Let’s not shut down the Internet to ward off cyberattacks

or Twitter accounts, or stealing credit card numbers or trade secrets from corporate networks. In the middle tiers, which the report labels III and IV, are parties with the capability to discover and exploit previously unknown vulnerabilities in computer networks, and to launch more sophisticated attacks. These might involve penetrating even well-secured corporate or government networks, allowing extended surveillance and even sabotage of important systems like the electric grid. The top tiers, V and VI, involve adversaries who have the power to create vulnerabilities. For example, the Chinese government might gain control of a semiconductor company selling chips to the United States and insert circuitry that allows the Chinese to remotely monitor, control or destroy U.S. computer systems. Or a Russian covert operative might gain physical access to a secure facility in order to modify hardware or software. This taxonomy makes two things clear. First, the farther you go up the pyramid, the less necessary the Internet becomes to mount attacks. Indeed, the report notes that top-tier attacks long predate the modern Internet. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union managed to place modified Selectric typewriters into the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and the U.S. Mission in Leningrad. The modified typewriters would wirelessly transmit every keystroke to nearby Russian listening posts. Stuxnet, the malware that sabotaged the Iranian nuclear program, provides a more recent example. Stuxnet was designed to spread via infected USB sticks introduced to Iranian facilities by covert operatives. Turning off the Iranian Internet would have done little to stop the attack. Second, only the most powerful states in the world have even the theoretical capability to bring about the kind of mass havoc the DSB envisions in a full-scale "cyber war." Bringing down the U.S. power grid, financial system and other critical systems would require thousands of engineers to study U.S. systems and make careful plans to sabotage them. Again, Stuxnet provides a good example. Its author -- reported to be the U.S. government -- had intimate knowledge of the expensive Siemens industrial control equipment the Iranians used to control their centrifuges. The attack took years of planning and millions of dollars. Premeditated sabotage — for example, introducing compromised chips into an adversary's infrastructure — is even more difficult. An attacker who wanted to cripple the American economy would have to launch these kinds of sophisticated attack against dozens, if not hundreds, of U.S. systems simultaneously. Only governments,


Shorthand

* Ohio brought in new restrictions on abortion. * Bush spoke out for surveillance. * He also met with Obama in Tanzania. * Who defended his record on AIDS. * And Alison Lundergan Grimes is running for Senate.


Stunning video of Russian rocket crash in Kazakhstan

Russia's space program suffered another setback on Tuesday, when a booster rocket carrying three satellites tilted off course and crashed about a mile away from the launch pad on live TV. An engine on the Proton-M rocket shut down 17 seconds into the flight -- it's still not clear why -- sending it careening back towards Earth. If you watch the above video, you can clearly see the moment when the flight went awry. No one was hurt, although Russian officials say that rocket fuel burn-off has left some toxic gas in the area. This was the most recent of several accidents that have plagued the Russian space program, which under much of the Soviet era challenged or even surpassed the American effort in sophistication and prestige. According to the Associated Press, "observers say that the problem is rooted in a post-Soviet industrial meltdown that has stalled the modernization of the space industry." The rocket was not launched from within Russia but from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, a legacy of the Soviet space program that Moscow still uses for space-bound rockets.


Dennis Rodman says he should be considered for Nobel Peace Prize

Dennis Rodman explained his mission to George Stephanopoulos earlier this year. (Lorenzo Bevilaqua / AP) It’s been a busy year for Dennis Rodman, the former NBA bad-boy-turned-diplomat. He’s traveled to North Korea. He’s talked with Kim Jong Un and pronounced him a “friend for life.” He’s gone to Vatican City and kindly offered to assist with the selection of a new pope. All of which leads him to one conclusion: He should win the Nobel Peace Prize, like some sort of blond, pierced, tattoed version of, oh, Jimmy Carter or Al Gore. “My mission is to break the ice between hostile countries,” Rodman told Sports Illustrated in an interview for its annual “Where are they now?” issue. “Why it’s been left to me to smooth things over, I don’t know. Dennis Rodman, of all people. Keeping us safe is really not my job; it’s the black guy’s [that would be President Obama] job. But I’ll tell you this: If I don’t finish in the top three for the next Nobel Peace Prize, something’s seriously wrong.” (Image courtesy Sports Illustrated: Clay Patrick McBride / Sports Illustrated) Rodman, who said in March that “I want to be anywhere in the world that I’m needed,” plans to return to North Korea next month. “I’m just gonna chill, play some basketball and maybe go on vacation with Kim and his family,” Rodman said. “I’ve called on the Supreme Leader to do me a solid by releasing Kenneth Bae.” Bae, a Korean-American missionary, has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for what North Korea claims are crimes against the state. “Fact is, [Kim] hasn’t bombed anywhere he’s threatened to yet. Not South Korea, not Hawaii, not … whatever. People say he’s the worst guy in the world. All I know is Kim told me he doesn’t want to go to war with America. His whole deal is to talk basketball with Obama,” Rodman said. “Unfortunately, Obama doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. I ask, Mr. President, what’s the harm in a simple phone call? This is a new age, man. Come on, Obama, reach out to Kim and be his friend.” Follow @CindyBoren on Twitter and on Facebook.


D.C. is one of America’s snobbiest cities, according to Travel and Leisure

Rasika West End is an outpost of D.C. elitism, according to a new ranking from Travel and Leisure magazine. (Robert Miller) While we usually take city rankings with a grain (or entire shaker) of salt, Travel and Leisure has placed D.C. on a list that simply must be answered. The District is, according to the magazine, one of America’s “snobbiest cities," ranking after such elitist locales as New York and San Francisco and placing ninth overall. So, okay, they have a point -- anyone who has stumbled into a Georgetown boutique or browsed a local listserv can testify that the area has more than its fair share of the moneyed and pretentious. But the magazine’s reasoning is a little more circumspect: “The locals ranked as some of the unfriendliest in the nation,” Katrina Brown Hunt writes, later adding, “if you want to dine like a local power broker … check out the mod Rasika West End.” This is, for the record, the same Rasika West End where at least half a dozen entrees run under $14. The Post’s Tom Sietsema told readers in January that you can waltz in for dinner in business casual clothes. Hardly the height of pretension, right? Travel and Leisure based the ranking off its “America’s Favorite City” survey, a (unscientific) reader poll that asks about things like the best time to visit and whether residents have “charming local accents.” Visitors consistently ranked D.C. as one of the less friendly cities on the list -- an impression they formed, undoubtedly, while touring our free museums, watching our free concerts and movie screenings, drinking at our competitively priced happy hours, and clogging our mass transit. (Okay, NOW we may get unfriendly.) If you do want to make the case that D.C.’s a snobby city, there is plenty of proof away from Rasika and the Mall. The Rye Bar at Georgetown’s Capella Hotel charges $22 for a Manhattan. Jose Andres’ Minibar just launched a $3,000 private dining option, for those who thought the $225-per-plate dinner wasn’t quite exclusive enough. Uber fought long and hard to bring “sleek,” smartphone-ordered sedans to the District. And D.C. practically invented the high-end cupcake (... followed by the gourmet doughnut). We could go on. But really, Travel and Leisure, pegging D.C.’s snobbery to its feelings about visitors seems a bit unfair. You try riding the (relatively cheap, distinctly plebeian) metro when tens of


A closer look at Obama’s $7 billion plan to bring electricity to Africa

Africa conflict with Obama's climate goals? Power lines running to a coal power station in the early morning light near Johannesburg, South Africa. (EPA/KIM LUDBROOK) Tom Hart, the executive director of the ONE Campaign, an advocacy group, thinks that the two goals don't necessarily need to conflict. "We think an exception can be made for poorest and least-emitting countries," he says. "If you provided 580 million Africans with basic energy access, that would increase global carbon emissions by just 1 percent." In other words, if Obama wants to tackle global warming, Africa isn't the place to start. It's possible, however, that some environmental rules could limit U.S. involvement. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), which just pledged $1.5 billion in energy projects for sub-Saharan Africa, currently has an internal cap on greenhouse-gas emissions. Those rules would prevent OPIC from financing more than one medium-sized natural-gas plant, for example. Todd Moss of the Center for Global Development has proposed lifting OPIC's emissions cap slightly for the poorest, least-emitting countries in Africa. "More than half the people in low-income neighborhoods in Nairobi and Dakar have no access to electricity," he told me earlier this year. "For reaching urban centers and powering industrial zones, you'll likely need traditional large-scale power plants. And current U.S. rules are keeping businesses out of that area." That said, Moss adds that OPIC's heavy focus on clean energy is appropriate in many cases: "In some places, when people are far from the power grid and it makes more sense to invest in off-grid renewables, absolutely." (The International Energy Agency, for instance, has found that renewable power could be the most cost-effective option for expanding energy access in about 70 percent of rural areas in developing countries.) 2) What counts as "electricity access"? Roger Pielke Jr., an environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado, has pointed out that the international community’s definition of “modern energy access” tends to be quite scant — it means providing people with a mere 2.2 percent of the energy that the average American uses. Hart says that how "access" gets defined is something he'll be watching very closely in U.S. plans to promote electricity in Africa. 3) How much money would it take to make sure everyone had access to Not as easy as it looks. (AP) A recent report from the World Bank and International Energy Agency found that it would take


New Yelp heat map highlights the cheapest, priciest and hipster-est neighborhoods in D.C.

Where D.C.'s hipsters eat and drink, according to Yelp. (Yelp WordMap) If you’re looking for cheap food, head to Adams Morgan or Chinatown. If you’d like a bar with a patio, try Dupont Circle. And if you like your nightlife with a little less hipster, stay far away from 14th Street, H Street and the U Street corridor, at least according to Yelp reviewers. Because those are, for better or worse, the hippest neighborhoods around. These insights come courtesy a nifty new Yelp feature called Wordmap, which the consumer reviews site launched yesterday. Wordmap basically searches Yelp reviews for certain keywords -- “cheap,” “patio,” “hipster,” “bacon” -- and shows you where reviewers use them most frequently. “People come to Yelp to read and write reviews, look at photos and find business information, but that data houses even more local knowledge than we can see on the surface,” says a company data scientist on Yelp’s official blog. “Enter the Yelp Wordmap: a heat map showing density of keywords used in Yelp reviews to reveal fascinating patterns of local discovery.” For the most part, D.C.’s map aligns well with what you might expect, even down to the individual bar or restaurant. When you search “PBR,” for instance, the map lights up around U Street, Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights -- with two distinct dots over Wonderland and Red Derby. Reviewers frequently mention tourists when they talk about the swath of real estate north of the Mall. And the word “view” is used often along the Georgetown and Southwest waterfronts, as well as on the Arlington Memorial Bridge -- which, yes, you can review on Yelp. There are, of course, some outliers. People regularly drop the word “cheap” in reviews of Georgetown, Dupont Circle and Cleveland Park restaurants -- we can assume they’re discussing only the closest Chipotle. Reviewers also seem to find Adams Morgan romantic. (Maybe they're referring to Mintwood Place?) For more dubious (but interesting!) insights, check out Yelp’s live Wordmap here. And in case you’re curious, there also are versions for New York, Philadelphia and 11 other cities.


Shorthand

* Michelle Obama joked about her "really nice prison." * Romney thought about not running. * Mark Udall's brother is missing. * Gabrielle Giffords went shooting. * And Rick Perry has exciting plans to announce.


Beating the heat is a gardening feat

A hillside of native perennials. Low water requiring plants like sedums, yucca, prickly pear cactus, thistle and ice plant are also a good choice to keep watering needs low. However, if you need to resort to the sprinklers, try to do it as early in the day as possible to cut down on evaporative loss. Early morning humidity is usually at its highest making the best use of your water. In addition, the morning sun will then evaporate off the wetness to cut down on mold and mildew problems and hopefully hold down the slug population, although that last one may be wishful thinking. If you have a slug problem scattering ash is a good natural deterrent. If you have a lawn, a substantial weekly watering is better than an everyday shower. However, if you are like me and had sod laid over the awful clay landfill, years of aerating and spreading a light coating of compost may be required. In fact, for the dead of summer a quick mid-afternoon sprinkling is required just to keep the roots from being parboiled by the clay beneath. That reminds me of a “suburban myth” I would like to dispel. Getting water on vegetation during the day does not magnify the sun and burn the leaves. Studies at Purdue helped to put my mind at ease on that one. Of course, mulching beds is a must as it slows the evaporative loss from the soil and also keeps weeds from siphoning off moisture as well. Fertilizers like Osmocote, that are slow-release, do not impose the salt strain on the plants that quick-release additives can. And the nice thing is you only have to apply these fertilizers once every four months. Keep an eye out for pests, which can also put stress on plants. I am patiently waiting on the Japanese beetle horde to strike. I have long gotten over the squeamishness of bare handing squashing of those terrorists. Better yet, the use of milky spore in the lawn has greatly and naturally cut down on their numbers. Most importantly, take it easy on yourself this time of year in the garden. Drink plenty of fluids, take frequent breaks and, as Camden would admonish, get that sunscreen slathered on. For me a liberal dousing of a bug spray is a must too! Please share your tips on beating the summer here and stay cool.


The inventor of the mouse has died. Here’s why his invention took 30 years to catch on.

argued, thirty years is actually a typical amount of time for a breakthrough computing invention to go from the first laboratory prototype to commercial ubiquity. The first packet-switched network, the ARPANET, was launched in 1969. It took about 30 years, until the turn of the millenium, for Internet access to be widely adopted by American consumers. As Buxton documents, the story is similar for multitouch computing. The first multi-touch computing display was introduced in 1984, but it took 23 years for the first high-profile multitouch product, the iPhone, to reach the market in 2007. And it took a few more years, with the introduction of Android in 2008 and the iPad in 2010, for multi-touch computing to become a ubiquitous standard for mobile computing. Why does it take so long? In all of these cases, it took a decade or longer for the new techniques to spread and mature inside the research community. Engelbart's demos were inspiring, but the full potential of mouse-based computing wasn't made clear until 1973, when researchers at the Xerox PARC laboratory developed the Alto, which pioneered many of the graphical user interface concepts we now take for granted. Similarly, academics loved the early Internet, but it took Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web in 1991 to make the Internet accessible to ordinary consumers. Once a computing concept has been refined in the laboratory, it can take another decade to turn it into a viable commercial product. Xerox didn't realize the commercial potential of the Alto during the 1970s. Apple incorporated many of the ideas behind the Alto into the Lisa, a Macintosh forerunner introduced in 1983. But its astronomical $9,995 price tag (about $23,000 in 2013 dollars) made the device a flop. It took another year of effort for Apple to hit paydirt with the Macintosh in 1984. And it took almost another decade for Apple's competitors to catch up. This 30-year rule of thumb can help to form an educated guess about when future innovations will reach the mass market. For example, the first car capable of driving itself long distances was created in 2005, and the technology has been maturing in academica and corporate labs over the last eight years. If self-driving technology follows the same trajectory as previous computing innovations, commercial self-driving cars will be introduced sometime in the 2020s, and the technology will become widely adopted in the 2030s.


Guide for July 4 and weekend travel in D.C. area

to 18th Street (both sides) - Virginia Avenue NW from Constitution Avenue to 21st Street These streets will be closed from about 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.: - Fourth Street from Independence Avenue SW to Constitution Avenue NW - Seventh Street from Independence Avenue SW to Constitution Avenue NW - 15th Street from Pennsylvania Avenue NW to Maine Avenue SW - 17th Street from Independence Avenue SW to E Street NW - 19th Street NW from C Street to Constitution Avenue - 20th Street NW from C Street to Constitution Avenue - 21st Street NW from C Street to Constitution Avenue - 22nd Street NW from C Street to Constitution Avenue - 23rd Street from Independence Avenue SW to C Street NW - Virginia Avenue NW from 18th Street to 20th Street - Constitution Avenue NW from 14th Street to 23rd Street - Independence Avenue SW from 14th Street to 23rd Street These streets will be closed from about 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. - 14th Street from Independence Avenue SW to Pennsylvania Avenue NW - Third Street from Maryland Avenue SW to Pennsylvania Avenue NW These streets will be closed from about 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. for the Independence Day Parade: - Ninth Street Tunnel from Pennsylvania Avenue to the SE/SW Freeway - 12th Street Tunnel from the SE/SW Freeway to Pennsylvania Avenue The 14th Street and Roosevelt bridges will remain open throughout the day. Don’t park on them. Anyone who tries can get ticketed and towed. July 4th Parade Palisades Parade Road closings begin at noon and end about 1:30 p.m. MacArthur Boulevard NW will be closed from Reservoir Road to Arizona Avenue for this event. There will be rolling street closures during the parade. Capitol Hill Parade Operation Fast Forward On four evacuation routes, traffic signals will be timed to provide longer green lights for traffic leaving D.C. This is scheduled to begin about a half hour after the end of the fireworks and continue for an hour. The Operation Fast Forward emergency routes are: - Constitution Avenue NW from Pennsylvania Avenue to the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge - Eastbound Pennsylvania Avenue from Third Street NW to Southern Avenue SE - Southbound 14th Street from Pennsylvania Avenue NW to C Street SW - Westbound K Street NW from 17th Street to the Whitehurst Freeway, Canal Road and the Chain Bridge Metro this weekend Orange Line. Blue Line.


Prints, Not Dead

Prints, Not Dead polaroidfotobar.com Getup for Your Grill Neck of The Woods Turn It Up, Mate Leaf It Alone


From Bleak to Blooming

in the sky,” she said. “Absolutely fresh flavor is a big one. It’s so handy. Plus you’re creating an environment that satisfies and nurtures you and your son.” She helped me see the obvious: I could grow far more by going up! McGee showed me a tall greenhouse with a small footprint ($40, hayneedle.com). Its plastic cover can be removed after starting seeds, leaving a great perch for growing anything with shallow root systems. Going vertical created more space for pots, which McGee suggested I fill with eggplants, green beans and Sun Gold tomatoes. A little creativity can yield a large crop. “I’m growing carrots in good-looking containers that I purchased at the local dollar store,” McGee said. “We’ve drilled holes in the base, filled them with soil and seeded them. They’ll hang from cords on a railing. The tops will look like hanging fern baskets, and I’ll plant new seeds as we pull out ripened carrots. “You can also attach wide gutters with drainage holes to your railing, or to a wood frame that you hang on the wall,” she said. “They will soon look quite attractive once you fill them up with mixed salad greens and Seascape strawberries — a day-length neutral variety that produces all summer and has a good flavor.” She encouraged me to go big. “Try growing fruit! There are some really small blueberry plants, like Top Hat and Sunshine, that produce well in containers,” she said. “Meyer lemons are a joy and will need to spend the frosty winter months indoors. However, the fragrant flowers will earn their space.” Other balcony-friendly fruits include apples, peaches, currants and figs. And my beloved cantaloupe? McGee was a bit more worried. Pollinating its flowers with a small paintbrush might stand in for bees unwilling to zip up to the seventh floor. But go for it, she urged. “Heck, a girl’s got to try!” Next, local interior designer Dana Tydings (tydingsdesign.com) helped me prettify the space. A sky-blue tin mirror from Eastern Market, which Tydings hung on the brick wall to reflect the Potomac River, made us ooh and aah. She ducked back into the apartment and emerged with a jewel-tone rug I’d never used, placed it under the balcony sofa, and it instantly screamed outdoor room. “You should splurge and buy a few enormous outdoor pillows,” Tydings said, “to make this corner look even more inviting.” Then


Can libertarian populism save the Republican Party?

in the economy, the wholesale stripping of social insurance programs is a major step back in providing security and flexibility to vulnerable workers. Given the extensive debates about inequality and stagnation over the past several years, the story that “libertarian populists” tell is rather thin. It’s basically the idea that the market would be functioning perfectly fine except for state power. Any attempts to check market failure end in corruption and self-dealing, so those ought to be off the table. Getting the government out of the way entirely will enable the U.S. economy to create a broader distribution of incomes, economic security and prosperity, regardless of underlying technological and global trends. You see these arguments on the radical anarchist/left-libertarian side as well. But as non-left libertarians have pointed out, you have to make several leaps to think that without the existence of the corporate charter and state power we’d all be working in small cooperatives and other horizontalist labor structures. (As an aside, remember how the conservative movement went nuts over President Obama’s campaign device defending government programs, The Life of Julia? You can see this left-libertarian dream of a better economic life without a state in the equally fuming The Life of Julia Under Anarchy.) I’m biased, but it seems liberals have the better story on the growth of inequality. The Economic Policy Institute has a fantastic Web page, inequality.is, where they walk through a more sophisticated story about how inequality was created by tax, globalization, macroeconomic and regulatory decisions and policies, and it can be fixed through the same mechanisms. Likewise, Ezra Klein recently reviewed Dean Baker’s End of Loser Liberalism, which makes a similar argument for focusing on “the way in which the government structures the larger economy.” This draws on a long tradition, marching through Progressives and Polyani, that markets are fundamentally created by governments, which implies that there’s no way to “get out of the way” like the libertarian populists want. For instance, if you check out the actual 1892 Populist Party agenda, it states “the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people must own the railroads” and thus “the government should own and operate the railroads in the interest of the people.” Though public ownership isn’t a popular argument these days, public regulation and accountability is. So a truly “populist” agenda might call for a larger active state rather than a


Three reasons Mohamed ElBaradei is an odd choice to be Egypt’s new prime minister

Mohamed ElBaradei at the World Economic Forum. (Salah Malkawi/GETTY IMAGES) Mohamed ElBaradei, the 71-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, former head of the United Nations' nuclear agency and Egyptian opposition figure has just added a new line to his resume: He's been appointed the interim prime minister of Egypt. ElBaradei is in some ways a good choice: He's well-known, internationally respected, old enough that he's perhaps more likely to cede power willingly, and seen as too much of a statesman to indulge in the self-serving power grabs that have marked the tenures of past Egyptian leaders. And ElBaradei is likely to do well with international institutions such as the IMF, which now-deposed president Mohamed Morsi had rebuffed. In other ways, though, the decision to appoint ElBaradei and his decision to accept the post are strange choices for Egypt at this moment. Here are a few. (1) Little natural constituency, likely to alienate key groups Egypt has more than a few serious problems right now, sadly, but one of the biggest is its political divisions, which are so wide and bitter that any single leader or group would struggle to govern. Maybe ElBaradei can unite the country, but he is not ideally situated for the task. This is a moment when the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, who are not few in Egypt, are probably asking themselves whether they should even bother participating in this government or just dedicate themselves to undoing it. ElBaradei is seen as associated with Egypt's relatively small population of well-off, well-educated, secular, liberal urbanites – or, worse, associated with Westerners. When I looked for a photo to illustrate this post, the first one that popped up showed ElBaradei smiling alongside Angelina Jolie, on stage at the Berlin International Film Festival. ElBaradei is almost perfectly positioned to further enrage and alienate Islamists, who are popular among Egypt's many rural and low-income communities. While he had a warm relationship with the group before the revolution, making common cause with it against then-President Mubarak, he is so much the opposite of everything the Muslim Brotherhood stood for while Morsi was in power that the group could see him as anti-Brotherhood choice. Shadi Hamid, who follows Egyptian politics for the Brookings Institution, told USA Today that ElBaradei and the Brotherhood are now "arch enemies of sorts." And it's not just Islamists. Hamid wrote on Twitter that ElBaradei "was the man pro-army


Trayvon was ‘alive,’ but could he move?

Dr. Shiping Bao (Gary W. Green/AP) Dr. Shiping Bao was a frustrating witness for the prosecution and the defense in the trial of George Zimmerman. The associate medical examiner for Seminole and Volusia County who did the autopsy of Trayvon Martin was loquacious and prone to lecturing when one or a few words would do. Because of that, a key thing Bao said has gotten lost. Bao testified DE LA RIONDA: OK. Are you saying his brain is technically alive in other words? BAO: Yes. DE LA RIONDA: That’s what you mean by still alive in terms of conscious. His brain is still alive? BAO: Yes. DE LA RIONDA: He can still feel pain in other words. Can you say one way or the other? BAO: From my experience and another autopsy we did three weeks ago, I don’t believe he could move after shot. Catch that? Bao didn’t believe that Trayvon could move after being shot. Of course, on cross-examination, Zimmerman defense attorney Don West got Bao to admit that it was possible that Trayvon might have moved after being shot. That’s hardly surprising. The body does all sorts of involuntary things after being shot, especially in the heart or head. But it strains credulity to believe that Trayvon could move his hands, which Zimmerman said he stretched away from Trayvon’s body, to underneath his body, as a witness and Sanford police officer Ricardo Ayala noted. And all of this supposedly happened between the time Trayvon was shot and the time the first neighbor and first officers arrived. The elapsed time was about a minute. How did Trayvon’s arms find their way underneath his body when Zimmerman said he held his victim’s hands “away from his body,” “held his hands up,” “pushed his arms apart,” “moved his arms apart” and “moved his hands apart”? As the defense puts on the rest of its case this week, the question of Trayvon’s hands is one it needs to answer. Follow Jonathan Capehart on Twitter.


The week ahead: Metro schedules, Silver Line work, lane closings

Traffic on Route 267 flows past the west side of the Wiehle Avenue station, last stop on the first phase of the Silver Line. (Stephen Barna/Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project) The summer decline in local traffic is shrinking the length of traditional bottlenecks in the D.C. region, though they haven’t disappeared. One spot where morning congestion appears to be increasing is on the Capital Beltway’s inner loop just west of Interstate 95 in Springfield. The Nationals are on the road all week, but Paul McCartney will be at Nationals Park for an 8 p.m. concert Friday. D.C. United plays at 8 p.m. Friday in RFK Stadium. The Going Out Guide lists Free and Easy events for the week. On Monday night, the National Park Service will illuminate the scaffolding and fabric around the Washington Monument. The forecast from the Capital Weather Gang includes a chance of rain every weekday, along with high humidity. The temperature should fall a bit late this week. HIGHLIGHTS: Metro late-night schedule Metro’s week night maintenance program now begins at 10 p.m rather than 8 p.m. Through Thursday, trains will share tracks around work zones on all rail lines, resulting in 10 minute delays. These are the work zones: - Red Line. Between Van Ness and Friendship Heights, and between Takoma and Forest Glen. - Blue Line. Between Smithsonian and Federal Center SW, and between Van Dorn Street and Franconia-Springfield. - Orange Line. Between Smithsonian and Federal Center SW. - Green, Yellow lines. Between Georgia Avenue and Fort Totten. D.C. 295 lane closings The District Department of Transportation plans to close lanes on both sides of D.C. 295 near the Eastern Avenue bridge at off-peak hours this week. Workers will be doing maintenance on the bridge over the freeway. Watch for rotating lane closings in that area by the D.C. line between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Rock Creek Parkway The rehabilitation project on the parkway continues between P Street and Beach Drive. Crews will be working on the street lighting from 9:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. weekdays. Watch for single-lane closings. Pedestrians will be detoured from the trail to the southbound lanes near Massachusetts Avenue. Canal Road/Arizona Avenue The nightly closings on Canal Road and Chain Bridge Road for the Arizona Avenue bridge rehabilitation have ended, the National Park Service said. There may be temporary lane closings after the evening rush to clean


We asked science if Eliot Spitzer could win. It said yes.

the University of Connecticut and Daniel Stockemer at the University of Ottawa -- looked at every U.S. House race between 1972 and 2006 and compared the outcomes of races where a member had been referred to the House Ethics Committee (88 in total, over that period) to non-scandal races (7,693 overall). As the Pacific Standard's Michael Todd notes, that sampling method doesn't net every scandal. Weiner, for instance, resigned before his case was referred to the Ethics Committee. But it's a pretty good, reasonably objective way of identifying scandals. It's no surprise that more candidates in scandal races lose, resign or retire. But although their retention rate of 48.9 percent is much lower than the non-scandal retention rate of 86.5 percent, it's still pretty high: When you control for other factors, like the amount spent on the campaign by each side, the national tilt of that year's election, and the partisanship of the House member's district, having an issue referred to the ethics committee reduces a member of Congress's margin of victory by about 14.5 points, on average. That's nothing to scoff at. But the average reelection margin over the period in question was 31 points, so a scandal tended to reduce that to 16.5 points — still a landslide. But the really interesting finding had to do with the electoral results years in the future for scandal-afflicted members of Congress: The solid line is the predicted margin for members of Congress who face an ethics probe, and the dotted line the predicted margin for members who don't but are of comparable seniority. Two years before a scandal, the two barely differ. The year of a scandal, the margins of those facing probes fall, as one would predict. But the two lines converge thereafter, and by four years after the scandal there's barely any difference between thoe candidate who are investigated and those who are not. Other studies of the House have also found that the electoral cost of scandal is, while real, usually surmountable. Scott Basinger at the University of Houston compiled a database of every scandal between 1973 and 2010, capturing some that the House Ethics Committee methodology of Praino et al would have missed. He found that a scandal reduces a candidate's vote share by about five points, for a reduced margin of 10 points. What's more, the type of scandal matters. Corruption scandals result in an


Run For It — Or Just Walk

Jackie and Dan Evans (both in red) urge everyone to participate in RunWalk events. When Jackie Evans and her son Dan went back to Frankfurt, Ill., after filming the fifth season of “The Biggest Loser,” they were worried. The duo had lost a combined 225 pounds on the TV show’s ranch, and then, suddenly, they were on their own. That’s when they signed up for their first road race, and “it changed everything,” says Jackie, 55. “Instead of going on the treadmill — Dan calls it ‘the dreadmill’ — it’s a big social event.” The party atmosphere motivated the Evanses to stick with their healthier routines. Now they’re inviting everyone to join them for The Biggest Loser RunWalk Series, which is bringing races to cities nationwide. The next stop is D.C., for a 5K, 10K and 1-mile kids’ race Sunday at RFK Stadium Festival Grounds. What sets these events apart is the emphasis on walking, Dan says. There’s a separate walk division, with walkers eligible for prizes. Participants don’t need to rush when they can take 22 minutes per mile for the 10K and up to a half hour per mile in the 5K. “It’s taking away all of the big, scary ideas that come with 5Ks,” the 26-year-old says. The RunWalk concept also applies to how Jackie chooses to train. She completed her first half-marathon in 2010 and did 11 in 2011 — a feat her body couldn’t have handled if she’d run the whole way. “I run when I can, and I walk when I need to,” she says. But that doesn’t mean “the people who look like gazelles” should stay home. Speedsters remind the back of the pack of what’s possible. Participants will want to hurry to the finish-line festival after the race, where Dan — a country musician — will play for the crowd. He has a history of good performances in Washington: In 2012, he ran his fastest half-marathon here. “It wasn’t the flattest course, but it was so beautiful,” says Dan, who hopes the setting inspires others to earn their personal best on Sunday. Details: Register for The Biggest Loser RunWalk (biggestloserrunwalk.com) online or at Saturday’s packet pickup (11 a.m.-4 p.m., 801 E St. NW). The 5K ($35-$45) and the 10K ($50-$60) begin at 9 a.m. Sunday at RFK Stadium.


Nightlife Agenda: Christmas beers, a fish fry and the return of U.S. Royalty

on the Senate side.) Doors open at 8, with $4 Bud Light tallboys and $6 Bacardi drinks until 10. Crushes, frozen RBVs and SoCo and Lime shots are $5 all night. Because George is a guest-list-only bar, you have to RSVP on the Facebook event page if you want to attend. The Words, Beats & Life hip-hop mentorship group is once again assembling some of the area's best DJs to blend and cut their way through a couple of heavyweight hip-hop catalogs. Previous editions of the Philanthrobeat fundraiser have highlighted Wu-Tang as well as the Soulquarians. This time around, the featured battle is Outkast and the Dungeon Family vs. Kanye West and G.O.O.D. Music. DJs RBI, 2-Tone Jones, Jav, Oso Fresh and Heat will be running round-robin sets on the decks at Liv. Friday, July 12 The Specials Saturday, July 13 Get a taste of the local blues scene - and a tasty fish sandwich - at the D.C. Blues Society's annual Hotter Than July Fish Fry and Show. Ten bands, including Eddie and the Blues Drivers and Cooking With Gas, will play half-hour sets from 4 to 10:30 p.m. at Silver Spring's American Legion Hall. The $15 cover includes a hot fish sandwich; bring a potluck dish to share, and you'll receive a copy of the D.C. Blues Society cookbook. Bastille Day The Alliance Francaise cultural group will be hosting its Bastille Day Celebration at the bar atop the Beacon Hotel, with jazz from Hot Club of DC, video projections, art and dancing. Falls Church has quite a happening beer scene. Between the award-winning house-brewed ales at Mad Fox, the 20 constantly changing drafts at Spacebar and the popular tapping parties and beer dinners at Dogfish Head, there's always something new to try. Mad Fox marks its third anniversary in town with a day-long party that includes tappings of three rare beers, including the divine Orange Whip IPA, a special barbecue menu and music from singer-songwriter Justin Trawick and his band. The beer starts flowing at noon, tunes begin at 1 p.m. and everyone gets a slice of free birthday cake at 5 p.m. Sunday, July 14 Stop by Wisdom bar on Capitol Hill this Sunday and you'll be among a community of vinyl hounds sharing their favorite finds. Throw your own record on the decks to share with everyone from 5 to 6 p.m. After that, DJ Jimmy


Wonkbook: Should immigration reform wait till later?

central bankers are honing tools to pop bubbles. ...Meanwhile, financial deregulation just passed the House. Credit unions raising overdraft fees faster than banks, report says. More good news: OMB shrinks its budget deficit forecast. U.S.-E.U. trade talks open amid new criticism from labor, environmental groups. Explainer: We’re an increasingly cashless society. So why is there more cash than ever? All the best Tumblrs interlude: 3) Most hospitals still don’t use digital records. But more do than last year! Longread: Obamacare just got easier to implement, not harder. Obamacare delay may encourage false tax reports, experts say. It’s not just the employer mandate: Three Obamacare delays you haven’t heard about. Paul Ryan wants Obamacare's new cost. Americans for Prosperity has questions about Obamacare. We have answers! Oregon just launched the world’s most twee Obamacare marketplace. Wisconsin abortion law blocked. Infrastructure interlude: 4) Oil, by train or by pipeline? Canadian train disaster sharpens debate on oil transportation. Solar-powered plane Solar Impulse reaches milestone for renewable energy. Really interlude: 5) Your government spies on you. What could go wrong? Here’s what can go wrong when the government builds a huge database about Americans. NSA backlash hits privacy legislation. Reading material interlude: Wonkblog Roundup Coal pollution in China is much deadlier than anyone realized An urban redevelopment train wreck shows the peril of 1970s federal planning It’s not just the employer mandate: Three Obamacare delays you haven’t heard about Here’s a secret decoder ring for reading stories about the next Fed chair We’re an increasingly cashless society. So why is there more cash than ever Obamacare just got easier to implement, not harder Consumer debt is soaring. That’s good news (for now) Americans for Prosperity has questions about Obamacare. We have answers Most hospitals still don’t use digital records. But more do than last year Oregon just launched the world’s most twee Obamacare marketplace Interview: Confused about Egypt? An expert walks you through it Here’s what can go wrong when the government builds a huge database about Americans Talks over a huge U.S.-Europe trade deal start this week. Here’s what you need to know This graph shows why Egypt is falling apart Et Cetera The European Central Bank's forward guidance is a murky mess Obama announces effort to make government more ‘user-friendly’. Dave Camp eyes potential Democratic allies on tax reform Got tips, additions, or comments? Wonkbook is produced with help from Michelle Williams.


The internet didn’t kill bank branches. Bank mergers did.

and online banking, bank branches haven't gone the way of the travel agency or even the real estate office. They're still all over major cities, taking up prime corners, to the point where New York City's Upper West Side passed a zoning overlay to limit their growth (although of course, there are still plenty of poor neighborhoods that don't even have a single one). In 2007, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation found that having a convenient bank branch was still the most important factor consumers looked at when deciding where to put their money, and having more branches tended to correlate with higher profits. As federal and state laws regulating the number of branches a bank could have were liberalized, the number of branches grew by 27 percent from 1994 to 2006. At the same time, though, the branches were getting leaner--the average bank outpost had 20 employees in 1988, but only 14 in 2004. Banks started decreasing their branch networks overall in 2010. (Bancography) Branch networks finally started to shrink in 2010, when banks shed 1,100 locations, according to research firm Bancography. The decline has continued over the past couple of years, led by the troubled Bank of America, which shuttered 193 branches in 2012. Meanwhile, the number of transactions per branch declined too, from 10,200 per month in 2007 to 7,600 per month in 2012. It's not because people aren't depositing cash. Consumers who are less willing to spend money in a shaky economy are more likely to sock it away in a bank account (especially in Washington D.C., which leads the nation's large cities in deposit growth). And it's not entirely because people are banking online. Rather, it's because a number of large banks in the same markets have merged--like Wachovia and Wells Fargo, or BB&T and Colonial--and decided to save on real estate costs by closing down branches. Percentage growth in bank deposits, 2008-2012. (Bancography) The Wall Street Journal recently parsed the branch closing phenomenon, focusing on the small towns that lose an important institution when a bank closes its doors. And the Atlanta Journal-Constitution points out that even if people do their day-to-day money management online, they still like a branch nearby to open an account and conduct significant transactions, like taking out a loan. So bank branches will likely never disappear completely--they're just a less reliable option for landlords looking to rent a storefront.


Buck up, America. It’s going to get better.

applied to virtually any field. Anything that can be digitized will be digitized. In this future, drug development and medical device production will be personalized, cheap and fast. Computer-assisted design and fabrication will reshape manufacturing forever. These technologies will slash waste and replace nearly all conventional manufacturing with more environmentally friendly and cost-effective additive manufacturing run with robots and computer programs. Complex systems resistant to modeling will succumb to advances in Big Data that allow mankind to finally make sense and improve upon the most intricate multi-faceted interactions. Where Big Data fails, ubiquitous crowd sourcing will harness untapped brain cycles to train systems and solve problems, one small activity at a time – on a global scale. With 3D design and printing, expect to see acceleration in research and development for nearly everything — from airline design and online advertising to artificial organ construction. This will, in turn, allow for far more rigorous testing of products and processes. Dirt-cheap digital delivery platforms for educational content and improvements in the understanding of the way the brain learns will yield a sea change in how we gain knowledge. This will result in more open, flexible educational systems and structures – and a smarter, more learned and constantly learning populace. In the field of energy, even as Silicon Valley has turned cold on green startups, the cost-per-watt of solar and wind energy continues to fall. GTM Research computes that the average price of solar panels per watt has already dropped by 97.2 percent between 1975 and 2012. Renewables are already undercutting old carbon-based power generation in swathes of the country — such as Hawaii and California — where electricity is costly. Already, we’ve seen how fracking technologies have caused a dramatic increase in the amount of oil and gas that the US produces. In turn, this has driven a new wave of construction of high-efficiency steel and chemical plants along the Gulf Coast of the U.S., close to shipping lanes and benefitting from cheap natural gas or electricity. Energy efficiency technologies, such as LED light bulbs, improved heating and cooling systems, and Internet-enabled hardware such as the Nest thermostat, can save enough money to offset the initial cost – often within a year or less. The implications of these shifts are tremendous. Manufacturing in this country will rebound. In fact, multinationals are starting to re-shore manufacturing jobs to the United States. The economies


New happy hours: Cheap beers at Gordon Biersch and Duffy’s

Everyone likes a cheap beer. Here are two new happy hours to take advantage of this week. The new Gordon Biersch brewpub near the Navy Yard offers six to eight house-brewed German-style beers on tap. (Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) Gordon Biersch Anniversary Happy Hours Gordon Biersch will bring back the $2.50 prices on all draft beers from 5 p.m. to close on the next two Tuesdays, July 16 and 23. Furlough Happy Hour While Duffy's is launching this happy hour to mark the beginning of the Department of Defense furloughs, you don't need to work for the government to take advantage of the specials.


A short history of good D.C. pizza

Spike Mendelsohn dresses a buffalo chicken pie at We the Pizza, one of several more upscale pizza shops that opened in Washington in the aughts. (James M. Thresher for The Washington Post) Washington is home to enough grade-A pizza to satisfy even the pickiest New York Times writer, as my colleague Maura Judkis conclusively proved yesterday. But if all those upper crusts didn’t convince you, local history blogger Sarah Adler has more proof: She has traced the history of pizza culture in D.C. all the way back to 1938. That’s the year, Adler says, that Luigi Calvi first advertised a pizza dinner at his Lido restaurant on 18th Street south of Dupont Circle. (It was cheaper than Jumbo Slice. According to the ad, unearthed by Ghosts of DC, dinner cost one dollar and included wine.) But those early years were dark ones for D.C. pizza. Until 1948, you couldn’t order pizza for lunch. ("Here's a bit of good news for you Pizza Pie lovers,” reads a 1948 Post article, “Luigi, who might be termed King of the Pizza, has announced that instead of waiting until 5:30 or so to get your Pizza you can have it any time from noon on.") And until the early 1950s, Adler says, pizza was rarely available on the nightlife circuit. She didn’t come across any mention of late-night pizza until this gem of a Post review from 1953: The pizza's hot and so's the jazz at the Club Bayou below the K St. overpass. The club reopens tonight with Bobbie Conway and his Dixie Six providing the rhythms and the competent chef turning out pizza pies that have surprisingly become one of the big culinary hits for folks wanting late evening snacks. But even then, Adler says, it wasn’t until the ‘90s and early ‘00s that ads and articles about pizza began mentioning things like wood-fired ovens and D.O.C. certification. She suspects it has to do with demographics: Plenty of pizza shops advertised to college kids in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but “it wasn’t until D.C.’s influx of white middle-class families … that gourmet pizza became as important in the city as it is now,” she says. Pizzeria Paradiso opened its first Dupont Circle location in 1991. Ten years later, 2 Amys began serving Neopolitan-style pizzas in Cleveland Park, which kicked off a wave of upscale pizzerias: Matchbox, Comet Ping Pong and Pete’s New


Zimmerman is ‘right-handed’?

Dr. Vincent Di Maio (Joe Burbank/Associated Press) Without question, the confident testimony of Dr. Vincent Di Maio was a boon for the defense of George Zimmerman, the killer of Trayvon Martin. During lengthy questioning, the forensic pathologist testified that the gunshot wound suffered by the unarmed 17-year-old supports the neighborhood watch volunteer’s self-defense claim. Di Maio also said that Zimmerman’s injuries were consistent with his claim that Trayvon slammed the defendant’s head into the sidewalk. Di Maio was no Shiping Bao, the Volusia and Seminole County medical examiner whose shifting testimony last Friday was as frustrating for the defense as it was for the prosecution. Still, state attorney Bernie de la Rionda got Di Maio to talk about the $2,400 he was being paid by the defense to testify as an expert witness. The prosecutor got Di Maio to admit that it was possible Trayvon was pulling away from Zimmerman. And then de la Rionda got another interesting answer that flew right under the radar. De la Rionda: Di Maio: That caught my attention, especially as one of the next images to come on my computer screen was an image of Zimmerman taking notes with his left hand. Throughout the trial, I have seen Zimmerman writing on a notepad with his left hand (see one image here). Yesterday, Mark Ostermann testified that he and Zimmerman have practiced shooting with their “non-dominant” hands. “Whichever hand can get to the firearm, that’s the one you would use,” Osterman told the court. If Zimmerman’s “non-dominant” hand is the right one then why did the defense’s expert witness testify that Zimmerman was right-handed? After Di Maio’s very confident time on the stand, was that just a slip of the tongue? Follow Jonathan Capehart on Twitter.


Shorthand

* James Comey testified. * A Rand Paul aide has some history. * The House GOP has a scandal plan. * Abercrombie has a primary challenger. * And Obama loves broccoli.


Wal-Mart’s threatening to pull out of D.C. if it has to pay a higher minimum wage. So what?

One of the stores that wouldn't get built if Wal-Mart makes good on its threat. (A&R Co.) For two and a half years now, Washington has been trying to figure out what, if anything, to do about the six stores Wal-Mart is planning to open in the city. The company has a pretty bad history of paying low wages and vacuuming streets of their local businesses, and activists have pushed for concessions that would at least force it to be a good corporate citizen. But the company cut its real estate deals such that local politicians had little leverage, and most didn't want to use it anyway, lulled by promises of thousands of jobs and retail for some of the neighborhoods that need it most. Ultimately, Mayor Vincent Gray signed a "community partnership agreement" that contains goals for the hiring of local residents, but no enforcement mechanism whatsoever. At long last, however, the D.C. Council may have found a way to squeeze something more out of the world's largest retailer: passing a bill that requires all corporations in the city with more than $1 billion in global sales and operating in spaces larger than 75,000 square feet to pay a minimum wage of $12.50, with exceptions for companies with collective bargaining agreements (read the bill here). That means that Wal-Mart, along with other big chains such as Home Depot, Costco and Macy's, would have to pay nearly 50 percent more than D.C.'s existing $8.25 minimum wage. Well, Wal-Mart's not too happy about that. Last night, an executive declared on The Washington Post's Web site that it would cancel plans for the three stores not yet under construction if the bill became law. So, there are a few things to consider. Is this "about sticking it to Wal-Mart," as Council member Muriel Bowser put it? From the beginning, activists targeted Wal-Mart -- rather than, say, the non-union Harris Teeter or Target -- because it's easier to pass laws affecting future market entrants. Plus, as a very big new kid on the block, Wal-Mart has the power to create upward pressure on wages if forced to pay more at the outset (including at the unionized grocery stores, Safeway and Giant). Now, the bill has been tweaked to apply to most of the city's existing big-box retailers, so it's really about sticking it to large companies that are better equipped to absorb higher


Planets over the Potomac: Summer nights heat up planetary performance

As the heavens get dark, look to the east. The Summer Triangle’s Vega will already be high in the sky, with Deneb and Altair following. The image depicts the view looking east around 9:30 p.m. (Blaine Friedlander/Dan Stillman) It’s got to be a summer of love: Find Venus – named for the Roman goddess of love – puttering around at dusk, Saturn brings some rings and you get caught up in a triangle. The cosmic action starts at sunset: Find Venus at dusk now loitering each evening in the west-northwest. It’s a stunning -3.9 magnitude, very bright and you should be able to see it easily from urban and suburban locations. On Wednesday a very young, skinny and shy moon will be low in the western sky. With a clear view of the horizon, see the new waxing moon and Venus in the same region. It’s not a conjunction, but from our earthly perspective the moon is about 7 degrees from Venus. Find the crescent moon to the lower left of the bright planet. Venus is quite prominent. If you’ve never made a point to know this planet, this may be a great summertime opportunity. Astronomers often describe Venus as looking like an airliner on approach with its landing lights on. By Thursday night, the moon will have moved away from Venus. Our lunar buddy gets a shade brighter and bit thicker, hanging out near the constellation Leo, heading toward the constellation Virgo. The moon and our effervescent neighbor Venus will be about 12 degrees apart. Catch this planet while you can, since Venus now sets after 10 p.m. Turn your head south to spy Saturn. Our large, gaseous ringed-planet crosses south at sunset. Find the zero-magnitude planet – bright enough to see through the muggy Washington heavens – in the constellation Virgo. Throughout this upcoming weekend, the fattening moon begins an approach toward Saturn. The new moon develops into the first quarter moon on Monday, July 15. The pleasantly more-plump moon sneaks underneath Saturn on Tuesday, July 16, and from our perspective the two objects are about 4 degrees apart. Saturn now sets around 1:40 a.m. You can’t discuss the summer sky without mentioning the Summer Triangle, which features three of brightest stars in the heavens. This prominent isosceles triangle features Vega, in the constellation Lyra and the fifth brightest (-0.03 magnitude) star; Altair, in Aquilla, the Eagle, ranked


PM Update: Showers, storms possible overnight; Death Valley’s hottest anniversary

Radar lightning: Enough sun peeked through the clouds to make it a pretty uncomfortable afternoon out there in combo with high humidity levels. D.C. heat indices snuck up to nearly 100 at times thanks to dew points as high as 77 degrees! It should remain mostly quiet through sunset, but some storms to the west are worth watching. Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Thursday): See Dan Stillman’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter “An unexpected summer shower” (Eric Spiegel via Flickr) Hottest place on earth: Pollen update:


How climate change makes it harder to keep the lights on

affected if climate change does, in fact, bring the impacts that many scientists expect. A few examples: -- Many coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants will have to shutdown partially or fully during the summer if the air gets hotter and certain rivers start to warm, since they won't be able to cool as efficiently. -- If climate change does bring more frequent coastal storms or hurricanes — and this is still being debated — that could hamper oil and gas production in places like the Gulf of Mexico. -- If the air heats up, then transmission lines in the electric grid won't be able to carry as much current and will operate less efficiently. Solar panels will be able to squeeze out less power if ambient air temperatures rise. -- Gas fracking operations in places like Texas could face restrictions if water becomes scarce. -- Oil and gas operations in Alaska may prove vulnerable to melting permafrost, which could damage existing infrastructure. But that said, it's certainly not all grim news for the oil industry: The report notes that offshore drilling operations will likely expand if the Arctic ice recedes. There's also a separate, but related consideration: If the United States keeps getting warmer, then many Americans will use air conditioning more often. Combine that with the risk of more frequent power-plant interruptions, and the Western United States will need an additional 34 gigawatts of generation capacity by 2050 to keep the lights on, according to a study by Argonne National Lab. That will cost consumers some $45 billion. (On the flip side, some parts of the United States will have fewer heating needs in the winter, particularly the Northeast.) Now, the DOE report does suggest that there are ways to adapt to many of these changes. Transmission lines can be hardened against wildfires. Fracking firms can pursue more water-efficient ways to drill for natural gas. Hydroelectric dams facing lower reservoir levels can install more efficient turbines. But this all costs extra. The report also stresses that utilities and other energy companies will likely need to take many of these adaptation steps regardless — even if humans do succeed in curbing emissions and slow the pace of global warming. That's because some of the expected impacts of climate change are already locked in for the years ahead, based on the greenhouse gases we've already put into the atmosphere.


Mix Bar and Grill to replace Bezu in Potomac

No matter what he did at Bezu in Potomac, owner Eddie Benaim says he couldn’t shake the restaurant’s reputation as an expensive place to eat. Slashing the prices of the veal chop and filet mignon didn’t work, nor did adding less costly seafood pasta or lamb shanks. So late last month, he shuttered the struggling business with the intention of turning it into a contemporary American bistro with a Mediterranean lilt. The 60-seat Mix Bar and Grill is expected to open late August or early September. “We decided to go more casual,” says Benaim, who has partnered with Ramiro Paez, owner of the late Peroli Parioli in Bethesda, on the rebranded concept. Their forthcoming restaurant will include a bar that will be triple the size of Bezu’s, a long white leather banquette, “a mix of fabrics” and a brick oven for making flatbreads, says Benaim. (The man has been busy; in February, he rolled out an Aroma Espresso Bar in Montgomery Mall, the first of an expected 10 such coffee/ sandwich/pastry outlets in the area.) Benaim says he’s discussing a consulting role at Mix Bar and Grill for his former chef, Francis Layrle, who enjoyed an impressive run at the French Embassy in Washington before joining Bezu in 2010. “I love him,” says the restaurateur. “He’s very talented. We want him to be a part” of the (dare I?) mix.


Is Washington a great food city?

Anytime 'Washington' and 'food' are mentioned in a sentence or story, heated discussions tend to ensue. The New York Times bashes our sandwiches and pizza? We are reminded of the gourmet take-outs and late-night counters we love. The state of mumbo sauce can spark city-wide discussions. Doughnuts? Two months worth of testing and tasting. Cupcakes? Well.... So when WP Magazine set out to publish a comprehensive food issue, the hope was to spark a meaningful conversation about what and how we eat, and how that reflects the culture of the city. Russell Ventimiglia prepares an order of District Wings with mumbo sauce in the kitchen of the Hamilton. (Photo by Matt McClain/ The Washington Post) Mark Furstenberg kicked things off by asking: Is D.C. a great food town? Responses have been mixed. Some have agreed that the lack of clearly identifiable traditions has negatively impacted the development of our modern cuisine. Others feel the diversity may be a strong point. .@RemarkableBread's thoughtful take on what's wrong with DC's food scene. Hint: no food identity & too much money: http://t.co/zHpvGOoCLM Jessica Sidman of Washington City Paper and Sam Hiersteiner for the Huffington Post filed lengthy rebuttals yesterday, both arguing some of Furstenberg's premises are dated. Sidman wrote: I have a lot of respect for Furstenberg and his contributions to the food scene, but his piece does not give D.C. the credit it deserves. It repeats old tropes about how characterless and pricey Washington is, while dismissing or skimming over the many, many exceptions. Here's Hiersteiner: On the subject of restaurants, I think Central Michel Richard, CityZen, Palena, Obelisk and Vidalia are great places to eat, but Furstenberg again looks rooted in 2003 by not mentioning places like Komi, Little Serow, Bourbon Steak, Fiola, Range, Ashby Inn, The Source and Mintwood Place. What do you think? What's central to Washington's food scene? Or what is it lacking? Join the debate here.


When space weather attacks!

It missed the Earth by a week. “Had that storm occurred a week earlier, it would have been a direct hit,” Baker said. “And we’d probably be having a very different conversation about this today.” A year without power? When it comes to space weather, the foremost concern is what a solar-induced geomagnetic storm might do to electric grids around the world. An aurora captured in Little Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Sunday morning at 3 a.m. on July 14, 2012. (Gary J. Meulemans, anakin1814 on Flickr and Twitter) At certain points in the sun’s cycle, as sunspots appear and flares erupt, the sun will eject part of its outer atmosphere, a cloud of fast-moving charged particles. If one of these coronal mass ejections hits the Earth’s magnetic field in just the right way, it can induce strong ground currents that travel through power lines, oil pipelines and telecom cables. A truly severe geomagnetic storm could create currents powerful enough to overload electric grids and damage a significant number of high-voltage transformers, which can take a long time to repair or replace. That could leave millions without power for months or years. “That’s a key vulnerability,” Smith says. “If you had a really big solar event, there just aren’t enough replacement transformers available. It can take up to 12 months to build new ones.” As it turns out, most utilities don’t keep lots of spares around. The largest transformers, which convert the electricity in high-voltage lines to lower voltages, are custom-built, can cost millions of dollars and weigh up to 400 tons. Procuring a new one is a complex process that involves lining up the necessary copper and steel supplies, working with a long chain of manufacturers and arranging specialized transport. So, the Lloyd’s report notes, if even 20 transformers in the Northeast were knocked out, the logistical challenges would be “extremely concerning.” Smith notes that the Northeast, with its aging power grid and peculiar geologic features, is especially at risk. Suffice it to say, it’s not fun to think about what would happen to the region if 40 million people had to go without power indefinitely. Take Pittsburgh: One 2004 study by Carnegie Mellon University found that a large number of the city’s services were simply unprepared for an extended blackout. Half the city would lose water after three days if the city’s electrical pumps couldn’t be revived. Grocery stores, gas


When space weather attacks!

that space weather could have been to blame for the incident. At the space weather conference in June, Michael Kelly of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory presented early evidence that a form of space weather known as “scintillation” can cause disturbances in the ionosphere and disrupt local radio communications. Researchers are working to model this phenomenon more accurately. Airlines, too, have to take even lesser outbursts from the sun into account. Delta runs a number of commercial flights over the poles, such as routes between Detroit and Beijing and between Atlanta and Tokyo. But if they get a last-minute warning from the Space Weather Prediction Center of a geomagnetic storm, the planes often have to divert their routes away from the poles or risk losing radio contact with the ground. These diversions can cost thousands of dollars, Delta officials noted, so better predictions would help a great deal. And those concerns only scratch the surface. Joseph Kunches, a scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, says we’re still learning about activities that could be disrupted by solar weather. Satellite communications can go astray. Pipelines can corrode from ground currents. Even human space travel faces a threat. “Radiation is a big issue for space travel — particularly once you get away from the Earth’s magnetic field,” he says. Astronauts working outside the Earth’s protective shield can be particularly vulnerable to bursts of solar radiation, which can have harmful health effects. That means that if we ever want to wander around in space, it would be helpful to have a better grasp of space weather. “In 1972, there was actually a huge eruption that fortuitously fell between two of the Apollo flights, so the radiation didn’t hurt anybody,” Kunches says. “But it’s a problem.” And there are still plenty of unknowns. Kunches and other experts pointed to the potential impact of solar eruptions on GPS technology. Certain storms could degrade the signal as it makes its way from the satellite to the ground. GPS is built into so much of the modern economy — from navigation to geophysical exploration by oil and gas companies — that any interference with GPS signals could be quite costly. “I call it the cyber-electric cocoon we’ve built around the Earth,” says Baker, who heads the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado. “There are all these relationships that most people


When space weather attacks!

in its response,” said Koza of PJM Interconnection. And there’s plenty more that space scientists are still trying to grasp. It’s difficult to predict, for instance, whether a solar outburst will actually create a storm when it hits Earth. A great deal depends on how a coronal mass ejection interacts with other solar winds as it moves toward us. Kunches likens it to knowing that a hurricane is coming, but not being able to measure its barometric pressure. It would also be helpful to have more spacecraft studying the sun and giving us advance warning of storms. But, if anything, the Earth’s alert systems are about to get worse, not better. Right now, NASA operates four space satellites situated between the Earth and the sun, which together can provide roughly 30 minutes’ warning of a major solar eruption. But these satellites are all reaching the end of their planned lives (and fuel tanks), and there’s only one replacement satellite scheduled to launch in 2014. At the space conference in June, various speakers discussed ways to improve our ability to watch the sun. One engineer described fantastical plans for a satellite with a 100-square-meter "solar sail” that would use be steered and pushed by the sun’s photons in order to get closer and closer to the star without getting sucked in by gravity. A solar-sail satellite could, in theory, give us twice as much warning to prepare for a space storm. But so far, these plans are all theoretical. “There’s a real need for a truly operational, 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week space weather observatory,” Baker says. “But right now, we don’t see that coming from policymakers or the agencies that would have to step up.” That means we may have to hope for a bit of luck in the years ahead. Solar activity tends to follow an 11-year cycle, with the most intense events often occurring near the peaks of the solar maximum — which, NASA says, could well arrive in late 2013 and again in 2015, although it’s difficult to predict for sure. That doesn’t mean the big one will hit then. For one thing, sunspot activity has been rather muted of late, and the current maximum has been surprisingly weak. But for many experts, it's a good reason to keep the sun in mind. “We’re really on an unknown timeline here,” Beck says. “One of these could happen at any time.”


Why are universities trying to limit access to breast cancer tests?

When the Supreme Court ruled that you couldn't patent human genes, Ambry Genetics began offering women a test for the BRCA genes, which are linked to breast cancer. But last week, Myriad Genetics, the firm that has enjoyed a de facto monopoly on BRCA tests in recent years, sued. It argues that despite the Supreme Court's ruling, it still has patents covering Ambry's product. (Photo by Horia Varlan Myriad is the lead plaintiff, but two universities also signed on to the lawsuit: the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Utah Research Foundation. These schools own BRCA-related patents, which they have licensed exclusively to Myriad. Why are universities trying to force a potentially life-saving cancer test off the market? A spokeswoman for the University of Pennsylvania declined to comment for this story, and a University of Utah spokesperson didn't return our call Friday afternoon. But the short answer seems to be money. Many universities now have "technology transfer" offices whose job it is to obtain patents based on university research and license them to private industry. These activities generated $1.8 billion in patent licensing revenues in 2011. This is a relatively new phenomenon. According to the Wall Street Journal, universities were only obtaining about 250 patents a year as recently as 1980. Then Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act, which made it easier for universities to claim patents for federally-funded research. By 2003, the number of patents universities were getting each year had shot up more than 10-fold to almost 4,000. Officials at technology transfer offices like to emphasize how they help move technologies developed in the laboratory into the commercial marketplace. But getting private companies to pay hefty licensing fees always rests on an implicit threat: if you don't pay up, you could get sued for patent infringement. And in some cases, these enforcement efforts are hard to distinguish from garden-variety patent trolling. In one high-profile case, the University of California licensed a patent to a company called Eolas, which claimed to own the concept of embedding interactive content in web pages. Eolas has sued a wide variety of high-tech companies, with the University of California sometimes signing on as a plaintiff. A settlement with Microsoft alone netted more than $30 million for the University of California. Myriad doesn't fit the standard definition of a patent troll because the firm offers a suite of BRCA testing products. But its


Paul Krugman thinks low interest rates are behind the boom in paper currency. Not so fast!

Why are people holding more cash? (Romeo Ranoco of Reuters) Last week, Paul Krugman offered a different reason than I had suggested for why the amount of U.S. currency in circulation has been skyrocketing. Rather than fear driven by financial uncertainty – as I argued, based on an essay by San Francisco Federal Reserve president John Williams and other research – Krugman suggested the driving factor is low interest rates. “What has changed is that with zero interest rates, the opportunity cost of holding cash has gone way down,” Krugman wrote. “[I]t’s not fear, it’s despair: there’s nothing to invest in, so why not keep stuff under your mattress?" It makes sense that both low interest rates and fear are driving holdings of U.S. currency - namely in the form of $100 bills - to historic levels. And the whole dynamic seems self-reinforcing, as economic uncertainty or financial duress in the world tends to push down interest rates in the United States. So, yes, as Krugman says, interest rates are probably an important factor. But I'm not so sure they're the most important factor -- for a few reasons. For starters, a lot of the demand for U.S. currency is coming from abroad. If you’re in another country with high inflation or severe instability, one of your main concerns is going to be preserving your purchasing power. When you're worried about your local currency rapidly losing value, or getting access to your cash if your banks fails, it seems unlikely that a major factor in your decision-making will be whether you get a modestly higher return on your cash holdings in a U.S. account or investment. Many of these savers (particularly those who come by their dollars illicitly) likely don't even have access to interest-paying forms of dollar savings such as Treasury bonds or U.S. bank accounts. About 70 percent of U.S. currency today – in the form of $100 bills – is abroad, compared to about 50 percent two decades ago, according to this landmark paper on this topic by Ruth Judson of the Federal Reserve. And here’s a starker way of looking at it. While the total level of $100 bills outstanding in the United States has a little more than doubled over 20 years, the growth in $100 bills abroad has increased by far more. The evidence suggests that a lot of these $100 bills are being


Veteran photographer recounts his first Afghan war assignment

Michel du Cille, The Washington Post's associate editor for photography, went to Afghanistan for the first time earlier this year, to accompany The Post's Kabul bureau chief, Kevin Sieff, and report on a series of articles on the Afghan army. A winner of three Pulitzer prizes, du Cille is no stranger to conflict. Below he recounts his experience from his first assignment in Afghanistan. My recent trip to Afghanistan was in a word, challenging. I did not set out on my first Afghan war assignment to chase or seek out what we in the photojournalism world call “bang bang.” This time, bang bang found us. My mission, as a Washington Post photojournalist, was to document the Afghan military’s ability to fight the war without major involvement from the International Security Assistance Force, following the planned withdrawal of U.S. and NATO combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. My goal was to try to answer, through my photographs, one question — how will the Afghans fight the war without coalition forces? The Post’s intrepid Kabul bureau chief, Kevin Sieff, spent months making plans to embed with the Afghan military. I was given the choice to go, and I willingly, perhaps naively, jumped at the opportunity. Kevin’s plan came together in the beginning very quietly; there was no drama. We traveled wearing helmets and flak vests into Logar and Wardak provinces. On day two of our Afghan army embed in the Tangi Valley, a place that had been overrun by the Taliban, we calmly and methodically entered a village called Hassan Kiel. Sieff, a writer with enormous bravery, Sharif Mohammed, our courageous Afghan interpreter, and I, still catching my breath, had just taken a little break from the tiring trek. I was beyond exhausted. The burdensome, heavy and uncomfortable body armor had me sweating in the cool mountain air. My cameras and other gear felt like expensive bags of rocks. (Read: Afghan soldiers enter a Taliban nest, without U.S. troops by their side) Our rest was brief, as sounds of unrelenting gunfire suddenly began. The Afghan soldiers began scurrying to unknown corners as we encountered more gunfire. It seemed so very, very close, and it was. The commander, Col. Mohammed Daowood, sprinted past with a pistol in his hands. I began to follow him. Moments later, Sieff said, “We need to take cover … and get your helmet back on.”


Never change, Twinkies: Why Hostess should keep making unhealthy snacks

This will never be more than a nuclear sugar bomb. (Matt York/AP) Twinkies, as you may have noticed in your corner store, are back. After emerging from bankruptcy free of pesky unions and crushing debt, parent company Hostess is pushing its standard brands into thousands more locations, accompanied by a high-profile ad campaign that promises the "sweetest comeback in the history of ever." The new management, though, is contemplating messing with its formula in order to keep up with a more body-conscious America--sometimes cited as a reason why the company got in financial trouble in the first place. Or at least, that's what private equity mogul C. Dean Metropoulos is hinting. "In coming months, he said, Hostess will also start developing healthier products," the Wall Street Journal reported. "Mr. Metropoulos said they could include whole grains, come in the form of lower-calorie snack packs, be gluten-free or contain stevia, a natural sugar substitute." But is it really possible to reform a Twinkie-like dessert, without turning people off completely? Evidence suggests it's not usually worth the effort--or the cost. Take whole grains. Regular whole grains have unsaturated fats, which are unstable, so it would take more chemical additives to create the kind of shelf life that people expect in a snack cake. Alternatively, you could use a ConAgra product called Ultragrain, a white-looking flour that's technically a whole grain. But it'll cost about 30 percent more, and won't come with significant health benefits if it retains the same amount of sugar and fat--as a Harvard study recently found that most "whole grain"-labeled foods actually do. The thing is, whole grains themselves don't make food that much better for you, says University of Minnesota food scientist Joanne Slavin. Most of the research is epidemiological, meaning we know that people who eat whole grains are healthier, but we're not sure the relationship is causal. "In nutrition, whenever we say something's good, then we kind of overdo it," Slavin says. "If you had a whole grain Hostess Twinkie, the calories in it would be the same." The marketing has gotten out of control, she says--though "whole grain" product launches have increased exponentially in recent years, America has continued to get more obese. The same goes for other ingredients, like sugar and fat. Sugar substitutes like Splenda don't usually work well for baking, and substituting oils for butter in order to reduce cholesterol just means


A prisoner’s pursuit of democracy in Burma

at 44. While under house arrest, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and soon became the icon of democratic opposition in Burma. Win Tin, who lacked Suu Kyi's family prominence and Oxford education, spent nearly 20 years in jail, first in a cell designed for military dogs and then in solitary confinement. Although released in 2008, he continues to wear the blue of a Burmese prison uniform. He says it symbolizes his belief that the country is still behind bars. In his 84 years, Win Tin has seen Burma (also known as Myanmar) under British colonial rule, Japanese occupation, independence, a military junta and now a partly civilian government. Since his release, he has been in and out of the hospital many times because of a heart ailment and the aftereffects of harsh treatment while incarcerated. He returned to the hospital again for care soon after giving this interview in his home in late June. Outside Win Tin's home in Rangoon, June 26 (Lillian Cunningham/The Washington Post). His home is a small, borrowed guesthouse on a friend’s property in the former capital of Rangoon, as Win Tin left prison with no money or property. On one bright green wall, he has since hung a portrait of Suu Kyi, who recently announced her desire to be president. On another hangs an old framed poster from Reporters Without Borders that marked his 75th birthday and 16th year of imprisonment. In this interview, edited for length and clarity, Win Tin reflects on his own story, the story of his country, and how the two narratives intertwine. You have said that meeting General Aung San once in your childhood had a strong effect on you. What was the story? That was a long time ago. At that time I was too young, I was only about 15, and we were residing in a small village. Aung San was going to the front and one of his aides was my uncle. At that time, the allied planes and allied warships are busy shooting. So they are returning through the night and they stop in my village, at my house, and there I met him. He was not very easy to talk to. He was a very tacit man, a silent man. The only thing I asked him is that I would like to join the military, because at that time the Burmese army was


Blingnova! The origin of gold

Here’s my story for the day, about the origin of gold. Wikipedia will tell you (at least it did a minute ago) that gold comes from supernova nucleosynthesis. Not so, says a Harvard team today. By Joel Achenbach Gold — atomic number 79, element symbol Au, the most widely beloved of the precious metals — might have its origin in extremely rare and violent explosions in the far reaches of outer space. The bling apparently begins with a blam. For many years, scientists had theorized that the heavy elements of the periodic table, such as gold, platinum, lead and uranium, had their origin in supernova explosions. But the source, scientists announced Wednesday, might be even more exotic: the collision of two ultra-dense objects called neutron stars. “We now have kind of a smoking gun,” said Edo Berger, an astronomer who led the research at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. The elements on Earth are all of cosmic origin. Carbon and oxygen atoms in our bodies, for example, come from the interior of stars, where they were formed under high pressure and heat. They were later spewed into the universe in supernova explosions. It is literally true, as Carl Sagan was fond of saying, that we are all star stuff. But what hasn’t been known is whether these supernova events could account for the heaviest of the elements. A heavy element such as gold has 79 protons, 79 electrons and 118 neutrons. That’s a lot of mass for one atom. Most of the elements are simpler; gold and the other heavy elements are cosmically extravagant. The neutron stars might provide the explanation. Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of stars that have exploded in a supernova. A neutron star might be roughly the diameter of Washington but contain as much mass as our sun, all of it crammed together by the force of gravity, until even the atoms have collapsed, leaving the object with the density of an atomic nucleus. A teaspoon full of neutron-star material would weigh, on Earth, about 5 billion tons, Berger said. Most of these cosmic fruitcakes are solitary wanderers, but some are paired up, as remnants of binary stars. They will orbit a common point in space and gradually drift closer and closer, spiraling toward one another in obedience to Einstein’s laws of general relativity. One day, they will collide. In the Milky


Heat lightning: A Sterling example of the fake phenomenon

To begin, there’s no such thing as “heat lightning.” What people call heat lightning is actually legitimate lightning from a distant thunderstorm. Brad Panovich, the chief meteorologist from the NBC affiliate in Charlotte, N.C., posted a good overview on the subject and explained its origins: The term originated in the days when people used to sit on their front porch on warm summer evenings to escape the hotter house prior to air conditioning. It was also in an era before Doppler Radar was easily available to the public on TV, online and via mobile devices. People would notice lightning in the sky, but they never heard thunder or saw a drop of rain and there was even clear skies over their heads. So they just called it heat lightning because it happens on warm summer nights. Diagram of “heat lightning” from AccuWeather.com Tuesday evening, I heard reports of “heat lightning” but the observers were actually viewing real thunderstorms to D.C.’s west (along the I-81 corridor) and south (near Richmond), some 60-100 miles away. Yes, you can see thunderstorms at night from great distances because they often extend very high in the sky (up to 9-10 miles up) and lightning is, well, vivid. You will not hear such storms, though. The National Weather Service (NWS) office in Sterling created the image below which shows the radar view of the thunderstorms to the west Tuesday evening, with an inset view of what the storm looked like in the sky some 70 miles to the east. Via the National Weather Service: “At 9PM this evening, radar showed 3 storms well west of DC. Lightning from these storms was visible from the DC metro area even though the storms were located 70-80 miles away in the eastern West Virginia counties of Hampshire and Hardy. Skies over DC at the time were clear. Lightning visible at such large distances will not be accompanied by thunder. Insert (lower right) shows a snapshot of these same storms, with lightning illuminating the thundercloud in the southern-most storm in southern Hardy County (taken at 908 PM from WFO Sterling). Some refer to this phenomena (lightning observed at a distance) as “heat lightning”. However, the parent thundercloud for this evening’s lightning was clearly visible, at least from our office. At greater distances, the thundercloud might not be visible, but flashes in the sky near the horizon would still be visible.


Satellite images show entire Tibetan villages ‘relocated’ under controversial Chinese program

A Tibetan family, members of the Chinese region's declining rural population, stands for a photograph. (Getty Images) One of the many small traumas of life for Tibetans is a program that the Chinese government calls "Comfortable Housing." The idea, according to Beijing, is to develop the Tibetan economy and improve standards of living by building new housing developments for one of China's poorest regions. And, on the surface, it might seem like an upgrade to move from traditional villages or rural communities into new housing developments. But the effect of the program, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch, has been to relocate some 2 million Tibetans, often forcibly. The program is uprooting entire Tibetan communities, accelerating the steady erosion of Tibetan identity and culture. And, often, because families must pay for the government-mandated relocations themselves, they are often driven deep into debt. By the end of this year, the report estimates, 90 percent of Tibet's nomadic population will have been moved into sedentary "New Socialist Villages," effectively ending their traditional lifestyle and, because many know no other way to provide for themselves, making them reliant on the Chinese government. As part of its investigation, Human Rights Watch collected satellite photos showing the Tibetan communities before and after their relocation. The photos are a few years apart, but they still show a remarkably severe and rapid transformation of these communities. This first set of images, of the Tibetan town of Bagkarshol in Taktse county, not far from the regional capital of Lhasa, shows a 2004 image of the original Tibetan town on the left. On the right is a 2009 image, which reveals the town almost entirely destroyed (the report says 95 percent of buildings have been demolished) and replaced by a "New Socialist Village." You can view the town's exact GPS coordinates in Google Maps here. The new villages, while earnestly welcomed by some families as an improvement, also make it easier for Chinese authorities to keep an eye on Tibetans, part of the government's effort to tamp down political dissent there. In 2011, Beijing announced a plan to station Communist Party cadres in every single one of Tibet's 5,400 villages, saying they would "live, work and eat" with locals. Another set of satellite images shows the village of Drupshe, also in Taktse county, near Lhasa. The "before" image is from 2009; the "after" from 2012: You


Where are the waterfront bars? (And other reader queries.)

your own advice.) Here's one: Situated on two rivers, one would think that D.C. would have some great riverfront restaurants or bars. Do you have any recommendations beyond the Georgetown waterfront and Indigo Landing on Dangerfield Island? Ideally, it would have easy parking to accommodate a stop on the commute home. Cantina Marina, along the Southwest Waterfront, is one of Washington's few waterfront bars. (Amanda Voisard/The Post) You'd think we would, wouldn't you? But the truth is that we don't, and probably never will. From Georgetown, the Potomac runs past the southern tip of Rock Creek Park, the Kennedy Center, and then all the memorials (Lincoln, the Memorial Bridge, etc.), then Hains Point and Bolling Air Force Base. On the Virginia side, you have Roosevelt Island, Arlington National Cemetery, the narrow strip between the river and the George Washington Parkway, and then National Airport. Even in Old Town, the river frontage is mostly parks. You're not going to convince the government to ruin views from Memorial Bridge to give us some cool waterfront bars. We do have a few options in D.C. along the Washington Channel in Southwest. There, you'll find Cantina Marina, a divey dock bar with an interesting mix of people, from 20-somethings eating fish tacos to residents of the neighboring houseboats. Also on the same stretch of water is the Phillips crab house, which is a tourist trap. It might be easier to look outside of D.C. In Alexandria, there's the Chart House, which is one of the few places right on the water. Sadly, the chain restaurant is more noted for its views than its food, though the outdoor deck isn't a bad place for a beer. You can see the Potomac from upstairs at Virtue Feed and Grain, but that's not the same thing. Across the river at National Harbor, McLoone's Pier House has tables right on the dock, with great views of the Wilson Bridge and Potomac through the grove of sailboat masts. Good happy hour, too, with half-price appetizers and discounted drinks. Depending on how far your commute home takes you, you might try Madigan's Waterfront in Occoquan, which has a big outdoor tiki bar with TVs. For the best waterfront atmosphere, though, you have to head pretty far outside the Beltway, to a place like Skipper's Pier, Jimmy Cantler's, Pusser's Landing, or even Hemingway's, at the eastern end of the Bay Bridge.


Levitation could be the next big science fiction technology to hit it big

some very serious applications for innovators. Inspired by similar types of acoustic levitation experiments happening elsewhere, for example, pharmaceutical researchers would have a frictionless way to mix molecules that would avoid possible contamination. In their experiments, the Swiss researchers were able to make instant coffee by combining water molecules with ground coffee. They were also able to insert pieces of DNA into cells. Acoustic levitation Next up for levitation technology fans? Probably the most exciting levitation concept in years — the Hyperloop. The innovation world is eagerly awaiting news about Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Will publish Hyperloop alpha design by Aug 12. Critical feedback for improvements would be much appreciated. Travelers will be able to make the trip between Los Angeles and San Francisco in something like 30 minutes. Elon Musk has even referred to the Hyperloop as the fifth primary mode of transportation: trains, planes, boats, automobiles and, you know, Hyperloops. It’s still speculation at this point, but the Hyperloop could work by using some form of magnetic levitation to transport vehicles at very high speeds. Musk continues to drop hints about the project, with the latest hint being that it will somehow be a mix between the Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table. And it will run 24/7. And it will be solar-powered. OK, it’s pretty clear this thing, assuming it’s ever realized, is going to be unlike anything we’ve ever seen. That’s right, these bold plans for levitation technology are not a sure thing. Remember the excitement about quantum levitation almost two years ago now? When was the last time you heard anyone talking about that? And that Hyperloop concept, well, it sounds wonderful, but there are a number of reasons that have nothing to do with technology why it will probably never, ever see the light of day. That being said, it may be time to revisit some of our most beloved sci-fi films to think about capabilities of levitation technology. Levitating hovercrafts, anyone? Frictionless manufacturing machines? Levitation could be big business because it’s a concept that’s so deeply rooted in our pop culture — we all inherently can appreciate how cool it is to lift up and move an object without ever touching it. At the very least, all of this levitation technology is going to put a few magicians out of business. The innovation community has just raised the ante on what’s possible.


Backed Against a Rent Wall

doesn’t get air now,’ ” she says. So she built her own 5-foot-long wooden air duct to channel air from the AC through a hole in the fake wall and into the main room. Such creative fixes can be avoided with planning. “Go into the space where you’re building a wall, give it a really good look,” she says. Know the Downsides No matter how well you plan, a temporary wall is never going to be a perfect solution. Newly created bedrooms often lack closets, and poor sound insulation is a constant problem. “You have to be a sound sleeper and have really courteous roommates to live in a built bedroom,” Parker says. Then there’s the issue of what happens when you move out. “We are responsible for taking it down,” Frankel says of her wall. The company that built it offered to take it down for free within two years, but that window has passed. She’ll have to pay a contractor to do it when she goes. There are also decor issues. “It’s so thin you can’t hang anything on it,” Frankel says of the wall. “So you have like one bare wall.” On the plus side, “You can paint it whatever color you want,” she says. REBECCA KERN (FOR EXPRESS) Quality Matters Not all walls are created equal. “Once you see a few of them, you can really tell the difference in quality between good ones and bad ones,” Zara Frankel says. While saving money up front may be appealing, you could pay for it down the road. Ben Fieselmann and his roommates decided to save money by forgoing the $50 worth of insulation and dry wall needed to complete the inside of his wall. They weren’t pleased with the result: The wall was far from soundproof. “I would definitely recommend completing the wall,” he says. (RK) The ‘Tear Down This Wall’ Threat Every tenant knows the Golden Rule of Renting is, “Don’t do anything unto your apartment that you don’t want taken out of your security deposit.” Some landlords allow tenants to put up temporary walls to create an extra bedroom, but don’t start construction without asking first, says Joel Cohn with D.C.’s Office of the Tenant Advocate. Even if your lease doesn’t say anything about apartment alterations, you should still ask permission, Cohn says. An alteration that affects the premises may be considered beyond any “right