The Supreme Court Leaks Continue

Check Orin Kerr at Volokh, via Althouse, "Someone on the conservative side of the Supreme Court 'wants us to know that they’re pissed off, and they want us to know why'."

Jan Crawford at CBS News initially reported the leaks.

'Excuses'

The latest ad from Crossroads GPS:

According to National Journal, "American Crossroads has purchased more than $39.8 million in advertising across at least 10 states between Labor Day and Election Day."

Andy Murray's Gracious Speech Following Wimbledon Loss

I promised an update at my previous post: "Andy Murray Worn Down in Heatbreak Loss to Roger Federer at Wimbledon."

As noted, there was a rain delay during the third set. It takes almost an hour to close the stadium at Wimbledon so during that time ESPN anchor Mike Tirico introduced a news segment on Andy Murray's background, especially on the tragedy in his hometown of Dunblane, Scotland. In 1996 a shooter entered Dunblane Primary School and killed 16 young children and one teacher before turning a gun on himself. The kids were 5 and 6-year-olds. The Wikipedia entry for the shooting is here. The ESPN segment included news clips of emotionally distraught parents running down the street to the school. Dunblane's a small town of 8,000 or so residents. And the shooting was one of the worst in the history of Great Britain, so that background is a big part of the huge emotional support for Andy Murray.

The New York Times reports on Dunblane's support for Murray, "Scottish Town Rises And Falls With Andy Murray":

DUNBLANE, Scotland — Inside Dunblane Youth Centre, strangers hugged, fists were pumped and children cheered. Boys lay on chairs shaped like tennis balls. Girls with Scottish flags painted on their cheeks wove through the crowd chanting, “Let’s go, Andy!” The room was so crammed with people breathing stale, warm air that personal space seemed more an extravagance than a basic courtesy, but no one seemed to mind because up there, on the giant projection screen, was one of them.

The people of this village 30 miles northeast of Glasgow have congregated before, have packed its pubs and its social halls and its gathering spots, to watch their most famous son compete at Wimbledon. For three straight years, Andy Murray had reached the semifinals, and for three straight years, Murray had lost. They lauded his effort — “the Scots love a valiant loser,” said Gordon Sloan, of nearby Greenloaning — but yearned for glory.

“We’ve been teased a lot these past few years,” David Macaskill of Dundee said. “A lot of Scottish hearts broken.”

That chance for glory came Sunday, against the indomitable Roger Federer. An island that had produced a men’s Wimbledon finalist for the first time since 1938 wondered if Murray would actually win. A country prayed. A town hoped.

In the town center, two popular pubs, the Village Inn and the Dunblane Hotel, heaved with people 45 minutes before the 2 p.m. start. Crowds spilled onto Stirling Road, which was not a problem because few cars were out driving anyway. Those who could not spend their afternoon planted in front of a television still tracked the score. Outside the youth center, a coffee van blared the radio broadcast of the match. At Simply M&S, the supermarket next door, cashiers asked customers for updates.

Sitting at a table in the Dunblane Bowling Club, Doreen Rose tried convincing herself before the match that Murray could win, should win, would win. “He’s won 8 of 15 matches against Federer,” said Rose, of nearby Callendar. “But they’ve never played on grass. Oh, I don’t know. I’m so nervous, I can’t think.”

Murray captured the first two games of the first set (“Come on, Andy!”), then lost the next two (“Go get ’em, Andy!”). When Murray broke Federer to go ahead, 5-4, Malky McLachlan of Dunblane was standing against a wall. He was cradling his 16-month-old son, Magnus, who was sleeping through the commotion — and through what was Murray’s first set won in a Grand Slam final. “Maybe he’ll see more history when he wakes up,” McLachlan said.

Magnus woke up about a half-hour later, when Murray was toiling through an arduous second set. Federer broke Murray at 5-6, and Sheena Herley of Dunblane sensed a shift in the mood.

“It’s a wee bit subdued now,” Herley said.

More at the link.

Plus, some reactions to Murray's emotional speech. At Telegraph UK, "Wimbledon 2012: Tearful Andy Murray loses on court, but wins the nation’s heart," London's Daily Mail, "Murray lost to a master of the universe, the tennis equivalent of Pele or Ali - tearful Andy's hopes dashed as Federer wins 17th Slam," and the Guardian, "Andy Murray: the fans' tears."

And a critical reaction at USA Today, "ESPN dropped the ball on Murray's reaction." And the Chattanooga Times Free Press, "Roger Federer, Andy Murray both won."

Are We Anywhere Close to Containing the Costs of Healthcare?

At the Wall Street Journal, "The Crushing Cost of Care":

On Valentine's Day 2009, Scott Crawford, 41 years old, received the break that he thought would save his life. A surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore removed his ailing heart and put in a healthy one. The transplant was a success.

But complications put the former tire-warehouse worker in intensive care for almost a year. Surgeons removed his gall bladder, his left leg and part of a lung. And Mr. Crawford soon became one of the most expensive Americans on Medicare.

A sliver of the sickest patients account for the majority of Medicare spending - and young people can often have the highest costs. WSJ's Janet Adamy discusses the case of Scott Crawford, who became one of the most expensive Americans on Medicare.

As his condition turned grave, one of his doctors questioned whether to keep treating him. Nurses reported feeling "moral distress" over his unrelenting pain. Still, medical opinion was split, and Mr. Crawford's family, with the backing of his transplant surgeon, pushed forward.

A few days before Christmas 2009, Mr. Crawford died, leaving behind a young son.

According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Medicare data, the government spent $2.1 million on his inpatient and outpatient care in 2009. That was the fifth costliest of all Medicare beneficiaries that year and the highest among those who died by that year's end. Medicare covered Mr. Crawford's costs through federal disability insurance.

A primary goal of the 2010 health-care overhaul that the Supreme Court upheld last week is to slow the growth of costs. Even so, the law does little to address a simple fact: A sliver of the sickest patients account for the majority of U.S. health-care spending. In 2009, the top 10% of Medicare beneficiaries who received hospital care accounted for 64% of the program's hospital spending, the Journal's analysis found.

Younger patients like Mr. Crawford were more expensive, representing just 18.5% of the beneficiaries who received hospital care but 23.7% of the total cost. Seniors vastly outnumbered them, however, and consumed 76% of the total hospital costs.

As for Medicare's long-term cost trajectory, it is relentlessly upward. The program's net expenditures totaled $486 billion last year, according to the Congressional Budget Office, or 13.5% of all federal expenditures. In March, the CBO projected that Medicare expenditures would grow an average of 5.7% per year through 2022 and equal 16.2% of all federal outlays.

Medicare patients rack up disproportionate costs in the final year of life. In 2009, 6.6% of the people who received hospital care died. Those 1.6 million people accounted for 22.3% of total hospital expenditures, the Journal's analysis shows.

But efforts by policy makers to tackle the question of end-of-life care have foundered recently. In the debate over President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, an initiative to help Medicare beneficiaries plan end-of-life care sank after opponents labeled it a "death panel."

"We're always going to have patients in the Medicare program that need a disproportionate number of resources," said Jonathan Blum, deputy administrator and director for Medicare. As for Mr. Crawford, "A lot of the costs were driven by complications that could have been avoided," he said, citing an early infection as an example.

Continue reading.

Some patients are going to cost more, despite all the treatment to prevent infections and so forth. And when you get a patient like Mr. Crawford, no one's going to recommend that we pull the plug, because that's not what we do. The problem is that overall healthcare costs are out of control and ObamaCare will not address the problem and is expected to make matters worse.

Newspaper Industry Is Running Out of Time to Adapt to Digital Future

Well, this piece is from NYT's David Carr, who notoriously slammed Kansans and Missourians and people with "low sloping foreheads."

So take it FWIW: "The Fissures Are Growing for Papers." (Via Mediagazer.)

Is Spanking Okay?

Here's an ABC News clip from the other day: "Parenting Techniques: To Spank or Not to Spank?"

I personally think it's okay. That said, I don't like spanking my kids all that much. I feel guilty, and that's because society has said it's not okay. It's to the point where I feel like Child Protective Services will be breathing down my neck. That's me though. Overall, I think it should be up to the parents. The recent viral video of the man beating his kid with a belt for not catching a baseball is child abuse. Parents who give their kids a good swift open-hand swat to the butt, after the kids have been behaving badly, are disciplining their children as they see fit. 

Theo's Sunday Hotties

All good.

See: "Sunday Totty...", and "Bedtime Totty..."

Why Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals

From Arthur Brooks, at the New York Times:

WHO is happier about life — liberals or conservatives? The answer might seem straightforward. After all, there is an entire academic literature in the social sciences dedicated to showing conservatives as naturally authoritarian, dogmatic, intolerant of ambiguity, fearful of threat and loss, low in self-esteem and uncomfortable with complex modes of thinking. And it was the candidate Barack Obama in 2008 who infamously labeled blue-collar voters “bitter,” as they “cling to guns or religion.” Obviously, liberals must be happier, right?

Wrong. Scholars on both the left and right have studied this question extensively, and have reached a consensus that it is conservatives who possess the happiness edge. Many data sets show this. For example, the Pew Research Center in 2006 reported that conservative Republicans were 68 percent more likely than liberal Democrats to say they were “very happy” about their lives. This pattern has persisted for decades. The question isn’t whether this is true, but why.

Many conservatives favor an explanation focusing on lifestyle differences, such as marriage and faith. They note that most conservatives are married; most liberals are not. (The percentages are 53 percent to 33 percent, according to my calculations using data from the 2004 General Social Survey, and almost none of the gap is due to the fact that liberals tend to be younger than conservatives.) Marriage and happiness go together. If two people are demographically the same but one is married and the other is not, the married person will be 18 percentage points more likely to say he or she is very happy than the unmarried person.

The story on religion is much the same. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, conservatives who practice a faith outnumber religious liberals in America nearly four to one. And the link to happiness? You guessed it. Religious participants are nearly twice as likely to say they are very happy about their lives as are secularists (43 percent to 23 percent). The differences don’t depend on education, race, sex or age; the happiness difference exists even when you account for income.

Whether religion and marriage should make people happy is a question you have to answer for yourself. But consider this: Fifty-two percent of married, religious, politically conservative people (with kids) are very happy — versus only 14 percent of single, secular, liberal people without kids.

An explanation for the happiness gap more congenial to liberals is that conservatives are simply inattentive to the misery of others. If they recognized the injustice in the world, they wouldn’t be so cheerful. In the words of Jaime Napier and John Jost, New York University psychologists, in the journal Psychological Science, “Liberals may be less happy than conservatives because they are less ideologically prepared to rationalize (or explain away) the degree of inequality in society.” The academic parlance for this is “system justification.”

Continue reading.

And here's that Napier and Jost study: "Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals?"

Brooks wrote a book dealing with some of this stuff: Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.

Ernest Borgnine: 1917-2012

I got a thrill watching Earnest Borgnine in "Red" in 2010. I think I was surprised to see him starring in a brief cameo, but it was great. And it turns out Borgnine was still making movies. He's seen at the clip discussing, "The Man Who Shook The Hand of Vicente Fernández."

The Huffington Post has an interview from a couple of weeks ago, "I Was Marty: An Interview With Ernest Borgnine."

And here's the obituary at the Los Angeles Times, "Ernest Borgnine dies at 95; won Oscar for 'Marty,' showed comic side in sitcom":

Ernest Borgnine, who delivered an Academy Award-winning performance as the lonely Bronx butcher looking for love in the 1955 drama "Marty" and displayed his comic side in the 1960s as the star of the popular TV sitcom "McHale's Navy," has died. He was 95.

Borgnine died Sunday of apparent kidney failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his longtime publicist, Harry Flynn, told The Times. Borgnine went into the hospital "a couple of days ago" for a checkup, Flynn said.

Audiences first took notice of the stocky, gap-toothed Borgnine in the 1953 movie "From Here to Eternity," in which he played "Fatso" Judson, the sadistic stockade sergeant of the guard who viciously beats up Frank Sinatra's Pvt. Angelo Maggio in the adaptation of James Jones' acclaimed novel depicting Army life in Hawaii before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The role moved Borgnine into the top echelon of movie villains in films such as "Vera Cruz" and "Bad Day at Black Rock."

But then came the title role in "Marty," the 1955 film version of Paddy Chayefsky's original TV play about a sensitive Italian American bachelor butcher who longs for more than simply hanging out with his pals on Saturday night.

"Well, waddaya feel like doing tonight?" Marty's best friend, Angie, played by Joe Mantell, asks in the movie's often-quoted exchange.

"I don't know, Ang', wadda you feel like doing?" Marty replies.

Borgnine's sensitive portrayal of the self-described "fat ugly man" not only earned him an Oscar for best actor, but the movie also won Academy Awards for Chayefsky and director Delbert Mann, as well as the best picture Oscar...

More at the link.

Also at Blazing Cat Fur, "Ernest Borgnine has died."

City College of San Francisco, Nation's Largest Two-Year College, On Brink of Closure

This a huge story.

See the San Francisco Chronicle, "City College of San Francisco on brink of closure":

The poorly run City College of San Francisco has eight months to prove it should stay in business, yet must "make preparations for closure," evaluators ordered Tuesday.

The stunning verdict by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges could result in the closure of California's largest college and a fixture of higher education in one of the nation's wealthiest cities. It has 90,000 students.

Only accredited colleges can receive public funding under state law. But City College's failure to fix serious, long-standing problems of leadership and fiscal planning means that the accrediting commission could vote as early as next June to yank the school's all-important certification, said Barbara Beno, commission president.

More at the link.

My first thought was "no way!" This is a campus with almost 100,000 students, about a third full-time, which makes it one of the largest colleges in the United States. Indeed, the report at Inside Higher Ed says CCSF is too big to fail, "Something Has to Give: Accreditation crisis hits City College of San Francisco":

The shuttering of California’s largest college would be a five-alarm fiasco. With a total enrollment of about 90,000 students (33,000 full-time) and 12 campuses and sites around San Francisco, City College is probably too big to fail. Most of those students would have no other local option, and the rest of the state’s community colleges could hardly absorb them, anyhow, given that the system will turn away an estimated 200,000 students this year because of financial shortfalls.

As a result, City College’s closure is unlikely, observers say. But the college has its work cut out for it. The commission didn’t blink in 2005 when it shut down Compton Community College because of fiscal mismanagement. In that case, however, the much smaller college was consumed by El Camino Community College, becoming a campus center, where enrollment is actually up.

The commission’s fix-it list is long and the timeline is short. The college is also dealing with further budget cuts, which will get worse if voters don’t pass a tax hike this fall...

You can guess what happened. Gross financial mismanagement has placed the college's survival in doubt.

Here's the accreditation report from the ACCJC: "EVALUATION REPORT: City College of San Francisco." And two sections from the summary stand out:

All segments of the college staff expressed and demonstrated a genuine commitment to being a student-centered college. Despite the unified commitment to the college mission, there exists a veil of distrust among the governance groups that manifests itself as an 5 indirect resistance to board and administrative decision-making authority. The chancellor, Academic Senate leaders, vice chancellors, deans, faculty, department chairs, Board of Trustees, classified staff, and student leaders have designed and implemented an elaborate shared governance model. However, the team did not find evidence of clearly delineated roles and authority for decision making, thereby hindering timely communication, decisions and results. Based on this behavior, and coupled with the large number of classified and administrative staff vacancies and expenditures that do not match existing revenue, the team is concerned that the roles, responsibilities and decision-making authority of leadership and the governance structures are not clearly defined.

And:

The team was impressed by the documentation provided in the self study and in the voluminous, yet organized evidence provided in the team room. However, during the course of the team visit additional information was required to reconcile differences between evidence provided in the CCSF Self Evaluation Report and statements made in response to team inquiries. Furthermore, gaining access to some evidence related to technology, finances and human resources was not easy. Additionally, after the visit, the team chair received correspondence, which raised suspicion about the integrity of the institution. Furthermore, the college has not made progress to address a long-standing pattern of late financial audits and deficit spending, which harm the financial integrity of the institution. The college must take steps to restore trust and institutional integrity.

Sounds sketchy.

And continue reading at the report, especially Standard III on college resources. The college is radically understaffed, with personnel "overtaxed" in their efforts to perform the duties and services of the institution. The report notes that these human resources deficiencies do not inform the fiscal planning process effectively, which means that money is not being apportioned to serve the essential needs of the school. And scroll down further to Standard IV, especially the sections on "Findings and Evidence" and the "Conclusion." The college appears to have both high levels of internal institutional distrust --- with threats of retaliation made against those serving on key reporting committees --- and of corrupt decision-making processes --- and that's on the Academic Senate side of things, as well --- that have raised questions about the honesty and integrity of the entire self-evaluation and reporting requirements to the ACCJC.

The college has been running budget deficits for three years and has dipped into financial reserves to survive. This is not a new situation statewide, as budget cuts have hit community colleges hard since at least 2008. But checking back over at the story at Inside Higher Ed, the union president (no surprise) blames the budget crisis (not decision-making) for the school's problems:

So how did the situation at City College get this bad? The answer, it seems, is one of culture.

People take open access seriously in San Francisco. No college in the state has a deeper attachment to its mission of serving as many students as possible. And City College also prides itself on a decentralized decision-making process, which allows plenty of experimentation at the department level. But those traditions aren’t particularly helpful while a college absorbs a flurry of budget cuts.

City College “has a long history of delegation,” which “was a good thing for long time,” said Scott Lay, president and CEO of the Community College League of California. But “that doesn’t actually work with several years of budget austerity.”
The report failed to fully acknowledge the role of state funding cuts in causing problems at the college, said Alisa Messer, an English instructor at City College and president of the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, the college’s primary faculty union. And she defended City College for sticking to its mission.
“We’re trying not to close the door to our students,” she said, adding that “these are truly contradictory and impossible times.”

Messer also defended the college’s stripped-down approach to administration, which she said has been a deliberate attempt to serve as many students as possible in tight times by “trying to maintain people in the front lines.”

Notice the part about how the college takes "open access seriously." I can guarantee you the college's remediation rates are hitting close to 90 percent if not more, which is why they are moving to abolish placement testing for incoming students (sounds familiar). And being perhaps the most diverse community college in the state, it's a safe bet that the college's staffing and administration practices are equally exotic. It would be thought "racist" to say it (but here goes anyway), but community colleges sometimes get less-than-spectacular teachers and administrators. (That's a nice way of saying grossly unqualified.) The so-called culture of diversity at such colleges works to create an affirmative action system that combines with some old-fashioned patronage politics for badly inefficient institutional outcomes. And I'm talking in the general sense here. No doubt those on the inside at CCSF would be able to report on some abject levels of corruption that contributed to the college's fiscal train wreck.

Frankly, it would be a political bombshell if the college were to indeed close, and we'd be hearing cries of racism until the cows come home. That's why I doubt that CCSF will go belly up. It might get taken over and placed in some kind of receivership by the state, and then perhaps merged with another district on a temporary basis. But I seriously doubt a college of this magnitude would up and close its doors on the nearly 100,000 students it serves. See the San Francisco Chronicle for more, "City College vows to resist closure, takeover."

More on this later, for sure...

PHOTO CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons.

Andy Murray Worn Down in Heatbreak Loss to Roger Federer at Wimbledon

Here's the headline at London's Daily Mail, "Murray's Grand Slam hopes dashed as fantastic Federer wins thrilling four-set final at Wimbledon."

Also see the live blog at Telegraph UK, "Andy Murray v Roger Federer - Wimbledon 2012 men's final: live."

I got up at 6:00am to catch the match. Murray came on super strong in the opening games, breaking Federer in the first game and winning his next service to go ahead 2-0. No doubt all of Britain's hopes surged at that start. And things stayed well for Murray. He won the set and looked in good shape to win the match. But there was a rain delay and Wimbledon officials closed the roof of the stadium. When play resumed, Murray was unable to break Federer's momentum and he started to tire badly. And he took a nasty fall during the 10-deuce game that was the turning point of the match. It went downhill from there.

Daily Mail also has a live blog, "WIMBLEDON 2012 LIVE: Andy Murray takes on Roger Federer in the men's final."

More on this later. The closer ceremony was must-see TV. I'll check for video of Murray's speech and update. Until then, a great update at the Daily Mail, "Murray mania turns to misery: Andy, girlfriend Kim and mum Judy all in tears on Centre Court as he loses Wimbledon final to Federer." Murray is a real class act. Federer won with superior fitness and finesse, but with all of Britain's eyes on Murray, it was a heartbreak loss with tons of emotion.

Afghanistan Designated Major U.S. Ally

At the New York Times, "U.S. Grants Special Ally Status to Afghans, Easing Fears of Abandonment."

KABUL, Afghanistan — The United States declared Afghanistan a major, non-NATO ally on Saturday, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton personally delivering the news of Afghanistan’s entry into a club that includes Israel, Japan, Pakistan and other close Asian and Middle Eastern allies.

The move, announced as Mrs. Clinton stood with President Hamid Karzai amid the rose beds and towering trees on the grounds of the presidential palace here, was part of a broad strategic partnership deal signed by the United States and Afghanistan in May, she said. The pact went into effect last week.

“Please know that the United States will be your friend,” she told Mr. Karzai. “We are not even imagining abandoning Afghanistan. Quite the opposite. We are building a partnership with Afghanistan that will endure far into the future.”

The designation by the United States grants a country special privileges, like access to American military training and excess military supplies, Mrs. Clinton said.

In a separate statement, the State Department said Afghanistan would also be able to obtain loans of equipment from the United States and financing for leasing equipment. The agreement does not, however, “entail any security commitment” by the United States to Afghanistan, the State Department said.

Iraq was never given the status of a major ally, and American troops withdrew last year.

Actually, Iraq, as bad as it is, has had a lot more going for it compared to the Afghan clusterf*ck. The Obama administration plans to hold the reins tightly as the U.S. pulls out, lest the entire AF-PAK region spins out of control into a terrorist Armageddon.

It's Been 76 Years Since a Briton's Won Wimbledon

At Independent UK, "Everyone for tennis! UK grinds to halt as Murray seeks glory." And, "You can't hurry a Murray, but it has been 76 years":

And at Telegraph UK, "We’re with you, Andy":

Whatever the outcome of today’s contest on Centre Court, Andy Murray has already earned a place in the history books: the first Briton to reach the men’s singles final at Wimbledon since Bunny Austin almost three-quarters of a century ago. Murray’s courage and persistence – as well as outstanding talent – have been rewarded: he now has the opportunity to accomplish an even more historic achievement by emerging as the first British champion since Fred Perry.

Charles Krauthammer: Israel Likely to Attack Iran Before the Election

Via Weasel Zippers, "Krauthammer: Israel Will Attack Iran Before Election If They Think Obama Will Win":

More from Linkmaster Smith at The Other McCain, "Romney Doesn’t Seem Interested In Winning Ugly."

Suspected Al-Qaeda Terrorist Arrested at Olympic Park, London

At Telegraph UK, "Al-Qaeda terror suspect caught at Olympic Park."

A suspected terrorist who MI5 believe is a would-be suicide bomber was found repeatedly near the Olympic Games venue.

Also at Mirror UK, "Security scare: British jihadist who fought with al Qaeda arrested after he enters Olympic Park FIVE times."

RELATED: At Atlas Shrugs, "Third Muslim Attack on Olympics Thwarted in as Many Days."

At Last: The Blake Lively Bikini Shots You've Been Waiting For

Well, what a difference a day makes!

Here's Friday's entry, "Blake Lively Fourth of July Swimsuit Pics."

And here's the update from yesterday's Daily Mail, "Blake takes the lake! Bikini-clad Lively spends a romantic day boating with boyfriend Ryan Reynolds...and they STILL can't keep their hands off each other."

Man Dragged by a Bull at Pamplona 2012

This is amazing.

Watch especially around 50 seconds at the clip. I guess the guy's lucky it was just his neckerchief that got caught on the horns.

And see the Independent UK, "Five injured in Pamplona running of the bulls."

Saturday Hotties

At Theo's, "Saturday Totty...", and "Bonus Babe..."

Linking (Giving Credit) is a Critical Part of Web Culture

I love this piece at GigaOM, "Why links matter: Linking is the lifeblood of the web."

I'm probably an over-linker, but sometimes when I find a widely available YouTube I don't always give a hat tip. It depends on where I find the video. Bloggers like to link their friends and diss their enemies, so that explains a lot of it. (For blog posts, I mostly link to the blog where I find the reported information initially, and thus sometimes the person who broke the story might not get the link --- and again, the friends/enemies distinction might come into play here.)

I'm probably violating some of the correct norms, but then again, I think that's how most folks roll, actually. For the most part, I probably link to much. Folks have even complained about that to me in fact.

Anniversary of London's 7/7 Terrorist Attacks

With all the Olympic planning, not to mention the new terrorist threats, there's virtually no remembrance of the terrorists attacks of 2005.

But see the Economist, "London bombings: Seven years since 7/7":

SEVEN years ago London suffered one of its worst terrorist attacks when four Islamist terrorists detonated bombs in the morning rush-hour: three in quick succession on the city's underground railway network and a fourth in Tavistock Square aboard a red double-decker bus. Fifty-two people died, including the four bombers, and over 700 more were injured.

The following is an interview with a 7/7 survivor, now aged 26 and working as a PA in Notting Hill.

Continue reading.

RELATED: At London's Dail Mail in 2009, "I've just seen hell on earth: Four years after 7/7, a never before seen picture of the horror that confronted police on the Tube ripped apart by terrorists."