discovered that her wedding dress had been stolen from her car on the morning of her wedding day, she called 911 in tears. The dispatcher sent the policeand then asked what size the dress was. The operator, Candice, who had been married herself just 18 months before, offered the use of her wedding dress to the distraught bride, whose name was Amanda. Luck-ily, the two were the same sizeand Amandas white wedding went off without a hitch in spite of the theft. [She] had her spe-cial day after all, said Candice.

A man who was once one of the most notorious jewel thieves in the U.S. has cleaned up his act enough to become an honorary police of-ficerthe first ex-con in the country to receive the honor. Larry Lawton spent 11 years in a federal prison after being convicted of racketeer-ing. The grim experience of being in jail led him to change his life, and since his release in 2007 he has become a motivational speaker discouraging young people from turning to crime. Lawton, 52, was sworn into the Lake St. Louis, Mo., police department this week.

It wasnt all bad

Hatch: On her own

... and how they were covered

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

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AP

Events now bring us to a rather unpleasant thought: What if Egyptand Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and most of the Islamic worldarent interested in becoming liberal democracies? In a fne essay

in The-American-Interest.com this week, Walter Russell Mead points out that it wasnt just the neocons who believed, with near-religious fervor, that it was the destiny of these nations to throw off autocratic rule, hold elections, and embrace Western values. Liberal Democratsincluding President Obamawere swept up in this fantasy, too, in the giddy aftermath of the Arab Spring. (A nation with Twitter has to be free!) But as is so often the case with elections, the wrong side won in Egypt, and its brief firtation with democracy appears to be over. Both the Obama administration and its critics, Mead says, now face the sobering realization that freedom and democracy arent in-evitableand that the U.S. has very limited infuence in the region: We cant fx Pakistan, we cant fx Egypt, we cant fx Iraq, we cant fx Saudi Arabia, and we cant fx Syria. Why did we ever think otherwise? Human beings are, by nature, tribal creatures. Democracy is unnatural. For it to work (and then, just barely), a society must have an educated middle class and a philosophical commitmentdeveloped over centuriesto free speech, religious tolerance, individual liberty, and the checks and balances of a constitutional system. These values are not widely held in Egypt or most of the Middle East, even by those weve bribed with billions of dollars and our fnest weapons. These societies will come to democracy in their own sweet time, over the course of decades or even centuries. Or not. The nerve of them.

THE WEEK

The true breadth of the National Security Agen-cys domestic surveillance network was revealed this week in a report that found it can comb through 75 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic in search of foreign intelligence. The PRISM program, detailed in former NSA contractor Edward Snowdens leaks in June, is just one of many that security officials use, accord-ing to The Wall Street Journal. Programs with names like Blarney and Stormbrew give the agency access to reams of data flowing through domestic servers, with the content of some emails and phone calls between Ameri-cans retained even though the NSA is only permitted to target for-eigners. According to documents leaked by Snowden last week, an internal audit registered 2,776 incidents of analysts breaking pri-vacy rules in the 12 months through May 2012. Officials acknowl-edged this week that the NSA had collected up to 56,000 emails annually between Americans with no links to terrorism.

Americas surveillance state keeps getting bigger, said Timothy B. Lee in WashingtonPost.com. The comforting notion that the NSA mainly spies on foreigners has now been exposed as false.

During the 2002 Winter Olympics, all emails and texts in the Salt Lake City area were filtered during the six months surrounding

the event. How many Americans were caught up in that net?

The NSA cant catch a break, said Benjamin wittes in NewRepublic.com. When harmless do-mestic data is accidentally harvested, the govern-ment is legally required to destroy it, and theres no evidence that it has not done so. Nearly all of those 2,776 incidentsamong billions and bil-lions of communicationswere minor techni-cal mistakes. More transparency about these pro-

grams would only help our adversaries elude their reach, said william Galston in The Wall Street Journal. For a more open agency, are we willing to sacrifice a measure of security?

That defense is just not cutting it, said Doug schoen in Forbes .com. We cant trust the government to responsibly manage a sprawling network so ripe for abuse without meaningful over-sight. We need a more transparent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and independent public advocates to oversee the NSA. The House must also vote to curb the agencys powers. Its time to get serious about reform.

Attorney General Eric Holder has proposed a fundamentally new approach to prosecuting minor drug offenders, in a bid to relieve the nations bloated prisons from overcrowding and finan-cial strain. Thanks largely to mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related crimes, federal and state prisons currently hold 1.57 million peoplea 500 percent increase since the late 1970sat a cost of $80 billion a year. Under Holders proposal, prosecutors would refrain from mentioning the quantities of drugs involved when pressing charges in low-level cases, in order to avoid trig-gering harsh mandatory sentences. He also encouraged prosecu-tors to consider alternatives, such as drug treatment centers. We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter, and re-habilitate, said Holder, not merely to convict, warehouse, and forget.

Finally, said neal Peirce in The Seattle Times, an attorney general ready to blow the whistle on our ill-fated, racially tinged, and cruelly applied justice system. Mandatory minimums were in-

troduced during the crack epidemic of the 1980s, and black con-victs are the main victims, receiving sentences on average 20 per-cent longer than those of their white counterparts. There are now more black men incarceratedoften for minor drug offensesthan were held in slavery in 1861.

Holders a bit late to the bandwagon, said Vikrant P. Reddy in NationalReview.com. Conservatives at both the state and na-tional levels have been arguing for criminal justice reform for years. His proposals, in fact, mirror those enacted by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was able to close three prisons by promoting al-ternatives like drug courts and enhanced parole. Its no accident that Texass crime rate is now lower than at any time since 1968.

For all the high-fiving and its about time sentiments, said The Miami Herald in an editorial, lets remember that none of Holders initiatives are enshrined in law; theyre open to inter-pretation by prosecutors across the country. For real change, we need Congress to act. Given the bipartisan support for sentencing reform, lawmakers should plunge in.

The nsAs domestic reach

A new tack on drug sentencing

Spying on Americans, too?

William Falk

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Controversy of the week6 news

stop and frisk: Have cops unfairly targeted black men?Young black and Hispanic men in New York City just won a major legal victory, said Andrew Cohen in TheAtlantic.com, and you should cheer it even if you are white and live a thousand miles from the Empire State Building. Last week, federal Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that the New York Police Departments stop and frisk policy was being applied in a racist and unconstitutional way. Under the policy, cops could stop and search anyone they reasonably suspected of criminal activity. In practice, 87 percent of the 4.4 million people stopped over the last decade have been black or Hispanic, in a city where these groups make up roughly half of the population. Police have been stopping people for such transparently bogus reasons as furtive movements, and releasing 90 percent without any chargesso its obvious, the judge found, that police are simply targeting young minorities for humiliating body searches. A furious New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg promptly vowed to appeal the ruling, said Newsday in an editorial, calling it an ideologi-cally driven decision that would be a disaster for the city. But Bloomberg leaves office in December. Its up to the next mayor, and the NYPD, to figure out how to protect citizens from crime without launching attacks on their personal dignity.

This ruling is political correctness run amok, said the New York Post. Cops search so many young black men in low-income neighborhoods because thats where the crime is; blacks commit 66 percent of the citys violent crimes and 77 percent of shootings. If stop and frisk is neuteredScheindlin has appointed a federal monitor to oversee the policys reformit would be a tragedy for the people the notoriously liberal judge thinks shes trying to

protect, since blacks and Hispanics are most likely to be victims of violent crime. Stop and frisk has been one of the most successful anti-crime strategies of modern times, said Terry eastland in WeeklyStandard.com, taking 8,000 guns and 80,000 knives, box cutters, and other weapons off the streets. The policy has also discouraged young men from carry-ing weapons for fear of being sent to jail. As a direct result, New York has been transformed from an international symbol of crime and

urban decay to what is now the nations safest big city.

Actually, said Alex Pareene in Salon.com, the crime rate in New York absolutely plummeted between 1991 and 2001, two years before the current stop and frisk policy took effect. But to focus on statistics is to miss the point. Even if racial profiling could be shown to be an effective way to police high-crime areas, it would still be illegal. The 14th Amendment prohibits the state from dis-criminating against particular racial groupslet alone systemati-cally hunting, humiliating, and alienating young people of color.

We should mend stop and frisk, not end it, said Michael Daly in TheDailyBeast.com. Theres no question that the policy has been abused, but its also saved thousands of people from mug-gings and murder. Judge Scheindlin made a very useful suggestion for salvaging the program, said steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribunerequiring some New York cops to wear tiny video body cameras. If cops are being as reasonable and nondiscriminatory as they claim, the cameras will prove it; if not, the cameras will encourage better behavior. If Mayor Bloomberg is afraid to equip police with body cameras, theyre not the problem. He is.

Only in America

Los Angeles private schools are hiring celebrity photog-raphers to take student year-book photos. Photographer Vince Bucci, who has taken portraits of Kim Kardashian and Avril Lavigne, makes elementary-school kids look like stars, so other schools are jumping on the trend. Last year we had a parent apply to the school based on the amazing photos in the yearbook, says a teacher at Hollywood Schoolhouse.

A Tennessee judge ordered that a babys name be changed from Messiah to Martin because Messiah is a title that has only been earned by one person, Jesus Christ. During a custody-support fight, Judge Lu Ann Ballew mandated the name change, saying that the name Messiah would put him at odds with a lot of people.

Boring but important

Chief Justice John G. Roberts this week deviated from his pattern of nam-ing Republican-appointed judges to the Foreign Intel-ligence Surveillance Court by installing a Democrat. Judge Jos A. Cabranes, who was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton, is considered one of the more conservative-lean-ing Democratic judges when it comes to security issues. His appointment to the secret court, announced this week, comes as some lawmak-ers push for changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveil-lance Act, which gives the chief justice unilateral power to name the 11-member court and its three-member review panel. Cabranes will serve on the court until 2020.

Using a knife and fork, after a British woman dislocated her jaw while eating a triple-decker burger. If food is too large, we would recommend cutting it into more manageable chunks, said a spokeswoman at the hospital that treated Nicola Peate, 25.

Beerhounds, after Australian scientists created beer that contains less alcohol and more electrolytesa common ingredient in sports drinks. Beer that provides more hydration, researchers said, should result in milder hangovers.

Transparency, after the U.S. government officially admitted the existence of Area 51 in Nevada, releasing documents that describe it as a secret test site for Cold War technology, including the U-2 spy plane. There was no mention of UFOs or dead alien bodies.

Crass commercialism, after tennis star Maria Sharapova asked Floridas Supreme Court to let her change her surname to Sugarpova for the U.S. Opena publicity stunt for her new line of candy. Sharapova backed out of the name switch, said her agent, after discovering she would have to change all her identification.

Believing in Santa Claus, after a would-be burglar got stuck in the chimney of a California home. Chimneys, said the police, are made for smoke to come out, not people to go down.

Revenge, after Canadian police caught a man dumping heaps of manure into his estranged wifes outdoor hot tub. The 64-year-old then made a failed getaway attempt on his tractor. It was a low-speed [chase], said an officer. About [12.5 miles] an hour.

Good week for:

Bad week for:

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

Alamy

Plainclothes detectives conducting a frisk

A new member for the secret spy court

The U.S. at a glance ... newS 7

Dallas Canadian Ted: Sen. Ted Cruzs presi-dential ambitions suffered a setback this week when The Dallas Morning News published a copy of the Texas Republicans birth certificate that appar-ently proves he is a Canadian citizen. Cruz was born in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, where his Cuban-born father was working, and automatically became a Canadian at birth, allowing him to vote in Canadian elections and even run for parliament. His mothers U.S. nationality also secured him American citizenship upon birth. Cruz could run for the White House as a dual citizen, but the news was nevertheless a boon for the senators crit-ics, who have mocked the Tea Party fire-brand as Canadian Ted. Cruz said he would pay the $100 fee to renounce his Canadian citizenship. Nothing against Canada, but Im an American by birth, and as a U.S. senator, I believe I should be only an American, he said.

Washington, D.C. Assault changes: The Pentagon has issued new regulations to combat the militarys sexual assault epidemic, but lawmakers and victims advocates say the new rules do not go far enough. The revamped procedure, announced by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, includes assigning legal representatives to all sexual assault victims so they have formal support during the investigations and tri-als. Commanders have also been given the option to reassign or transfer a unit member accused of a sex crime. Several lawmakers and advocacy groups have repeatedly called for more far-reaching changes to the militarys policies. The Pentagon taking action is a good thing, said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a lead sponsor of a bill that would take rape-case investigations out of the chain of command. But it is not the leap for-ward required to solve the problem.

Sacramento Force-feeding: A federal judge approved a request by California prison officials to allow the force-feeding of more than 100 hunger strikers, even if they have signed do not resuscitate orders. State officials argued that some of the 136 inmates involved may have been coerced into carrying out the hunger strike and sign-ing the papers. This week, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson authorized officials to involuntarily feed any prisoner they believe has been coerced, as well as inmates who have become incompetent to give consent or make medical deci-sions. The hunger strike, which began in July, is being held to protest the practice of keeping some inmates in solitary con-finement for years at a time. So far, 69 inmates have refused food for 43 days, and 67 others have fasted for shorter periods.

Fort Meade, Md. Manning sentenced: Pfc. Bradley Manning was stripped of his rank, dis-honorably discharged, and sentenced to 35 years in prison this week for his involvement in the biggest leak of classi-fied data in the nations history. The former intelligence analyst was convicted last month on 20 counts, including theft, computer fraud, and six violations of the Espionage Act, for providing more than 700,000 classified Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and diplo-matic cables to WikiLeaks in 2010. The prosecution had requested 60 years, and the judge, Army Col. Denise R. Lind, could have sentenced Manning to up to 90 years. His defense attorney, David Coombs, argued for leniency, saying that Manning suffered from a gender identity crisis and exhibited signs of deteriorating

mental health that the military ignored. Manning apologized, saying, When I made these

decisions, I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.

San Diego Kidnapping twist: The fam-ily of a man accused of abducting teenager Hannah Anderson and murdering her mother and brother has requested DNA samples from the girls relatives, in order to determine whether she is her kidnappers biological child. James DiMaggios family made the request this week after it emerged that the 40-year-oldwho went on the run with Anderson before being shot dead by an FBI agent in the Idaho wildernesshad named Hannahs grandmother as the beneficiary of a $110,000 life insur-ance policy. We find it very strange that he has left all this money without any explanation, said a spokesman for the DiMaggio family. A friend of the Andersons, DiMaggio allegedly killed Hannahs mother and brother in his house, which he then burnt down. According to a search warrant, DiMaggio had taken Hannah on mul-tiple day trips before the abduction.

Duncan, Okla. Bored killers: Two teen-agers were charged this week with first-degree murder in the death of an Australian baseball player, having allegedly admitted to police that they killed the 22-year-old for the fun of it. Officers say that Christopher Lane, who was attending East Central University on a baseball scholar-ship, was out jogging when the 15-year-old and 16-year-old randomly gunned him down. They saw Christopher go by, said police Chief Dan Ford, and one of them said, Theres our target. They allegedly followed Lane in a car, before shooting him in the back and driving off. When asked for their motivation for the shooting, one of the boys apparently said, We were bored and didnt have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody. A 17-year-old was charged with being an accessory to the murder. It is heartless, said Peter Lane, Christophers father, to Australian broadcasters. To try to understand it is a short way to insanity.

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

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The world at a glance ...8 news

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

London spoons as distress signals: A British charity is telling girls whose parents want to send them abroad for a forced marriage to put a spoon in their underwear. Airport secu-rity officials who spot the spoon in the metal detector will take the girls aside for a search. They will be taken to a safe space where they have that one last opportunity to disclose theyre being forced to marry, said Natasha Rattu of the aid group Karma Nirvana. British authorities handle nearly 1,500 forced-marriage cases a year, most involving ethnic Pakistani girls, and some victims are now speaking out. Sameem Ali, a Manchester city official, was forced into a marriage in Pakistan when she was 13 and brought back to the U.K. pregnant the next year. I had never seen the guy before, she said.

Braslia, Brazil Oil for schools: Brazil has announced that it will commit all of its oil royalties to education and health care from now on. Under a law passed last week, 75 percent of oil royalties will go toward improving Brazils dismal public schools, and 25 percent will go toward health programs. As offshore drilling begins, the sums could reach $300 billion over 35 years, President Dilma Rousseff said. For me and my government, education is the principal pil-lar to transform Brazil into a great nation, assuring that our peo-ple are freed from poverty, she said. The law is the first of many reforms promised after Junes massive street protests demanding more spending on the poor.

Madre de Dios, Peru Isolated tribe emerges: One of the last remaining remote tribes in the Amazon has tried to make contact with outsiders for just the second time in decades. Some 100 mem-bers of the Mashco-Piromen and women, boys and girlsappeared on a riverbank near a town in the jungle and asked the local Yine people, who speak a similar lan-guage, for bananas, machetes, and rope. Some tried to cross the river to the town but were waved back by rangers. Peruvian law bans contact with 15 remote jungle tribes because they have no immunity to common diseases.

Quito, Ecuador Drill, baby, drill: Ecuador has given up its effort to protect the Amazon from oil drilling. In 2007, President Rafael Correa offered to ban drilling if environmentalists could raise $3.6 billion for a trust fund to protect 4,000 square miles of rain forest. Six years later, with only $13 million donated, Correa is withdrawing the offer. The world has failed us, he said. With deep sadness but also with absolute responsibility to our people and history, I have had to take one of the hardest decisions of my government.

Bremgarten, Switzerland no pool ban: The Swiss Office for Migration is struggling to cor-rect widespread reports that a Swiss town banned foreigners from its swimming pools. The erroneous story, picked up by media outlets across the world, held that the town of Bremgarten, out-side Zurich, refused to allow immigrants to use public facilities. In fact, the government said this week, the towns pool is located in a school, and the town simply informed an asylum camp that resi-dents could use the facilities only when the school was not in ses-sion. Theres no swimming ban for asylum seekers, said Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga. Switzerland is and must remain an open country. Switzerland has nearly twice as many asylum seekers per capita as the EU average.

London Reporters partner held: The British government is defending its nine-hour detention at Heathrow Airport this week of David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of the Guardian journalist who broke the NSA surveillance story. Miranda was traveling

from Germany to Brazil at the Guardians expense to deliver classified data to journalist Glenn Greenwald, his partner, that originated with NSA contractor Edward Snowden. British offi-cials questioned Miranda for the maximum time allowed under an anti-terror law and confiscated his laptop and data sticks. Greenwald called it a failed attempt at intimidation, and pledged to get revenge by revealing secrets about Britain. I think theyll regret what theyve done, he said. The Home Office said police had a duty to act if they believed a traveler possessed highly sensitive stolen information that would help terrorism.

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The world at a glance ... news 9

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

Islamabad Murder charge for Musharraf: Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the former army chief and dictator of Pakistan, has been charged with the 2007 murder of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Musharraf is alleged to have called off security forces that were supposed to be protecting Bhutto, who was shot in the headpurportedly by the Pakistani Talibanwhile campaigning. Musharraf stepped down in 2008 and went into exile after widespread protests over his interference with the courts, but he returned to Pakistan this year to run for office and was promptly put under house arrest pending trial for corruption and abuse of office. Some Pakistani analysts say the charges are political retribution by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was booted from office by Musharraf in a 1999 coup and returned to power this year.

Ghouta, Syria Poison gas alleged: Hundreds of people, many of them children, were killed in a Damascus suburb this week in what Syrian rebels say was a chemical attack by government forces. Videos showed scores

of dead bodies, as well as people convulsing and foaming at the mouth, and doctors said victims had blue lips and pink splotches on their skin. Syrian state media denied the reports, and experts said the injuries could have been caused by concentrated tear gas or by firebombs that sucked all the oxygen out of the area. The U.S. began supplying the rebels with weapons in June, after con-cluding that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad had crossed a red line by using sarin gas against rebel forces.

Pune, India superstition foe murdered: The murder of Indias most famous rationalist, Narendra Dabholkar, has prompted the government of Maharashtra state to adopt the anti-superstition law he had cham-pioned. Dabholkar sought to outlaw the sale of charms, potions, and magical rituals, saying they were just ways for self-styled holy men to prey on the poor and gullible. His activism made him a target for right-wing extremists, who called him anti-Hindu. The 71-year-old was shot dead by two men on a motorcycle while walking near a temple this week. Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan compared the killing to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and said he would bring the Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance to a vote this session.

Seoul Grim tales from the north: North Korean defectors have begun telling their horror stories of life in the Stalinist countrys prison camps to a U.N. human rights inquiry in Seoul. The inquiry opened this week with testimony from a former camp inmate who said she saw guards force a mother to drown her newborn baby. The mother begged the guard to spare her, but he kept beating her, said Jee Heon-a. So the mother, her hands shaking, put the baby face down in the water. Another defector told of guards clubbing a 7-year-old girl to death because she stole some food.

Manila Inundated: Half of Manila was under waist-high water this week after a typhoon dumped two feet of rain in a single day. The Philippine capital of 12 million people was completely para-lyzed, and tens of thousands of families fled their homes. The people have no choice but to wade through the water to look for food, but stores are either closed or have run out of supplies, said Lino Ibadlit, an official in the nearby province of Cavite. Flooding has become more frequent in the capital because the surround-ing mountains have been deforested by loggers and huge squatter communities on the outskirts have clogged the waterways.

Fukushima, Japan Radioactive spill: As tons of radioactive water poured from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, Japanese regula-tors this week upgraded the threat level for the first time since the plants catastrophic meltdown after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Some 80,000 gallons of highly radioactive water has seeped out of a steel tank, and the utility, TEPCO, hasnt located the leak. The spilled water emits as much radiation in a single hour as plant workers can legally be exposed to over five years. Two weeks ago, the regulator cited TEPCO for failing to contain less-contaminated groundwater, which has been flowing directly into the ocean at a rate of hundreds of tons a day. Its like a haunted house, said Shunichi Tanaka, head of Japans Nuclear Regulation Authority. Mishaps keep happening one after another.

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People10 NEWS

Baldwins acting fatigueAlec Baldwin has lost his enthusiasm for acting, said James Mottram in The Independent (U.K.). Im 55 years old. I dont give a s---, he says. When you do this for 20, 25 years, you reach that point where you realize this is not the most important thing in your life. Truth be told, he says, hes never particularly enjoyed acting. Sometimes the movies are interesting, but Ive

never had a good time making a movie. Not one time! For the past seven years he had a plum role in TVs 30 Rock, but the show was canceled in January. Not that he cares. The main reason to be in the show was to have a reliable schedule to visit my daugh-ter, Ireland, in Los Angeles every weekend. Baldwin and Ireland, now 17, previously had a difficult relationship, largely due to his volcanic temper, but on those weekends he tried to rebuild the bridge. I would drive to L.A. and drive my daughter to a party. I would park down the street under a streetlight and I would sit and read [The New Yorker]. My daughter would text me, Come pick me up! I drive back to the party, pick up my daughter. Shed say, Take us to dinner. Her and 10 friends! Then shed say, Come in and pay the check. Then my daughter got a little bit older. Now she doesnt want to see me every weekend.

The bartender at the end of the worldPhil Broughton served drinks at the planets most remote bar, said Chris Broughton in The Guardian (U.K.). In 2002, the cryogen-ics technician arrived at Antarcticas Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for a yearlong deployment, and found that the bases pub lacked a bartender. He took over the job, and spent his evenings pouring whiskeys and listening to the woes of his fellow research-ers. There was no chaplain at the base, he says. I was the nearest thing to one. During Antarcticas six-month-long night, temperatures dropped to minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and scien-tists often took refuge in alcohol. It was a given that anyone who [took] a job on the base was trying to escape something. I saw a lot of people at the end of the world with nowhere left to run. Broughton often binged with his patrons. After a particularly heavy session, I would nip outside to be sick. Any liquid that came into contact with the ice froze immediately. It was a point of honor to clean up after yourself, which meant chipping away with a pick-axe. Broughton now works at the University of California, but says hed gladly return to Antarctica. Watching the aurora with a cocktail in your hand isnt an experience you let go of easily.

Jennifer Lawrence knows shell get no sympathy by complaining about the price of fame, said Jonathan Van Meter in Vogue. I tee-ter on seeming ungrateful when I talk about this, she says, but Im going through a meltdown about it lately. Im just starting to feel like a monkey in a zoo. Wherever she goes, the paparazzi and gossip hounds followtaking her photo on the beach, on the street, at a restaurant, speculating about her love life and her career. All of a sudden the entire world feels entitled to know everything about me, including what Im doing on my weekends when Im spending time with my nephew. I dont have the right to say, Im with family. She knows it sounds obnoxious when celebrities whine about their lack of privacyshe calls it a dan-gerous topicbut insists that her new normal is impossible to accept. Im not going to find peace with it. If I were just this average 23-year-old girl and I called the police to say there were strange men sleeping on my lawn and following me to Starbucks, they would leap into action. But because Im famous, well, sorry maam, theres nothing we can do. It makes no sense.

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Lindsay Lohan owned up to addictions to alcohol, drugs, and chaos in a nakedly con-fessional interview this week with Oprah Winfrey. The actress said she made too much money too young, and that her party-ing led to an addiction to alcohol, which she used as a gateway to other things,

including cocaine. Winfrey accused her of being addicted

to chaos, a charge Lohan did not dispute. Im my own worst enemy, and I know

that, she said. But Lohan claimed

a court-ordered

90-day stint in rehab had helped her face her problems, and that she wanted more than anything to stay sober and revive her acting career. I feel whole again, she said. Im willing to do whatever it takes.

Chris Brown was sentenced to another 1,000 hours of community service this week after being accused of not properly completing his previous sentence. A judge ordered the R&B singer to complete 125 days of labor before Aug. 25 next year, reinstating the probation Brown received in 2009 for assaulting then-girlfriend Rihanna. Brown was sentenced then to 1,440 hours of community service in Virginia, but the Los Angeles district attorneys office ac-cused him of at best sloppy documenta-tion and at worst fraudulent reporting of his hours. In one instance, Brown was

allegedly photographed at a charity event in Washington, D.C., on a day he claimed to have picked up trash in Richmond, Va. The district attorney agreed to drop the charges as part of the deal to extend probation.

Caroline Kennedy could be worth as much as $500 million, according to legal documents revealed this week. The only surviving child of President John F. Ken-nedy was required to report her financial information after President Obama nomi-nated her to be U.S. ambassador to Japan, and revealed an estimated income of between $12 million and $30 million a year from family trusts and other assets. Shes very rich, probably worth between $250 million and $500 million, a legal expert told the New York Post after reviewing the documents.

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

Why has the warming trend slowed? Climatologists arent sure. What they do know is that the average air temperatures at the earths surface have risen only about 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1998the hottest year of the 20th centuryeven as humanity has continued to pour vast quantities of car-bon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The world pumped roughly 110 billion tons of CO

2 into the air between

2000 and 2010about a quarter of the total put there by mankind since the start of the Industrial Revolution. According to the pre-vailing models of man-made climate change, greenhouse gases heat the planet by trapping solar radiation in the atmosphere that might otherwise radiate into space. So the addi-tional emissions over the past decade should have caused average temperatures to continue to climb as steeply as they did in the 1980s and 1990s. Climate-change skeptics say the plateau in warming proves that the climate isnt as sensitive to greenhouse emissions as scientists claim, and that it would there-fore be foolish to adopt costly measures to limit the use of fossil fuels that emit CO

2. There is no problem with global warm-

ing, said Ian Plimer, an earth sciences professor at Australias University of Melbourne. It stopped in 1998.

Do climate scientists agree? No. They concede that temperatures havent risen as rapidly as they did in the previous two decades, but say the world is still getting warmer due to man-made emissions. Despite the plateau in average temperatures, climatologists point out, the 2000s were hotter than the 1990s, and nine of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1998. Overall, the world has warmed by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit, which sounds modest, but is a tremendous amount of heat for the entire surface of the earth, already causing major melting of the polar ice caps and noticeably more extreme weather throughout the world. Still, that doesnt explain what happened to the missing heatthe warmth the last decades greenhouse gas emissions should have trapped in the atmosphere.

Where did the heat go? It might be in the depths of the ocean. The worlds seas absorb more than 90 percent of the extra energy that greenhouse gases trap on earth, yet the ocean is rarely included in global warming estimates, which are typically based on measurements of air tem-perature. A recent study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found that deep ocean waters below 2,300 feet have heated up since 2000, even as the temperature of surface seawater

remained stable. Warming over the last decade has been hidden below the ocean surface, said Richard Allan, a climate sci-entist at Britains University of Reading. If you take the oceans into account, he says, global warming has actually not slowed down. If oceans are indeed the reason for the pause, the extra heat would eventually rise to the surfacecausing a sudden new warming trend. Some climate scientists, however, think that much of the heat is missing because it never made it into Earths climate system in the first place.

Why would that happen? Possibly because the sun hasnt been shining as brightly. Over an average of 11 years, the suns energy output rises and falls, subtly

influencing Earths climate. The last solar maximum occurred in 2000; since then, a prolonged solar minimum has kept the sun dimmer than usual. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research says that lower solar radiation could account for up to 15 percent of the missing heat. Another theory is that about 30 percent of the missing heat is due to an influx of sunlight-blocking particles into the stratospherevast quantities of pollution from coal-burning China and several mid-sized vol-canic eruptions, including on Montserrat in the Caribbean and in Papua New Guinea. These particles work in the opposite way to greenhouse gases, reflecting solar radiation away from the planet.

What does the future hold? Most climatologists are adjusting their predictions to show a slower pace of warming in future decades. But they say the fun-damental threat has not changed. A recent study in the journal

Nature Geoscience analyzed data from the past decade and calculated that a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere above pre-industrial timeswhich would occur by 2050 under current trendswould raise temperatures by between 1.6 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Thats lower than the estimates made by the United Nations panel of climate scientists in 2007, which said that a doubling of atmospheric carbon would raise tem-peratures by as much as 5.4 degrees. But climatologists say an additional increase of even 2 degrees would be catastrophic, causing massive ice melting, rising sea levels, severe coastal flooding, prolonged droughts, and other disruptions. When the natural factors now holding back warming subside, researchers warn, it could be like a dam breaking, with more rapid warming appearing over the next few years.

Briefing news 11

The sun: A bit dimmer this past decade

The missing heat

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

NASA

The skeptics favorite scientist Richard Lindzen is a climate change skeptic with a novel theory. The MIT meteorologist concedes that greenhouse gases cause warming, but he believes Earth will be able to regulate its temper-ature, like a thermostat, thanks to clouds. Lindzen argues that when surface temperature increases, the moist air that rises from the tropics will rain out more of its moisture, leaving less to form the wispy, high clouds known as cirrus. Just like greenhouse gases, those cirrus clouds trap heat in the atmosphere, so a decrease in them would counteract the increase of greenhouse gases. If Im right, well have saved money by not adopt-ing emissions restrictions, says Lindzen, who recently testified before Congress at the request of Republican skeptics. Most climatologists dis-pute Lindzens theory, saying his papers have been riddled with erroneous data and unproven assumptions. Lindzen is feeding upon an audi-ence that wants to hear a certain message, says Christopher S. Bretherton, an atmospheric researcher at the University of Washington. I dont think its intellectually honest at all.

Global warming has hit a plateau. What does that mean for the threat of catastrophic climate change?

Best columns: The U.S. 12 newS

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

Corbis

A zoo in central China has been shut down by authori-ties after it was caught try-ing to pass off a shaggy dog as a lion. One angry visitor, surnamed Liu, told local me-dia that she uncovered the fraud when she approached a cage marked African lion and heard the beast emit a bark. It was a Tibetan mas-tiff, a large, hairy breed of dog. I paid good money to see the lion and all I got to see was a dog, said Liu. The zoos staff explained that it couldnt afford a real lion.

Kanye West has splashed out $1.7 million on two bomb- and bullet-proof vehicles in a bid to pro-tect Kim Kardashian and their new baby daughter, North, from kidnappers. The rapper commis-sioned a $400,000 Chevrolet Kodiak based on President Obamas Limo One, said the Daily Star (U.K.), and ordered a $1.3 million military-grade SUV from Latvian auto-maker Dartz Motorz, which is built to withstand attacks from land mines and rocket-propelled grenades. Kanye is fully aware that his new family is so high-profile they attract the attention of weir-dos and psychopaths, said a source. He aims to leave nothing to chance.

A drunken Louisiana man was arrested after he al-legedly rode his horse into a bar and lassoed a man. Tammy Guidry said she was listening to a band play at Cowboys Saloon in Scott, La., when Jeremy Mouton rode his horse through the door. It was a big horse, said Guidry. He came in and nearly clipped the fiddle player. After being escorted outside, Mouton, 26, allegedly lassoed a man and dragged him around the parking lot. The city of Scott is where the West be-gins, said police Chief Chad Leger, but this is taking it too far.

It must be true...I read it in the tabloids

The Republican Party is coming to a crossroads, said Chris Cillizza. Down one road lies a new, libertarian populism championed by Sen. Rand Paul, who preaches that the federal government should stay out of peoples lives and stop meddling in the Arab world. Down the other lies the mainstream pragmatism offered by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a right-leaning centrist who says he believes in doing anything I need to do to win. In recent weeks, the two rising GOP stars have expressed open contempt for each other, trading nasty pub-lic insults over such issues as surveillance, drone warfare, and federal disaster spending. They know theyre not only vying for the 2016 presidential nominationtheyre competing to redefine a battered GOP. The party is currently torn between hard-right conservatives who think theyve lost presidential elections by nominating establishment Republicans who didnt excite the partys base, and moderates who think the GOP has alienated centrist voters by moving too far to the right. In Paul and Christie, Republicans have a stark choice between ideological purity and pragmatism. Let the battle begin.

As parents send their boys off to school in coming weeks, said Chris-tina Hoff Sommers, they should ask: Is my son really welcome? Sadly, its increasingly clear that our schools are becoming hostile environments for boys. Academically, a large percentage of boys are struggling, falling behind girls, and becoming disengaged from school. One principal reason for this is that schools now discourage and even punish the kind of assertive sociability and competitive games boys naturally favor, from tug-of-war to tag to imaginative hero/villain games with rescues and shoot-ups. Such games excite young boys imaginations, provide moral lessons, and stimulate their language de-velopment. But teachers now stop this kind of competitive playthe tug-of-war has been replaced by the tug-of-peaceand if a first-grader even pretends his fingers are a gun, hes suspended because of ludicrous zero tolerance polices. Girls, meanwhile, conduct their own kind of imaginative play without interference. For boys to flourish in school, it must be a place where they can be themselves, and have fun. Efforts to re-engineer the young male imagination are doomed to fail, and will only tell boys: You are not welcome in school.

It sounded like an incredible scoop, said Ken Silverstein. During the recent terrorism alert that shut 22 U.S. embassies abroad, Eli Lake and Josh Rogin reported in TheDailyBeast.com that U.S. intelligence had intercepted a conference call of al Qaidas senior leaders about an imminent terror plot. Even the terrorist organizations leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, supposedly came out of his deep hiding to take part in what anonymous intelligence officials described as a meeting of the Legion of Doom. Conservatives immediately pointed to the story as proof that al Qaida was as dangerous as ever, while defenders of NSA surveillance cited the intercept as justification for the agencys spying. But it turns out that the story was wildly exaggerated. There was no conference call of al Qaida leaders; instead, other news or-ganizations revealed, U.S. intelligence saw evidence of a vague plot discussed by jihadistsnot including al-Zawahirion online message boards. Lake has a history of erroneous, agenda-driven reporting; in 2003, he repeatedly insisted that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. Clearly, Lake has a weakness for stories that are better than the truth.

The struggle between Pauland ChristieChris Cillizza

The Washington Post

Hyping theal QaidathreatKen Silverstein

Harpers.org

How schools are hostile to boysChristina Hoff Sommers

Time

Heres a simple rule for any government agency that monitors or polices Americans: If you get to watch us, we get to watch you. Its a basic lesson of

history and human nature: People are much more likely to behave badly when nobodys watching. Thats why police patrol neighborhoods. Its the rationale for New York Citys stop, question, and frisk policy. Its also what led to the National Security Agencys current surveillance programs. NSA analysts and New York City cops are nothing like the thugs and terrorists they police. But theyre still people. Because they work for the government, with all its power, their misbehavior can become dangerous. The watchers must be watched. William Saletan in Slate.com

Viewpoint

Best columns: Europe nEws 13

SWITZERLANDOprah Winfrey has the Swiss all wrong, said Ruth Spitzenpfeil. The American talk-show empress sparked a furor here when she said shed been the victim of racism while shopping at a posh Zurich boutique. A saleswoman refused to show Winfrey a $38,000 crocodile bag, telling the billionaire, whom she evidently didnt recognize, that the purse was too expensive for her. The affair blew up into Pursegate, as the store owner blamed the shopgirls faulty English, the Swiss Tourism Ministry tweeted an apology on behalf of the nation, and Winfrey said she was sorry she ever mentioned the incident. But was it really discrimi-

nation? Those who know Switzerland well say no. Whites, even locals, get the same treatment in Zurich. A sneeringly arrogant, superior at-titude is the default service mode in the citys boutiques. Shoppers tell of having been subtly ridiculed when they asked for top brands such as Rolex. Many say they have been ignored, even when they spoke directly to a salesperson. Others have been looked up and down only to be coldly told, We have nothing in your size or price range. Zurich clerks are downright egalitarian in their rudeness, snubbing everyone equally. It has nothing to do with racism.

Why does anyone try to vacation in Bulgaria? asked Kapka Todorova. Somehow, our Black Sea beach resorts still draw touristsand not only from abroad, where the foreigners can be forgiven for not knowing any better, but from other Bulgarian towns. Can any of these be repeat customers? A Bulgarian beach vacation begins at a cramped hotel with a balcony of dubious stability from which, if you crane on tiptoes, you can see a sliver of the sea somewhere behind the 13th row of resorts built on the beach in the last two years. If you want a mealinvariably friedyoull be crammed at a table with eight other people, five

of them children, because every restaurant insists on poisoning the maximum number of people. The beach itself is strewn with garbage: cigarette butts, plastic bottles, syringes, condomsand if that doesnt offend your eyes enough, you can look at your fellow beachgoers, who are mostly bulbous, sickly pale, and naked. Some are slick with the slime of the polluted water. Next time the Americans want to give a military operation a name that will inspire terror, they shouldnt go with Shock and Awe or Desert Storm. They should call it something like Sozopol Beach or Bulgarian Campsite Port-a-John.

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

AP

It didnt take much to rekindle the nations Diana fever, said Martin Robinson in the Daily Mail. Its been 16 years since the erst-while Princess of Wales was killed in a car crash in a Paris tunnel while being chased by paparazzi, but we just cant let her go. In the latest conspiracy theory, floated last week, a special forces officer is said to have bragged about having been in on a military plot to murder Diana. The officer, whose name was not released, was described by colleagues as erratic and a loose cannon, and experts said the allegations were utter nonsense. Still, Scotland Yard was forced to admit that, while it wasnt reopening an inquiry into the crash, it was evalu-ating the testimony. That admission was enough to bring praise from those who have alleged foul play all along: Mohamed Al Fayed, father of Dianas boyfriend Dodi Fayed, who died with her, and the family of Henri Paul, the driver of the car, who also died in the accident.

August is Diana memorial season, so its no surprise that another conspiracy theory is making the rounds, said David Aaronovitch in The Times. None of the reporters covering the story this week really believes that the death was anything other than an accident, and very few of the readers do either. What this talk represents is a desire to somehow keep a version of Diana on the go. In another culture, we might encase her finger in silver and parade it around the square every year. In this one, we invent bogus revelations about her death to justify mourn-ing her anew.

For many women my age, Dianas memory is still fresh, said Cristina Odone in The Daily Telegraph. We loved her, still love her, because we feel we let her down. Unlike her daughter-in-law Kate Middleton, who is so normal and grounded that she makes the rest of us feel like dysfunctional freaks, Diana was deeply flawedinsecure, needy, jealous, self-critical, self-harmingyet also glamorous and tenderhearted. Her vulnera-bility cried out for protection, and having no doting mother or close sister to lean on, she turned to us. Yet in the end, no one could protect her from a disastrous marriage, un-

suitable suitors, celebrity, the paparazzi, or herself. No wonder we continue to mourn.

Yet that doesnt explain why the conspiracy theories persist, said sam Leith in the Evening Standard. Immediately after Dianas death, a stunned public sought to blame someone, and since the royal family quite obviously detested her, whispers arose that they had done her in. But theres simply zero evidence to support the idea. There isnt even a plausible method of assassination as-serted: Even a seasoned assassin would be crazy to try to cause a crash in public in full view of the pursuing international press, while trusting to luck that the target wouldnt put her seat belt on. A two-year French inquiry, a three-year British investiga-tion, and a thorough inquest all reached the same conclusion: Diana died because she wasnt wearing her seat belt and her driver was drunk and speeding. Was it murder? The short an-swer is: no. The long answer is: nooooooooooo.

United Kingdom: Dianas death still questioned

Not racist,were justreally snottyRuth Spitzenpfeil

Neue Zrcher Zeitung

BULGARIA

The conspiracy theories never end.

Vacationinghere ismasochisticKapka Todorova

24 Chasa

Best columns: International 14 news

RUSSIA

AUSTRALIA

Russians are starting to see abortion as avoid-able, said Kristen Blyth. During the Soviet era, when condoms were scarceand uncomfortably thick and unreliable when you could get themabortion was the main method of birth control. In 1965, for example, the Health Ministry recorded 5.5 million abortions compared with just 2 million live births. Shortly after the USSR fell in 1991, a study found that 86 percent of women of child-bearing age had had at least one abortion, and some had had a dozen or more. Today the picture is starkly different, even optimistic. The number of abortions has halved since 2000. While the rate

is still twice that of Western Europe, it is drop-ping rapidly. The reason is simple: Russians have discovered contraception. Condoms and IUDs are now widely available, even if birth control pills are still uncommon. The change has been so swift that Russia is still unfairly perceived as hav-ing an abortion culture. One Western analyst published a book slamming Russias grisly ter-mination rate just this year, but he used statistics that were more than a decade old. In reality, three fourths of sexually active Russian women use protection. Thats not perfect, by any stretchbut here, it amounts to a contraceptive revolution.

We Australians are fooling ourselves about global warming, said David McKnight. We pretend that weve gone green, adopting cleaner energy sources and evenafter much delaycommitting to the Kyoto Protocols cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. But thats just at home. At the same time, we have tripled our exports of coal, mostly to developing countries like India and China. The greenhouse emissions from our coal exports nullify any planned emission reductions within Australia, many times over. Climate change is a global phenomenon, so it doesnt matter whether our coal is burned in Melbourne or in Mumbai. Were

feeling it already: Over the last year, Australia has recorded its hottest day, hottest week, hottest month, and hottest summer since records began. In the long term, it may even be worse to export fossil fuels than to burn them at home, because developing countries are encouraged in their dirty energy model by the easy availability of Australian coal. It doesnt make sense for Australia to lock itself into economic reliance on coal exports when its likely that at some point an international agreement will emerge to discourage coal use. For now, we are exporting coal like there is no tomorrow. If we keep it up, there wont be.

The Egyptian army has declared a war against its own people, said Debasish Mitra in the Times of Oman. Trigger-happy forces mowed down hundreds of peaceful demonstrators who had camped in Cairo for six weeks. The military turned the Rabaa al-Adawiyah Mosque into a scene worse than the massacre in Beijings Tianan-men Square in 1989. It was an excruciat-ing sight to behold as chunks of human flesh blown off by gunshots lay splattered all over. What prompted this barbaric bloodbath? All the protesters asked was the restoration of their democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, ousted by a military coup. Muslims may never trust the ballot box again.

Its not that black-and-white, said sara Abou Bakr in the Daily News Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood sit-in at the mosque was hardly peaceful. The international press never reported on the systematic attacks on Rabaa residents, or that women had to cover their hair to pass the sit-in for fear of attack. Inside the sprawling camp, suspected moles were tortured. Outside it, Morsi supporters killed residents in sporadic clashes throughout July and August. Egyptians are fighting to protect their way of life against an armed group that is clearly backed by Western administrations. That foreign backing makes Egyptians ever more resolute to get rid of the Brotherhoodand they will.

Thats simply not possible, said Khalil Al-Anani in English .Ahram.org.eg. The Muslim Brotherhood was in power for a year, and even though it made a mess of its rule, its members

will never accept a return to their status in the Mubarak era, when they were sup-pressed and remained silent. Brotherhood members now have little to lose, and many are enraged at the killing of their friends. Attempts by the state to once again sub-jugate the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists will fail, even if the ongoing crisis is resolved.

Yet there should be no doubt that the military will remain in charge for years

to come, said Ahmet Insel in Radikal (Turkey). Plenty of Egyptiansthough well short of a majoritywelcome military rule as a relief from the Islamists. The Coptic Christians and the urban middle class see the military as their protectors. And while the mass arrests and killings have given the Muslim Brotherhood a sympathetic edge, it will take it years to reorganize as an op-position group. In the meantime, the Islamist void will be filled by more-radical groups, providing enough terrorists and ter-rorist actions to prolong the state of emergency indefinitely.

Dont expect the U.S. to lift a finger to restrain the generals, said Murat Yetkin in Hurriyet (Turkey). President Obama has plenty of domestic reasons not to cut aid. The U.S. support for Egypts military is a cover for a huge gift from American taxpayers to American defense companies. More than 80 percent of what is called aid to Egypt goes directly into the pockets of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and other stalwarts of the military-industrial complex. That means powerful American lobbies are involvedand at stake are American jobs.

egypt: Bloodbath for the Muslim Brotherhood

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

AP

Rethinkingabortion asbirth controlKristen Blyth

The Moscow News

Green athome butdirty abroadDavid McKnight

The Sydney Morning Herald

An excruciating sight to behold

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Obama is currently rein-stalling solar panels on the White House, three years after he pledged to replace the 32 panels removed by Ronald Reagan in 1986. Jimmy Carter installed the original solar panels. TheAtlantic.com

Banks, financial insti-tutions, insurers, and accounting firms have donated $10 million to members of the House Fi-nancial Services Commit-tee just this year. Demand for seats on what is known as the cash committee has grown so large that an extra row of seats had to be installed to fit all 61 members.The New York Times

In a vast storehouse in Fort Collins, Colo.,

the U.S. Depart-ment of Agriculture

has 700,000 vials of sperm from 18 different species of domestic

animals, includ-ing cows, sheep,

turkeys, goats, and chickens. In the event

of some apocalypse, said Dr. Harvey Black-

burn of the USDA, we have the ability to repopu-late entire breeds.ModernFarmer.com

A new study of patients admitted to the emergency room because of alcohol-related injuries found that 15 percent had been drinking Budweiser. Com-ing in second was Steel Reserve Malt Liquor, which accounted for 14.7 percent of the ER visits. NBCNews.com

The U.S. last year spent $18 billion on immigration and border enforcement, more than the combined annual budgets of the FBI, the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Admin-istration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire-arms and Explosives.The New York Times

The Hyperloop: A revolutionary pipe dreamIts an idea right out of science fiction, said The Economist, but Elon Musk is sure it could work. Musk, the high-tech entrepreneur who created PayPal and the electric-car firm Tesla, unveiled a 57-page design last week for a futuristic alterna-tive to Californias planned high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Franciscoa vacuum train nicknamed the Hyperloop. Passenger pods would hurtle through airtight tubes suspended alongside Californias high-ways, able to reach 800 mph due to the lack of air resistance. The trip from L.A. to San Francisco would take just 35 minutes. Musk says the solar-powered system would be easier to build than a railway and cheaper, to boothe estimates a cost of $6 billion, less than a tenth of the rail lines $68 billion price tag. Although Musk says the Hyperloop is just an open source design that he hopes someone else will build, said Megan McArdle in Bloomberg.com, his idea is worth serious consideration. Moving people from city to city this way is potentially revolutionary.

Dream on, said Tad Friend in NewYorker.com. Musks Hyperloop design is essentially a nap-kin doodle that engineers are already picking apart. It has some ingenious touches, but theres

no conceivable way this could be built for $6 billion, when testing, maintenance, and security costs are taken into account. The proposed route parallels the San Andreas Faultthink of the disaster film you could make about a collaps-ing Hyperloopand would start an hour north of Los Angeles and south of San Francisco Bay, which kills the whole point. Even if the Hyper-loops many problems could be solved, Califor-

nias state government isnt likely to drop its high-speed rail system and throw bil-lions at a pipe dream.

The Hyperloop may be a fantasy for now, said Sam-uel R. Staley in CNN .com.

But that doesnt make the idea any less relevant. Great leaps of technology are always thought to be impossible until someone makes them. The steam-powered locomotive was considered the stuff of fancy when William Murdoch built a prototype in the 1780s; just a few decades later, steam trains were commonplace. We should be cheering Musk on, said Joel Johnson in Gizmodo.com. To meet its environmental and economic challenges, America needs real innova-tion, not just tweaks of existing technologies. The Hyperloop may be just a pipe dreambut at least someone is daring to dream it.

Noted

A sketch of the Hyperloop capsule

The Constitution authorizes Congress to pass laws, and the president to faithfully execute them, said Charles Krauthammer in The Wash-ington Post. But President Obama doesnt like that constitutional limitation on his powersso hes just ignoring it, and ruling by executive decree. In just the latest abuse of executive orders, Obama last week directed U.S. attorneys to end mandatory sentences for federal drug offenses, even if it means withholding evidence from judges. Last month, he suspended the employer mandate provision of Obamacare by executive fiat. In 2012, he simply ignored Congress and unilater-ally ended the deportation of immigrants brought here illegally as children. This gross executive usurpation to make law is banana republic stuff. In fact, its reminiscent of Richard Nixon, said George Will, also in the Post. In 1977, Nixon famously said that when a president does some-thing illegal, that means it is not illegal.

Spare me these ridiculous Nixon hyperventila-tions, said Jonathan Chait in NYMag.com. Federal agencies delay or amend implementa-tion of parts of laws for practical reasons all the time, just as the White House did with the employer mandate. Thats hardly a usurpation

of congressional authority. Nixon, by contrast, ordered a break-in of the opposition partys headquarters, and authorized bribes to silence his henchmen. And if Obama is blatantly violating the Constitution, why is he getting away with it so easily? The truth is, Obama has not gone outside the norm here, said Norm Ornstein in TheAtlantic.com. In fact, the same people shout-ing tyranny now applauded aggressive execu-tive unilateralism under Reagan and Bush.

Actually, executive authority has expanded dan-gerously under Obama, said Robert Reich in The New York Times, and Congress deserves a big share of the blame. Since the GOP-controlled House refuses to participate in governing the nation, passing only 15 bills this year, Obama has decided to go it alone. Through the Environmen-tal Protection Agency, hell make climate-change policy, and when it comes to boosting the econ-omy, the Federal Reserve is the only game in town. This is a profoundly undemocratic way to run the country, since these agencies operate with-out transparency, and do not answer to voters. By trying to tie government into knots, the GOP has only succeeded in making our government less accountable to the people.

Executive orders: Is Obama breaking the law?

Sometimes, clowns are no laughing matter, said Philip Rucker in WashingtonPost .com. Rodeo clown Tuffy Gessling caused a national furor last week when he staged a show at the Missouri State Fair featur-ing a fellow clown wearing a President Obama mask and a broomstick that looked like it had been shoved up his backside. As Obama was chased by a real bull, Gessling whooped and hollered over the loudspeaker, Obama, theyre coming for you this time! Hes going to getcha, get-cha, getcha! And Yahoo! Were gonna smoke Obama, man. The overwhelmingly white crowd went wild, screeching with laughter when Obama played with his lips. A three-minute amateur video of the show went viral, with liberals condemning the clown act as racist and conservatives hotly insisting it was all in good fun. Fair spectator Perry Beam, however, said there was nothing fun about seeing a crowd roar as the black president ran for his life. It reminded me of a Klan rally, Beam said. It had that hateful aspect.

Oh, lighten up, people, said James Taranto in WSJ.com. For his offense against the Dear Leader, Gessling has now been permanently banned from the Missouri State Fair. But nowhere

in the Clown Commandments is political humor forbidden. In fact, making fun of presidents is a rodeo tradition: I didnt hear a peep from the progressive lynch mob

when a George H.W. Bush dummy was impaled by a bull at a 1994 New Jer-sey rodeo. Its our national rightnay, dutyto pick on presidents, said David Weigel in Slate.com. That was certainly the rule with George W. Bush. Liberal rock and movie stars routinely condemned him from the stage, and at antiIraq War ral-lies, posters depicted him as a war crimi-nal. The huge overreaction to Gesslings dumb-but-legal political joke only tells the Obama haters theyre right about the Lefts double standards.

At first, I also thought the cries of racism were unjustified, said Kath-leen Parker in The Washington Post. But then I took another

look at the video. I saw Southern whites cheer-ing lustily as our first black president is trapped, unarmed, in a ring with a charging bull and baited by a jeering announcer. Given our nations history, that little tableau inevitably evokes the mob-inspired lynching of black men, and its not at all amusing or light-hearted. In this case, memory conquers humor.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to

pause and reflect. Mark Twain, quoted in

Publishers Weekly

An empty man is full of himself.

Edward Abbey, quoted in

ChicagoTribune.com

Stupidity is the same as evil, if you judge by

the results. Margaret Atwood, quoted in

the Cape Argus (South Africa)

It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it.

Warren Buffett, quoted in Independent.co.uk

The most futile thing in this world is any attempt at exact definition of char-acter. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions. Theodore Dreiser, quoted in

The Wall Street Journal

The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of

ones self. Jane Addams, quoted in the

Associated Press

A goal is a dream with a deadline.

Napoleon Hill, quoted in HuffingtonPost.com

Talking points

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

Wit & Wisdom

AP

neWs 17

Poll watch

51% of Americans believe the U.S. should cut off military aid to Egypt to put pressure on its government to stop violent crackdowns, while 26% believe it should continue provid-ing support to maintain infuence. Only 12% of Americans believe Presi-dent Obamas response to the Egyptian crisis has been adequate.Pew Research Center

38% of whites and 35% of African-Americans say they have no friends of a different race.Reuters/Ipsos

Obama rodeo clown: All in good fun?

Republicans are no longer willing to be patsies for the liberal media, said emily Miller in The Washington Times. The Republican National Committee last week hit back at NBC and CNN over their plans to air major retrospectives about the life of Hillary Clinton, approving a resolution that bans the networks from hosting any 2016 primary debates unless they scrap these public-relations efforts for the likely Democratic nomi-nee. Were done putting up with this nonsense, said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, blasting the projects as extended commercials for Clinton. Priebus is no doubt right about the bent of the Hillary programs, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. NBCs miniseries will star Diane Lane as the former First Lady, and you can bet shell come off as a sympathetic and glamor-ous heroine. CNNs documentary will likely be similarly flattering to its subject. But liberal media bias is a fact of political life, and Priebuss boycott will only create the impression that hes acting as Lord Republican Media Censor.

The GOPs boycott isnt really about Hillary Clinton, said Byron York in Washington Examiner .com. Priebuss real agenda is to limit the number of primary debates and seek more

conservative-friendly moderators. In the 20-plus debates of Republican candidates in 2011 and 2012, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, et al descended into an endless series of attacks on each other, creating more bloodletting, division, and sometimes embarrassment for the party than enlightenment of voters. Next time, the GOP will strictly control the debate season, so that it helpsnot hurtsits eventual nominee.

Good luck with that! said Andy Ostroy in Huffington Post .com. Granted, the GOP stands a better chance of winning elections if it stops its candidates from actually speaking. But the 2012 election results strongly suggest that the party has a dire need to expand its reach among voters, nor further limit it to the rabid conservatives watching Fox News. Its also a terrible idea to allow only conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin to moderate debates, said Jamelle Bouie in TheDailyBeast .com. Theyll demand the candidates swear alle-giance to the unpopular, right-wing beliefs of their audiencesincluding hatred of reproduc-tive rights, Muslims, and Hispanic immigrants. In which case, it will be all the problems of last years primaries, amplified, and turned up to 11.

Republicans: Boycotting nBC and Cnn

Pick of the weeks cartoons18 NEWS

THE WEEK August 30, 2013 For more political cartoons, visit: www.theweek.com/cartoons.

Pick of the weeks cartoons NEWS 19

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

Health & Science20 newS

Dolphins in distress Dead and dying bottlenose dolphins are washing up along the Mid-Atlantic coast at an alarming rate. Since June, more than 120 dolphins have appeared on beaches from New York to Virginiaseven times the typical number. Early this month, the National Marine Fisheries Service declared the strandings an unusual mortality event requiring immediate attention. All indica-tions show theres something serious going on, Trevor Spradlin, an NMFS marine biologist, tells NationalGeographic.com. Preliminary tests on some of the dolphins have shown evidence of morbillivirus, an infection responsible for one of the largest dolphin die-offs in history. Between 1987 and 1988, more than 700 dolphins with morbillivirus washed up dead along the East Coast, and many more likely perished offshore. It could take researchers several months to determine whats ravaging the dolphin population this time.

Blood sugar and dementia High blood sugar doesnt just increase your risk of developing diabetesit also increases your risk of developing dementia. Researchers tracked the blood glucose levels of more than 2,000 older adults for seven years and found that those who had high glucose levelsbut not diabeteswere nearly 20 percent more likely to develop

dementia than those with low levels. Among people with diabetes, those with the highest glucose levels were 40 percent more likely to develop Alzheimers disease or other forms of dementia than those with the lowest. Diabetes can damage the kidneys and other organs, but the find-ings show that the brain may be especially vulnerable to damage from elevated blood sugar levelsperhaps because the sugar causes inflammation in the tiny blood ves-sels of the brain. Every incrementally higher glucose level was associated with a higher risk of dementia, researcher Paul Crane of the University of Washington tells the Associated Press. To reduce the risk of diabetes and dementia, researchers said, people should eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, and maintain a normal weight.

Why insomnia makes you eat The less sleep you get, the more likely you are to be overweight. Now, The New York Times reports, scientists have discovered one reason why: Sleep loss causes changes in the brain that make you crave high-calorie foods and weakens your willpower to resist them. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, scanned the brains of volunteers while they looked at pictures of various foods and selected those theyd like to eatfirst, after a night during which they got eight hours of sleep, and then after a night during which they got none. They found that when sleep-deprived, the volunteers gravitated toward high-calorie options like chocolate and potato chips. Their brains showed increased activity in the amygdala, a region that governs our desire for food, and decreased activity in frontal-lobe

regions that regulate decision-making. Not sleeping allows a substance called adenosine to build up in the brain, possibly causing that double hit in undesirable brain activ-ity, says study author Matthew P. Walker. Sleeping, he says, is the single most effec-tive thing people can do every day to reset their brain and body health.

Health scare of the weekStomachaches and depression About one in four children frequently com-plains about stomachaches. Now, a new study suggests that they are more likely to be anxious and depressed as adultseven if their stomach problems go away. Vanderbilt University researchers followed more than 300 children who suffered from chronic stomachaches and 150 who didnt for about nine years, until they became young adults. They found that half of the children whod had stomachaches had an anxiety disorder as adults, compared with 20 percent of those who didnt have abdominal issues. About 40 percent of kids with stomachaches had depression as adults, compared with 16 percent of those who didnt have stomachaches. Researchers say its unclear whether the stomachaches cause anxiety, or vice versa. We saw that once the abdominal pain went away, they still had clinically significant anxiety, study author Lynn Walker tells LiveScience.com. Its possible, she says, that children with fre-

quent abdominal pain might miss out on a lot of school and social activities, causing isolation and

stress. Walker says the findings suggest that children with mys-terious stomachaches should see both a medical and a mental health professional: We need to address the pain and anxi-ety together.

THE WEEK August 30, 2013

AP,

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The more time you spend on Facebook, the more unhappy you become. A new study by University of Michigan research-ers has strengthened a growing body of research showing that frequent use of the social-networking site leads to feel-ings of envy, sadness, loneliness, and anger. Researchers gauged the mood of 82 young study subjects by texting them five times a day, asking them detailed questions about how they felt and when they had last gone on Facebook. Visits to the site were directly correlated with negative emotions, including depression and loneliness. Because of the frequency of the mood-measuring, researchers said

they were confident that Facebook use was causing the bad feelings, rather than that people were using the site when they felt lonely or sad. When subjects reported face-to-face social contact, the study found, they felt happier and more cheerfulin direct contrast with their online socializing. On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection, social psychologist Ethan Kross tells TheAtlantic.com. But rather than enhance well-being, we found that Facebook use predicts the opposite resultit undermines it. Researchers have speculated that because people tend

to post an idealized version of their lives on Facebook, with photos and accounts of trips, happy social gatherings, and work or school achievements, it makes visitors to their pages feel that their own lives are comparatively drab, lonely, and unsuccessful.

The downside of Facebook

Your life looks better than mine...

Forget how fiction about the Co-lombian drug trade usually reads, saidMarcela ValdesinNPR.org. Juan Gabriel Vsquezs exquisite new novel turns away from the drug lords, the cops, and the addicts to provide instead a vision of how drugs have unraveled a generation, one humble life at a time. When a young law professor in Bogot starts seeking answers about an older friend mur-dered in a 1999 drive-by shooting, Vsquez tinkers knowingly with his native countrys literary, political, and intellectual history, saidDwight GarnerinThe New York Times. His style can grow ponderous, loaded with metaphors that, scuffed per-haps in translation, often miss their mark. Still, the books gritty realism works persuasive magic, said Jeffrey BurkeinBloomberg.com. For every character we meet, the experience of living in Colombia eventually under-goes a chilling transition from the mundane to the mortal as the drug war keeps piling up new victims.

ARTS 21

Review of reviews: Books

Malcolm Gladwell fans, prepare for dis-appointing news, said Bryant Urstadt in Bloomberg Businessweek. David Epstein of Sports Illustrated has sifted through the latest science for his new book on athletic achievement, and his findings essentially refute Gladwells electrifying contention, made in the 2008 book Outliers, that 10,000 hours of practice is all that sepa-rates any of us from mastery of virtually any skill. Epstein clearly hates to emphasize trainings limitations. Even so, The Sports Gene is an implicitand, in one chapter, explicitrefutation of the 10,000-hour benchmark, and it makes sobering reading for anyone who hopes to achieve superior-ity in sports, music, or even chess simply by outworking the competition.

Its not as if Epstein totally discounts the

Nondrinkers and drinkers have two very different ways of engaging with the world, said David L. Ulin in the Los Angeles Times. For Lawrence Osborne, that simple notion represents all the excuse he needs to undertake a veritable pub crawl

through the Middle East and southern Asia, bringing readers along with him as he seeks out drinks in several dry natio