Call for Speed Limit Has German Blood at 178 m.p.h. Boil

Ask Marc Bongers about the wisdom of introducing a speed limit on the German autobahn, and he answers by impatiently revving the 435-horsepower engine of a specially modified Porsche. Slowpokes, he said, already spoil half the fun.
“A lady,” Mr. Bongers sniffed, as a Mercedes scuttled out of his way in the passing lane on a busy highway in southern Bavaria. “And she’s talking on her phone,” he said the other day, shooting her a sidelong glance. “Doesn’t she know it’s against the law to do that on the autobahn?”
Few things are closer to the German heart than the freedom to drive like Michael Schumacher. Rule-bound and risk-averse in so many other ways, Germans regard driving on the autobahn at face-peeling speeds as close to an inalienable right.
Now, though, Germany’s love of speed is colliding with its fears about global warming, as it becomes clear that its Sunday race-car drivers are spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the air.
“Speed limits are useful for many reasons, and are the order of the day in most of the E.U.’s 27 member states and the United States,” Mr. Dimas said in an interview with the mass-market newspaper Bild. “Strangely enough, it is only in Germany where they are controversial.”
No kidding. His mild words were met with heated indignation from politicians and automotive groups here. Some acted as if Brussels were demanding that Germany outlaw beer and bratwurst.
This is “a trivialization of the climate problem,” declared the German environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel. The German Association of the Automotive Industry said Germans needed “no coaching” from other Europeans on how to protect the environment.
She is hardly a car buff. Unlike her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, she is rarely photographed behind the wheel. But she seems to realize that, like Social Security in the United States, the autobahn is the third rail of German politics — potentially deadly to those who dare touch it.
Critics brandish statistics that show a speed limit of 120 kilometers an hour (75 m.p.h.) would reduce Germany’s overall carbon-dioxide emissions by a few million tons a year, less than 0.5 percent. Better, they say, to focus on building more efficient power plants and houses.
Yet, as environmental groups and a few lonely politicians point out, a few million tons of carbon dioxide is still a considerable savings. Unlike other measures — clean coal plants or hybrid cars, for example — a speed limit could be imposed tomorrow and at relatively little cost.
For years, speed limit advocates tried to argue their case on safety grounds. The autobahn, though, is statistically safer than highways in many countries, even if its crashes are singularly horrific. Saving the planet, it turns out, may be more persuasive than saving lives.
Mr. Schneider is realistic. Driving fast, he said, is deeply rooted in the German psyche.
Germany also has a powerful economic incentive to resist a speed limit. It builds some of the world’s fastest cars, and the autobahn is a valuable showcase and marketing tool for the industry. A tour operator even organizes driving tours of the highway for Chinese visitors.
Car connoisseurs from around the world flock to Pfaffenhausen, a one-horse town where the local company, Ruf Automobile, makes cars with many horses. Mr. Bongers, the sales manager, said people who bought these custom-modified Porsches often took them for a spin on the autobahn. For most, it is the only place they can legally test the top speed of their new toys.
In the depths of the oil crisis in late 1973, West Germany imposed a speed limit of 100 kilometers an hour (60 m.p.h.). Four months later, the government rescinded it. Mr. Ruf recalls worrying during those dark days that the family’s sports car business was doomed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/world/europe/16autobahn.html?ex=1331697600&en=87a49017e1dd490c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Lenders Pay Universities to Influence Loan Choice

Dozens of colleges and universities across the country have accepted a variety of financial incentives from student loan companies to steer student business their way. The deals include cash payments based on loan volume, donations of computers, expense-paid trips to resorts for financial aid officers and even running call centers on behalf of colleges to field students’ questions about financial aid.
“We have found that these school-lender relationships are often highly tainted with conflicts of interest,” Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said. “These school-lender relationships are often for the benefit of the schools at the expense of the student, with financial incentives to the schools that are often undisclosed.”
Mr. Cuomo said he was still investigating at least 100 schools. He is also notifying about 400 nationwide including all New York institutions to end any such practices, which can give financial aid officers an incentive to steer student borrowers to particular lenders.
Citibank pays Syracuse University a small percentage of the volume of private loans — those that are not guaranteed by the federal government — taken out by its students, according to state officials. Kevin Morrow, a spokesman for Syracuse, said in a statement, that the university was not prepared to respond in detail at this time. He added, “Students are not required to use any of the recommended lenders for their student loans.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/education/16loans.html?ex=1331697600&en=8ec471bc8ace4a0d&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The Biased Broadcasting Corporation

“If you watch Western television, you live in one universe, and if you watch Middle Eastern television, you live in another altogether.” The Middle Eastern broadcasts, he added, tended to depict the West in a negative light.
Washington is well aware of this problem and has tried to address it. In 2004, the United States established its own Arabic-language satellite television station, Al Hurra. But Al Hurra has not been a success, and stations like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiyya, based in the Gulf states, continue to dominate the region.
Those stations will soon face a formidable rival. The BBC World Service plans to start an Arabic television service this fall, and the BBC knows what it is doing. It has been broadcasting in Arabic on the radio for more than 60 years and has a huge audience.
This new television station might sound like good news for America. Many of us pick up BBC broadcasts in English, and we respect their quality. But the World Service in English is one thing, and the World Service in Arabic is another entirely. If the BBC’s Arabic TV programs resemble its radio programs, then they will be just as anti-Western as anything that comes out of the Gulf, if not more so. They will serve to increase, rather than to diminish, tensions, hostilities and misunderstandings among nations.
For example, a 50-minute BBC Arabic Service discussion program about torture discussed only one specific allegation, which came from the head of an organization representing some 90 Saudis imprisoned at Guantánamo. This speaker stated that the prisoners were subject to disgusting and horrible forms of torture and suggested that three inmates reported by the United States to have committed suicide were actually killed. Another participant insisted that the two countries guilty of torturing political prisoners on the largest scale were Israel and the United States.
At the same time, the authoritarian regimes and armed militants of the Arab world get sympathetic treatment on BBC Arabic. When Saddam Hussein was in power, he was a great favorite of the service, which reported as straight news his re-election to a seven-year term in 2002, when he got 100 percent of the vote.
The Arabic Service not only shields Arab leaders from criticism but also tends to avoid topics they might find embarrassing: human rights, the role of military and security forces, corruption, discrimination against minorities, censorship, poverty and unemployment. When, from time to time, such topics do arise, they are usually dealt with in the most general terms: there may, for instance, be guarded references to “certain Arab countries.”
By contrast, the words and deeds of Western leaders, particularly the American president and the British prime minister, are subject to minute analysis, generally on the assumption that behind them lies a hidden and disreputable agenda. Last summer, when the British arrested two dozen people alleged to have been plotting to blow up airplanes crossing the Atlantic, a BBC presenter centered a discussion on the theory that these arrests had taken place because Tony Blair, embarrassed by opposition to Britain’s role in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, wanted to distract the public while at the same time associating Muslims with terrorism.
The British are among our closest and most reliable allies, and it is strange that their government pays for these broadcasts, many of which are produced in Cairo rather than in London. If the BBC models its Arabic television service on its Arabic radio service, yet another anti-Western, antidemocratic channel will find its place on the Arab screen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/opinion/15stewart.html?ex=1331611200&en=2637911a0f45885c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Immigration Misery

A screaming baby girl has been forcibly weaned from breast milk and taken, dehydrated, to an emergency room, so that the nation’s borders will be secure. Her mother and more than 300 other workers in a leather-goods factory in New Bedford, Mass., have been terrorized — subdued by guns and dogs, their children stranded at school — so that the country will notice that the Bush administration is serious about enforcing immigration laws. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of poor Americans, lacking the right citizenship papers, have been denied a doctor’s care so that not a penny of Medicaid will go to a sick illegal immigrant.
As the country waits for Congress and the president to enact immigration reform, the indecency of existing policies is becoming intolerable. The immigrant underclass is in a growing state of misery and fear. States and localities have rushed to fill the vacuum of Congressional inaction with a jumble of enforcement regimes. Farmers are worrying about crops rotting as their immigrant workers retreat further into the shadows. Officials in Colorado have settled on one solution: replacing those workers with prison chain gangs.
Mr. Kennedy clearly believes that the urgent priority is to get the bipartisan coalition for immigration reform back on the bus and to fix problems while the bus is moving. His frustrations are understandable, but he will have to work hard to make sure that he and the bill do not compromise too much. And there is a lot in the Specter bill to be concerned about. Parts of it were cut and pasted from a cruel immigration bill that passed the House, including draconian measures to speed immigrants’ deportation and deny them protection in the courts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/opinion/15thu1.html?ex=1331611200&en=ff4d900341fe4789&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Dying Woman Loses Appeal on Marijuana as Medication

Federal appellate judges here ruled Wednesday that a terminally ill woman using marijuana was not immune to federal prosecution simply because of her condition, and in a separate case a federal judge dismissed most of the charges against a prominent advocate for the medicinal use of the drug.
The woman, Angel McClary Raich, says she uses marijuana on doctors’ recommendation to treat an inoperable brain tumor and a battery of other serious ailments. Ms. Raich, 41, asserts that the drug effectively keeps her alive, by stimulating appetite and relieving pain, in a way that prescription drugs do not.
“It’s not every day in this country that someone’s right to life is taken from them,” said Ms. Raich, appearing frail during a news conference in Oakland, where she lives. “Today you are looking at someone who really is walking dead.”
In 2002, she and three other plaintiffs sued the government, seeking relief from federal laws outlawing marijuana.
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that while they sympathized with Ms. Raich’s plight and had seen “uncontroverted evidence” that she needed marijuana to survive, she lacked the legal grounds to exempt herself from federal law.
Eleven states have medical marijuana laws on the books, and the New Mexico Legislature is poised to approve a medical marijuana bill there, with the support of Gov. Bill Richardson. Medical-marijuana advocates estimate more than 100,000 Americans use the drug to treat medical conditions.
California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana, in a 1996 ballot measure, Proposition 215. That measure set off a decade-long fight over a variety of legal issues surrounding marijuana, including state rights and “common law necessity” defenses like the one Ms. Raich was trying to use.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/us/15marijuana.html?ex=1331611200&en=6f1d8b082954d6f0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Texas House Rejects Order by Governor on Vaccines

Six weeks after Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order making Texas the first state to require that sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, the State House of Representatives voted 119 to 21 yesterday to approve a bill that would nullify the order.
But Mr. Perry’s spokeswoman said the efforts to overturn the order would create a dangerous situation in which far fewer women might receive the vaccine.
The order mandated shots of the Merck vaccine Gardasil as protection against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, starting in September 2008. While it was praised by health advocates, it caught many by surprise in a largely conservative state where sexual politics are often hard fought and where both houses of the Legislature are controlled by Republicans.
Ms. Moody said in a statement that the order “would help to protect 95 percent of young women in Texas against the strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were nearly 10,000 cases of cervical cancer last year and about 3,700 deaths from the disease.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/us/14vaccine.html?ex=1331524800&en=8a43ce71ac57404d&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Top General Explains Remarks on Gays

Gen. Peter Pace of the Joint Chiefs, shown last year, said he should not have expressed a personal view that homosexual conduct was immoral.
The officer, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, re-ignited a smoldering debate on Monday over the armed services’ policy, telling the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he believed homosexual conduct was immoral and akin to adultery.
The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was instituted by the Pentagon after legislation was passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton into law in 1993. It allows gay men and lesbians to serve in the military if they do not openly display or discuss their sexual orientation and do not engage in homosexual acts.
Since the policy was enacted and through the 2005 fiscal year, 9,488 service members have been dropped from the military under it, according to government statistics. Statistics from the 2006 fiscal year are still being compiled.
The issue was raised this year when Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs when the policy was adopted, said that conversations with military personnel had led him to change his mind.In an Op-Ed article published by The New York Times on Jan. 2, General Shalikashvili wrote that conversations with gay soldiers and marines had showed him “that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers.”
“I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces,” General Shalikashvili wrote. “Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/washington/14pace.html?ex=1331524800&en=05cdb45b71c102ac&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The Right to Ban Arms

A federal appeals court panel in Washington has marched blithely past a longstanding Supreme Court precedent, the language of the Constitution and the pressing needs of public safety to strike down Washington’s law barring residents from keeping handguns in their homes.
The ruling, approved 2 to 1 last week by the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was the first from a federal appeals court to hold a gun control law unconstitutional on Second Amendment grounds. It cries out for prompt reversal by the full circuit, and ultimate rejection by the Supreme Court.
The district’s strict gun-control law bars all handguns unless they were registered before 1976. The law was challenged by a guard at the Federal Judicial Center, who was permitted to carry a gun on duty and said he wanted to keep one at home.
The outcome turned on an interpretation of the Second Amendment, which says, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
The new decision jeopardizes sound legal precedent and the district’s law. It would imperil needed gun controls in place in jurisdictions around the country at a time when violent crime in many places is once again on the rise. It must be overturned.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/opinion/14wed2.html?ex=1331524800&en=658f79e92cf09bb2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

From Mexico Also, the Message to Bush Is Immigration

As President Bush tried to mend frayed relations with Mexico, the Mexican president gave him a cool reception on Tuesday, calling on Mr. Bush to live up to his longtime promise to make Mexico a priority and criticizing American plans to build a 700-mile fence along the border.
President Felipe Calderón warned that the only way to stem illegal migration and ensure regional security was to raise the standard of living here.
Mr. Bush took the slight chastising in stride and promised, as he has in the past, to push for an immigration bill that would allow more guest workers and provide a path to citizenship for many Mexicans living in the United States illegally.
On Monday, President Óscar Berger of Guatemala complained about the forced deportations of his countrymen who enter the United States illegally.
At nearly every turn, the American president has been faced with anger over what is perceived as the United States’ neglect of the region and frustration with its tougher border-security policies in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
On immigration, the Mexican leader raised objections, as he has in the past, to the construction of a 700-mile wall along parts of the border, saying that building roads in Mexico would be more useful.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/world/americas/14prexy.html?ex=1331524800&en=6b7841e56f8f0504&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Trans fat in my dear Kangshifu Muffin...

Hey guys, I was eating Kangshifu Muffin when I spotted online that muffin contains trans-fat... How terrible, I have a whole stock of it in my dorm...What should I do with them now, my dear... Anyway, here are two pieces of olds.

The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously yesterday to move forward with plans to prohibit the city’s 20,000 restaurants from serving food that contains more than a minute amount of artificial trans fats, the chemically modified ingredients considered by doctors and nutritionists to increase the risk of heart disease. Chicago is considering a similar prohibition affecting restaurants with less than $20 million in annual sales.
The New York prohibition would affect the city’s entire restaurant industry, by far the nation’s largest, from McDonald’s to fashionable bistros to street corner takeouts across the five boroughs.
The city would set a limit of a half-gram of artificial trans fats per serving of any menu item, sharply reducing most customers’ intake. The fats are commonly found in baked goods, like doughnuts and cakes, as well as breads and salad dressing.
Officials said that the typical American diet now contains 5.8 grams of trans fats per day, and that a single five-ounce serving of French fries at many restaurants contained 8 grams of trans fats.
The proposal met immediate resistance among restaurant owners, who said banning trans fats would raise their costs and change the taste of some items.
Trans fats, derived from partially hydrogenated oils, became popular in the 1950’s as an alternative to the saturated fats in butter. They allow fast-food restaurants to use frying oil for longer periods and make crunchier cookies and flakier pie crust. They also have a longer shelf life than butter, olive oil, corn oil or other alternatives.
Health officials said yesterday that many healthier alternative cooking ingredients had been developed that would cost little more than trans fats, and have little or no effect on taste.
“Human life is much more important than shelf life.”If the measure is adopted in December, health officials said, the restrictions would be phased in. Restaurants would be given until July to eliminate oils, margarines and shortening from the recipes that contain more than a half-gram of trans fat per serving.
Health officials said that the regulations would be enforced by restaurant inspectors, who would examine kitchens for products with trans fat, but that there would be no attempt to test prepared foods.
The New York City proposal comes at a time when companies in the packaged food industry, under pressure from health advocates, have reduced the use of trans fats. A recent ruling by the federal Food and Drug Administration requires all food companies to include trans fat levels in labeling information.
Three years ago, the city banned smoking in restaurants, a measure angrily protested by some restaurant owners, but it led to similar bans in several other cities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/nyregion/27fat.html?ex=1317009600&en=e20e688e95d428bd&ei=5090

But restaurant industry representatives called the ban burdensome and unnecessary. Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said recently that officials seriously weighed complaints from the restaurant industry, which argued that it was unrealistic to give them six months to replace cooking oils and shortening and 18 months to phase out the ingredients altogether.
The ban contains some exceptions; for instance, it would allow restaurants to serve foods that come in the manufacturer’s original packaging.
Trans fats are formed when liquid oils are made into solid fats by adding hydrogen in a process called hydrogenation. A common example of this is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which is used for frying and baking and turns up in processed foods like cookies, pizza dough and crackers. Trans fats, which are favored because of their long shelf life, are also found in pre-made blends like pancake and hot chocolate mix. The FDA estimates the average American eats 4.7 pounds of trans fats each year. Trans fats are believed to be harmful because they contribute to heart disease by raising bad cholesterol and lowering good cholesterol at the same time. Some experts say that makes trans fats worse than saturated fat.
The panel also passed another measure that has made restaurants unhappy: Some that chose to inform customers about calorie content will have to list the information right on the menu.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who banned smoking in bars and restaurants during his first term, is somewhat health-obsessed, and even maintains a monthly weight-loss competition with one of his friends in order to stay slim.
Already, McDonald’s Corp. has been quietly experimenting with more than a dozen healthier oil blends but has not committed to a full switch. Wendy’s International Inc. introduced a zero-trans fat oil in August and Yum Brands Inc.’s KFC and Taco Bell said they also will cut the trans fats from their kitchens.
New York’s move to ban trans fats has mostly been applauded by health and medical groups, although the American Heart Association warns that if restaurants aren’t given ample time to make the switch, they could end up reverting to ingredients high in saturated fat, like palm oil.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16051436/