The latest issue, as always, of the Flummery Digest fires refreshing potshots — or at times withering blasts — at the absurdities of political correctness, excess regulation, and our litigation-proneness each month.

Slow Down: If your car sports a transponder for “Fast Lane” (MA), “EZ-Pass” (NY), or a similar automated toll collection system, read this. Apparently they are monitoring the speed with which you pass through the tollgates. It also occurs to me that they could determine from the time interval between your entry to and exit from the tollway whether your average speed exceeded the speed limit. [via CamWorld]

Seeing Is Deceiving ‘”Once upon a time, Antonio J. Mendez, 59, a lifelong student of the “accumulation of millimeters” that form the human identity, could alter your appearance so profoundly that not even your mother could tell who you were.

Though his disguises often had to work only for a day, or an hour, or a split second, his audience could be extremely judgmental. A sloppy job could mean death.

Nine years ago, Mendez, the son of a Nevada copper miner, retired from the CIA after a quarter-century. He had worked his way up from the lowly forgery unit–bogus signatures, altered documents, counterfeit currency and the like–to become head of the espionage agency’s division of disguise, with a rank equal to that of a two-star general.

He created some of the CIA’s most elaborate, if little-known, productions–the ploys, skits, scams, masquerades and sleights of hand designed to dupe foreign agents and enemy surveillance teams. His specialty, he writes in a new memoir, “The Master of Disguise,” was “exfiltration,” wherein endangered persons are whisked away from bad guys and taken to safety.’

Astrobiology: on interplanetary biotic transfer.

Paul Davies (Imperial College London, UK) presents a

review of current ideas concerning the seeding from elsewhere of

life on Earth.

The latest issue, as always, of the Flummery Digest fires refreshing potshots — or at times withering blasts — at the absurdities of political correctness, excess regulation, and our litigation-proneness each month.

Slow Down: If your car sports a transponder for “Fast Lane” (MA), “EZ-Pass” (NY), or a similar automated toll collection system, read this. Apparently they are monitoring the speed with which you pass through the tollgates. It also occurs to me that they could determine from the time interval between your entry to and exit from the tollway whether your average speed exceeded the speed limit. [via CamWorld]

Defend Your Medical Data: The ACLU is mounting a campaign for public comment on the national medical privacy regulations proposed in November 1999 by the Clinton Administration. A previous accumulation of over 2,400 comments solicited by the ACLU was refused by the Dept of HHS on a technicality.

The ACLU says that the current proposed regulations are a reasonable first step and that their position is to encourage the government to take them further. However, from my vantage points both as a health care provider and a concerned citizen, they sound like ominous and objectionable privacy erosion!

The regulations dismantle real legal barriers to law enforcement and government access to medical records. Law enforcement agents would obtain patient records with simple written demands to doctors, hospitals and insurance companies without the necessity for judicial review or the issuance of a warrant. A patient would receive no notice or opportunity to contest the demand. The failure to require patient consent to release of information erodes the bedrock principle that patients own their medical records and must authorize the disclosure of their medical information or if they so choose, decline to give access.

Police would be free to browse all computerized medical records to seek matches for blood, DNA or other health traits. The proposed regulations in essence facilitate the creation of a government health databank. Although the system may initially be established to support “functions authorized by law,” the regulations themselves state that “government data are notoriously susceptible to expansion and abuse.” A major concern is that patients, when faced with the realization that government agencies might have access to their medical history, would avoid needed treatment or lie about their history.

Other recent ACLU concerns include support for Senator Patrick Leahy’s proposed federal legislation to protect innocent people sentenced to death; and an initiative against racial profiling in traffic enforcement, the nationwide problem euphemistically referred to as being stopped for “driving while black.”

Defend Your Medical Data: The ACLU is mounting a campaign for public comment on the national medical privacy regulations proposed in November 1999 by the Clinton Administration. A previous accumulation of over 2,400 comments solicited by the ACLU was refused by the Dept of HHS on a technicality.

The ACLU says that the current proposed regulations are a reasonable first step and that their position is to encourage the government to take them further. However, from my vantage points both as a health care provider and a concerned citizen, they sound like ominous and objectionable privacy erosion!

The regulations dismantle real legal barriers to law enforcement and government access to medical records. Law enforcement agents would obtain patient records with simple written demands to doctors, hospitals and insurance companies without the necessity for judicial review or the issuance of a warrant. A patient would receive no notice or opportunity to contest the demand. The failure to require patient consent to release of information erodes the bedrock principle that patients own their medical records and must authorize the disclosure of their medical information or if they so choose, decline to give access.

Police would be free to browse all computerized medical records to seek matches for blood, DNA or other health traits. The proposed regulations in essence facilitate the creation of a government health databank. Although the system may initially be established to support “functions authorized by law,” the regulations themselves state that “government data are notoriously susceptible to expansion and abuse.” A major concern is that patients, when faced with the realization that government agencies might have access to their medical history, would avoid needed treatment or lie about their history.

Other recent ACLU concerns include support for Senator Patrick Leahy’s proposed federal legislation to protect innocent people sentenced to death; and an initiative against racial profiling in traffic enforcement, the nationwide problem euphemistically referred to as being stopped for “driving while black.”

February 13 is the 55th anniversary of the Valentine’s Day 1945 firebombing of Dresden Germany, one of the most ignominious and little-recognized moments of the Allied war effort. This was the single most destructive air raid in history, far surpassing the toll inflicted on Japan in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to come that August. At least 130,000 — some estimates place the figure as high as 300,000 — were killed when, in a three-day period, 3,400 tons of explosives & incendiaries were dropped, reducing six square miles of the city, famed for its artistic heritage and devoid of significance to the German war effort, to rubble. Many Allied officials were outraged–Germany was clearly on the verge of collapse, and the raids apppeared designed to inflict maximal civilian casualties on this city filled with refugees fleeing the advancing Soviet armies on the eastern front. It is far harder to argue in the German instance, as some do in countering antiwar revulsion about the use of the atomic bombs in Japan, that the attack was important to hastening the end of the war and may have saved lives. Kurt Vonnegut’s horror about Dresden apparently motivated the writing of Slaughterhouse-Five. On the other hand, the firebombing of Dresden has apparently become a rallying point for Holocaust deniers and other far right historical revisionists who focus on putative Allied war atrocities as “the real Holocaust of WWII”.

Today’s edition of The Daily Bleed, which I logged somewhere below, provides the above two links in its item about the Dresden anniversary. I have written to the listmaster asking him whether these links were included inadvertently or intentionally; if you’re interested, I’ll let you know how he responds.

February 13 is the 55th anniversary of the Valentine’s Day 1945 firebombing of Dresden Germany, one of the most ignominious and little-recognized moments of the Allied war effort. This was the single most destructive air raid in history, far surpassing the toll inflicted on Japan in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to come that August. At least 130,000 — some estimates place the figure as high as 300,000 — were killed when, in a three-day period, 3,400 tons of explosives & incendiaries were dropped, reducing six square miles of the city, famed for its artistic heritage and devoid of significance to the German war effort, to rubble. Many Allied officials were outraged–Germany was clearly on the verge of collapse, and the raids apppeared designed to inflict maximal civilian casualties on this city filled with refugees fleeing the advancing Soviet armies on the eastern front. It is far harder to argue in the German instance, as some do in countering antiwar revulsion about the use of the atomic bombs in Japan, that the attack was important to hastening the end of the war and may have saved lives. Kurt Vonnegut’s horror about Dresden apparently motivated the writing of Slaughterhouse-Five. On the other hand, the firebombing of Dresden has apparently become a rallying point for Holocaust deniers and other far right historical revisionists who focus on putative Allied war atrocities as “the real Holocaust of WWII”.

Today’s edition of The Daily Bleed, which I logged somewhere below, provides the above two links in its item about the Dresden anniversary. I have written to the listmaster asking him whether these links were included inadvertently or intentionally; if you’re interested, I’ll let you know how he responds.

Is Net Dyslexia a disease?

You’ve got to marvel at this elaborate and inventive joke.

Is Net Dyslexia a disease?

This idiotic poll claims to assess Americans’ attitudes on The Best/Worst Ways to Die. However, take a look at the way they constrain the question: “If you had to choose one of the following ways to die, which would you choose: drowning, fire, car accident, disease, gunshot,

plane crash, or other?” Most polltakers chose “other”.

N.Ireland Politicians Throw Down Gauntlets. Britain’s suspension of the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland leaves a power vacuum likely to be fertile ground for hardline extremists who might end cease-fires that would

completely spell the end of the hopes of the 1998 Good Friday pact.

The New York Times today reports that a State Dept. review found it unlikely that Gen. Pinochet’s Chilean junta would have gone ahead with the 1973 murders of two Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, without a nod from the CIA. The two were supporters of the overthrown socialist government of Salvador Allende. The Horman family’s search for information on the deaths was dramatized in the 1982 film “Missing” with Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon playing the parents of the missing American.

“At best, (the CIA) was limited to providing or confirming information that helped motivate his murder by the government of Chile. At

worst, U.S. intelligence was aware the government of Chile saw Horman in a rather serious light and U.S. officials did nothing to

discourage the logical outcome of government of Chile paranoia,” the Times report said. Facing pressure from Congress, the State Dept. ordered the review in 1976; it concluded that it was “difficult to believe” that Pinochet would have proceeded with the executions without U.S. encouragement that they would not have serious repercussions to U.S.-Chile relations. President Clinton ordered the declassification of the material after the 1998 arrest of Pinochet in London.The CIA continues to protest its innocence.

You’ve got to marvel at this elaborate and inventive joke.

This idiotic poll claims to assess Americans’ attitudes on The Best/Worst Ways to Die. However, take a look at the way they constrain the question: “If you had to choose one of the following ways to die, which would you choose: drowning, fire, car accident, disease, gunshot,

plane crash, or other?” Most polltakers chose “other”.

N.Ireland Politicians Throw Down Gauntlets. Britain’s suspension of the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland leaves a power vacuum likely to be fertile ground for hardline extremists who might end cease-fires that would

completely spell the end of the hopes of the 1998 Good Friday pact.

The New York Times today reports that a State Dept. review found it unlikely that Gen. Pinochet’s Chilean junta would have gone ahead with the 1973 murders of two Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, without a nod from the CIA. The two were supporters of the overthrown socialist government of Salvador Allende. The Horman family’s search for information on the deaths was dramatized in the 1982 film “Missing” with Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon playing the parents of the missing American.

“At best, (the CIA) was limited to providing or confirming information that helped motivate his murder by the government of Chile. At

worst, U.S. intelligence was aware the government of Chile saw Horman in a rather serious light and U.S. officials did nothing to

discourage the logical outcome of government of Chile paranoia,” the Times report said. Facing pressure from Congress, the State Dept. ordered the review in 1976; it concluded that it was “difficult to believe” that Pinochet would have proceeded with the executions without U.S. encouragement that they would not have serious repercussions to U.S.-Chile relations. President Clinton ordered the declassification of the material after the 1998 arrest of Pinochet in London.The CIA continues to protest its innocence.

On this date in 1963, Sylvia Plath died, a suicide, in London, age 30, on her third attempt.

Dying

is an art like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.

— “Lady Lazarus” (1962)

On this date in 1963, Sylvia Plath died, a suicide, in London, age 30, on her third attempt.

Dying

is an art like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.

— “Lady Lazarus” (1962)

Man Charged in Decade-Long Abduction Case

“A Japanese man alleged to have abducted a schoolgirl and hidden her in his room for almost a decade in the home

he shared with his mother was arrested on Friday, police said.”

Man Charged in Decade-Long Abduction Case

“A Japanese man alleged to have abducted a schoolgirl and hidden her in his room for almost a decade in the home

he shared with his mother was arrested on Friday, police said.”

A new issue of the Center for Disease Control’s Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal, which tracks new and reemerging infectious diseases worldwide, is available on the web. Current topics include coccidioidomycosis, Norwalk-like calcivirus infection, TB, malaria, and Japanese encephalitis.

Michael, we never knew you wanted to be a stand-up comic too:

“Robert Downey Jr. is the finest actor of his generation. He can do anything and we hopefully will have him around for a long time to come.” — actor Michael Douglas, on his “Wonder Boys” co-star Robert Downey Jr., who is serving time for using drugs in violation of his probation.

Daughter probes Ramblin’ Jack Elliott: A new documentary by his daughter is a career tribute to the semi-obscure legendary folksinger and one-time protege of Woody Guthrie. ‘Interviewee Kris Kristofferson tells her, “I never met anyone who was so enchanting on subjects I didn’t give a damn about.” Indeed,

Elliott is delightful company: a master at spinning tales, killing time, even doing drop-dead parodies of musical styles he doesn’t fancy.

But pic does arrive at a wistful half-catharsis when Jack, cornered at last by his exasperated daughter, confesses they’ll “never uncork

the secret” of why he’s been a less-than-ideal father. He is what he is: a rambler, albeit a marginally more settled one these days,

based in Northern California…, buoyed by belated accolades, including a ’95 Grammy for his first

recording in 20 years, and a ’98 National Medal of the Arts handed over by President Clinton himself.’

United Colors of Sleaze and Exploitation: ‘Missouri’s attorney general has sued Italian clothing maker Benetton for alleged fraudulent

misrepresentation in gaining access to four American death row inmates who later appeared in the company’s ad campaign.

Attorney General Jay Nixon said that when prison authorities in Potosi, Missouri, granted permission they were told that Benetton’s

“We, On Death Row” project was sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and that interviews done with

the inmates were intended for an article for Newsweek magazine.

“Instead, we find out that the project is a part of a Benetton advertising campaign, and the photographs and interviews are being

used in an ad campaign that includes billboards, videos and a 90-page supplement to be distributed nationwide in magazines,” Nixon

said.’

Do you know somebody on a protease inhibitor who needs to know this information immediately?

“One of the most commonly used herbal remedies, St. John’s wort,

substantially reduces blood levels of the HIV-fighting drug indinavir, and may cause treatment failure in

some HIV-infected patients, US researchers report.” [Reuters]

Nelson Mandela celebrates the 10th anniversary of his release from 27 years of political imprisonment by the U.S.-backed South African apartheid regime for “high treason” .

>

Unveiling a plaque at a new monument in Mvezo, part of rural Transkei, where he was born July 18, 1918, the son of a chief’s adviser. (photo: Juda Ngwenya/Reuters)

A new issue of the Center for Disease Control’s Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal, which tracks new and reemerging infectious diseases worldwide, is available on the web. Current topics include coccidioidomycosis, Norwalk-like calcivirus infection, TB, malaria, and Japanese encephalitis.

Michael, we never knew you wanted to be a stand-up comic too:

“Robert Downey Jr. is the finest actor of his generation. He can do anything and we hopefully will have him around for a long time to come.” — actor Michael Douglas, on his “Wonder Boys” co-star Robert Downey Jr., who is serving time for using drugs in violation of his probation.

Daughter probes Ramblin’ Jack Elliott: A new documentary by his daughter is a career tribute to the semi-obscure legendary folksinger and one-time protege of Woody Guthrie. ‘Interviewee Kris Kristofferson tells her, “I never met anyone who was so enchanting on subjects I didn’t give a damn about.” Indeed,

Elliott is delightful company: a master at spinning tales, killing time, even doing drop-dead parodies of musical styles he doesn’t fancy.

But pic does arrive at a wistful half-catharsis when Jack, cornered at last by his exasperated daughter, confesses they’ll “never uncork

the secret” of why he’s been a less-than-ideal father. He is what he is: a rambler, albeit a marginally more settled one these days,

based in Northern California…, buoyed by belated accolades, including a ’95 Grammy for his first

recording in 20 years, and a ’98 National Medal of the Arts handed over by President Clinton himself.’

United Colors of Sleaze and Exploitation: ‘Missouri’s attorney general has sued Italian clothing maker Benetton for alleged fraudulent

misrepresentation in gaining access to four American death row inmates who later appeared in the company’s ad campaign.

Attorney General Jay Nixon said that when prison authorities in Potosi, Missouri, granted permission they were told that Benetton’s

“We, On Death Row” project was sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and that interviews done with

the inmates were intended for an article for Newsweek magazine.

“Instead, we find out that the project is a part of a Benetton advertising campaign, and the photographs and interviews are being

used in an ad campaign that includes billboards, videos and a 90-page supplement to be distributed nationwide in magazines,” Nixon

said.’

Do you know somebody on a protease inhibitor who needs to know this information immediately?

“One of the most commonly used herbal remedies, St. John’s wort,

substantially reduces blood levels of the HIV-fighting drug indinavir, and may cause treatment failure in

some HIV-infected patients, US researchers report.” [Reuters]

Nelson Mandela celebrates the 10th anniversary of his release from 27 years of political imprisonment by the U.S.-backed South African apartheid regime for “high treason” .

>

Unveiling a plaque at a new monument in Mvezo, part of rural Transkei, where he was born July 18, 1918, the son of a chief’s adviser. (photo: Juda Ngwenya/Reuters)

“Cyborgasms:” An Ethnography of Cybersex in AOL Chat Rooms

“Cybersex Amongst Multiple-Selves and Cyborgs in the

Narrow-Bandwidth Space of America Online Chat Rooms.” Robin Hamman’s 1996 master’s thesis in sociology from the University of Essex (UK). By the way, she requests: “Please link to this paper by linking to my homepage at: http://www.cybersoc.com/” .

Excited to learn from Lindsay Marshall’s weblog that Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels have been adapted for the screen and just telecast on BBC. This was one of my favorite fantasies as I cast about after a J.R.R. Tolkien phase in early adolescence. Unique, very atmospheric; this darkly gothic fantasy world is an entire kingdom in a sprawling labyrinthine, uncharted castle. It’s something I can’t wait to read aloud to my children. “(The show) was very good, though there some rather OTT performances which were

weak (Warren Mitchell and Spike Milligan were the worst offenders). I don’t know why people are saying it was a failure

because it was anything but. Whatever else it is a fantastic snapshot of the state of British acting at this time.”

While we’re on the topic of network maps, see this nifty Java-based interactive map “… of some of the players in the internet space along with a portion of the alliances they have

formed. This visualization demonstrates the forces that agents exhibit upon each other in a complex interconnected

system. The interactions amongst the nodes emerge from the pattern of direct, and indirect, ties throughout the network.” You can play with it, drag nodes around to change the scale and explore the network’s innards. Does this remind anyone else of the visualization and manipulation of similar data Gibson describes in “Neuromancer”?

Comments from the weblog lake effect about this week’s DoS attacks on prominent websites. I agree; we’re going to continue to see this happening, it’s so absurdly easy to do, it seems. “The big media are missing the key point on this DoS Hell Week. The

computer security of the sites attacked — Amazon, Yahoo, CNN, et cetera —

is not in question. The cause of these attacks is lax security on possibly as

many as 100,000 compromised sites where the hackers install their proxy

tools. These tools — which can be effective with as few as 100 compromised

sites — are the result of security research in the last year that turned up a

variety of Denial-of-Service Tools and techniques (here documented at

CERT). In short, this was a problem that was simmering quietly on the stove

while almost nobody paid attention — until this week, when the techniques

began to be used for the first time against high-profile sites. This problem

will only get worse, as the number of poorly-managed systems with 24/7 net

connections continues to rise. New products like Norton Internet Security (a

one-PC firewall) will help — except in this case, where the compromised

systems are Unix-based. I don’t know of one at this moment, but a Windows

client can’t be far behind.”

Arrest of Wisconsin man with mental illness quells public alarm about mysterious vials found taped to utility poles in several Wisconsin communities. The suspect told police they contained plain water and he’d taped them to utility poles because he was testing radio frequencies he believed were bombarding him, authorities said. When you reflect on it, it’s much more likely than the scenarios that were probably going through people’s minds about biological terrorist attacks, isn’t it? As a psychiatrist, I teach trainees that there is a way in which the distress we feel when we’re engaged with someone with mental illness is, in an initially mysterious way that has to begin to make sense to do this work, an inroads into the internal distress that the client feels. But I’ve never seen it illustrated in quite this way, or affecting an entire community. The story, it seems to me, isn’t over now that the mystery is solved and the “perp” arrested; the interesting part, I hope, might just start now. It could have a positive effect on the ongoing public misconceptions about and stigmatization of those with psychiatric illnesses if anyone speaks out, in a manner akin to my point above; or it could merely reinforce…

A Picture of Weblogs mapped onto a linkage space. I’m a peripheral participant in this weblog phenomenon but continue to be fascinated by its sociology. Somewhere down below, I said something about the incestuousness of the blog community, I think. This makes it graphical. Is there any comprehensible reason the weblog-space organizes itself this way? Something about the balance between momentum and gravity? “a picture of approximately 240 weblogs and the links connecting them. Weblogs are denoted by a box, a link is

denoted by a line. Clicking on a box will show the URL of the weblog that was scanned.” What the author of this mapping application needs to do is make it possible for the viewer to navigate to the sites by clicking on their loci, IMHO…

Ford’s Astoundingly Better Idea. Commentary from Jon Katz (Slashdot) on Ford’s announcement that it will be giving computers and net access to each of its 350,000 employees and their families. Other corporations are reportedly already following suit. Possibly good business sense and potentially socially transformative, when you think about it:

“If other American companies adopted Ford’s model, the technological gap looming between

the middle-class and underclass would begin to close. The United States workforce would

become the most technologically sophisticated in the world. The high-tech workforce would

expand dramatically, along with the educational, cultural, social and economic benefits of

computing still unavailable to more than half the American population.”

So You’ve Decided to be Evil Given the “banality of evil,” I knew there must be a DIY manual for this somewhere!

“Cyborgasms:” An Ethnography of Cybersex in AOL Chat Rooms

“Cybersex Amongst Multiple-Selves and Cyborgs in the

Narrow-Bandwidth Space of America Online Chat Rooms.” Robin Hamman’s 1996 master’s thesis in sociology from the University of Essex (UK). By the way, she requests: “Please link to this paper by linking to my homepage at: http://www.cybersoc.com/” .

Excited to learn from Lindsay Marshall’s weblog that Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels have been adapted for the screen and just telecast on BBC. This was one of my favorite fantasies as I cast about after a J.R.R. Tolkien phase in early adolescence. Unique, very atmospheric; this darkly gothic fantasy world is an entire kingdom in a sprawling labyrinthine, uncharted castle. It’s something I can’t wait to read aloud to my children. “(The show) was very good, though there some rather OTT performances which were

weak (Warren Mitchell and Spike Milligan were the worst offenders). I don’t know why people are saying it was a failure

because it was anything but. Whatever else it is a fantastic snapshot of the state of British acting at this time.”

While we’re on the topic of network maps, see this nifty Java-based interactive map “… of some of the players in the internet space along with a portion of the alliances they have

formed. This visualization demonstrates the forces that agents exhibit upon each other in a complex interconnected

system. The interactions amongst the nodes emerge from the pattern of direct, and indirect, ties throughout the network.” You can play with it, drag nodes around to change the scale and explore the network’s innards. Does this remind anyone else of the visualization and manipulation of similar data Gibson describes in “Neuromancer”?

Comments from the weblog lake effect about this week’s DoS attacks on prominent websites. I agree; we’re going to continue to see this happening, it’s so absurdly easy to do, it seems. “The big media are missing the key point on this DoS Hell Week. The

computer security of the sites attacked — Amazon, Yahoo, CNN, et cetera —

is not in question. The cause of these attacks is lax security on possibly as

many as 100,000 compromised sites where the hackers install their proxy

tools. These tools — which can be effective with as few as 100 compromised

sites — are the result of security research in the last year that turned up a

variety of Denial-of-Service Tools and techniques (here documented at

CERT). In short, this was a problem that was simmering quietly on the stove

while almost nobody paid attention — until this week, when the techniques

began to be used for the first time against high-profile sites. This problem

will only get worse, as the number of poorly-managed systems with 24/7 net

connections continues to rise. New products like Norton Internet Security (a

one-PC firewall) will help — except in this case, where the compromised

systems are Unix-based. I don’t know of one at this moment, but a Windows

client can’t be far behind.”

Arrest of Wisconsin man with mental illness quells public alarm about mysterious vials found taped to utility poles in several Wisconsin communities. The suspect told police they contained plain water and he’d taped them to utility poles because he was testing radio frequencies he believed were bombarding him, authorities said. When you reflect on it, it’s much more likely than the scenarios that were probably going through people’s minds about biological terrorist attacks, isn’t it? As a psychiatrist, I teach trainees that there is a way in which the distress we feel when we’re engaged with someone with mental illness is, in an initially mysterious way that has to begin to make sense to do this work, an inroads into the internal distress that the client feels. But I’ve never seen it illustrated in quite this way, or affecting an entire community. The story, it seems to me, isn’t over now that the mystery is solved and the “perp” arrested; the interesting part, I hope, might just start now. It could have a positive effect on the ongoing public misconceptions about and stigmatization of those with psychiatric illnesses if anyone speaks out, in a manner akin to my point above; or it could merely reinforce…

A Picture of Weblogs mapped onto a linkage space. I’m a peripheral participant in this weblog phenomenon but continue to be fascinated by its sociology. Somewhere down below, I said something about the incestuousness of the blog community, I think. This makes it graphical. Is there any comprehensible reason the weblog-space organizes itself this way? Something about the balance between momentum and gravity? “a picture of approximately 240 weblogs and the links connecting them. Weblogs are denoted by a box, a link is

denoted by a line. Clicking on a box will show the URL of the weblog that was scanned.” What the author of this mapping application needs to do is make it possible for the viewer to navigate to the sites by clicking on their loci, IMHO…

Ford’s Astoundingly Better Idea. Commentary from Jon Katz (Slashdot) on Ford’s announcement that it will be giving computers and net access to each of its 350,000 employees and their families. Other corporations are reportedly already following suit. Possibly good business sense and potentially socially transformative, when you think about it:

“If other American companies adopted Ford’s model, the technological gap looming between

the middle-class and underclass would begin to close. The United States workforce would

become the most technologically sophisticated in the world. The high-tech workforce would

expand dramatically, along with the educational, cultural, social and economic benefits of

computing still unavailable to more than half the American population.”

So You’ve Decided to be Evil Given the “banality of evil,” I knew there must be a DIY manual for this somewhere!

I’ve always been a cult-watcher. Sometimes I’ve been fond of saying that there’s little difference between our indoctrination into our common cultural dream and what cults do to hook their members. One cult I find particularly insidious, both because of their web presence and their anti-psychiatric biases, is Sc*ent*l*gy. Here is a massive collection of links to web information about them from the alt.religion.sc*ent*l*gy Usenet newsgroup.

I’ve always been a cult-watcher. Sometimes I’ve been fond of saying that there’s little difference between our indoctrination into our common cultural dream and what cults do to hook their members. One cult I find particularly insidious, both because of their web presence and their anti-psychiatric biases, is Sc*ent*l*gy. Here is a massive collection of links to web information about them from the alt.religion.sc*ent*l*gy Usenet newsgroup.

Asian Recipes . with herbs, culture, ingredients, glossaries and cooking from Afghanistan to Vietnam.

The Ad Critic: Super Bowl XXXIV Coverage If you don’t watch football but you want to stay attuned to the state of the art in the battle for your heart, mind and bank balance, (or maybe you just enjoy ads! My wife’s father was an advertising executive and she tells me that, growing up in her household, commercials were watched with rapt attention and the programs in between were just interruptions one could talk through) this site will provide quicktime videos of all the TV commercials from this year’s Superbowl.

Pro-choice Democratic women candidates: EMILY’s List

“identifies viable pro-choice Democratic women candidates for key federal and statewide

offices.

EMILY’s List has helped elect six pro-choice Democratic women to the U.S. Senate, 44 to

the U.S. House, and three women governors.”

Caught this comment at the Evhead weblog: “I predict, the next big thing in

weblogging will be actually have a rest of a site — wherein, the weblog is but a feature.

Ah hell, what am I talking about, that sounds like work.” Well, I’ve got you covered; for some of us newcomers to weblogging, the site came first…

BBC News | EUROPE | Profile: Controversy and Joerg Haider Some details on the Austrian far-right leader with a history of praising Nazi policy, whose inclusion in the new governing coalition is so controversial. The next leader of Austria?

New Scientist: Backwards to the future A paper published in the last days of 1999 suggests there is no theoretical reason why there might not be regions of the universe in which time runs backwards.

Asian Recipes . with herbs, culture, ingredients, glossaries and cooking from Afghanistan to Vietnam.

The web has grown to over a billion unique documents, a new study asserts.

The Ad Critic: Super Bowl XXXIV Coverage If you don’t watch football but you want to stay attuned to the state of the art in the battle for your heart, mind and bank balance, (or maybe you just enjoy ads! My wife’s father was an advertising executive and she tells me that, growing up in her household, commercials were watched with rapt attention and the programs in between were just interruptions one could talk through) this site will provide quicktime videos of all the TV commercials from this year’s Superbowl.

Getspeed.com. Find out if broadband internet access services are available at your location by entering your zipcode.

The American Experience | Race for the Superbomb | Nuclear Blast Mapper My most passionate activism has been for disarmament. I went to the UK once just because I had been so enamored of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). I helped Helen Caldicott and others found Physicians for Social Responsibility when I was a pre-med and medical student. In large measure, I was “turned” by my exposure to the BBC film “The War Game,” a ground’s-eye neighborhood view of the effects of a nuclear attack that I believe was banned in the UK for many years because it was so disturbing. (Do you remember the network media event of “The Day After”? This was a decade earlier, and without the Hollywood bathos and glitz.) Disarmament activism works best when it brings the effects of a nuclear blast home to your dinner table, as does this site. Here is what happens to my part of the country from a 25 megaton air blast.

Fantastic Prayers

“Fantastic Prayers describes an urban landscape inscribed with memories of lives

lived, objects possessed or discarded, and places inhabited. In eight magical

environments, you become a visitor, who, like an archeologist, is invited to dig

through and uncover fragmentary narratives, laden with physical and

psychological histories.”

“Don’t do housework on

New Year’s Day. Sweeping dirt out through

the front door was akin to sweeping away the

family.”

—One tradition to consider following

today, the inauguration of the

Chinese New Year of the Dragon. Happy new year! I was born in a year of the dragon myself.

Pro-choice Democratic women candidates: EMILY’s List

“identifies viable pro-choice Democratic women candidates for key federal and statewide

offices.

EMILY’s List has helped elect six pro-choice Democratic women to the U.S. Senate, 44 to

the U.S. House, and three women governors.”

Caught this comment at the Evhead weblog: “I predict, the next big thing in

weblogging will be actually have a rest of a site — wherein, the weblog is but a feature.

Ah hell, what am I talking about, that sounds like work.” Well, I’ve got you covered; for some of us newcomers to weblogging, the site came first…

BBC News | EUROPE | Profile: Controversy and Joerg Haider Some details on the Austrian far-right leader with a history of praising Nazi policy, whose inclusion in the new governing coalition is so controversial. The next leader of Austria?

New Scientist: Backwards to the future A paper published in the last days of 1999 suggests there is no theoretical reason why there might not be regions of the universe in which time runs backwards.

The web has grown to over a billion unique documents, a new study asserts.

Getspeed.com. Find out if broadband internet access services are available at your location by entering your zipcode.

The American Experience | Race for the Superbomb | Nuclear Blast Mapper My most passionate activism has been for disarmament. I went to the UK once just because I had been so enamored of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). I helped Helen Caldicott and others found Physicians for Social Responsibility when I was a pre-med and medical student. In large measure, I was “turned” by my exposure to the BBC film “The War Game,” a ground’s-eye neighborhood view of the effects of a nuclear attack that I believe was banned in the UK for many years because it was so disturbing. (Do you remember the network media event of “The Day After”? This was a decade earlier, and without the Hollywood bathos and glitz.) Disarmament activism works best when it brings the effects of a nuclear blast home to your dinner table, as does this site. Here is what happens to my part of the country from a 25 megaton air blast.

Fantastic Prayers

“Fantastic Prayers describes an urban landscape inscribed with memories of lives

lived, objects possessed or discarded, and places inhabited. In eight magical

environments, you become a visitor, who, like an archeologist, is invited to dig

through and uncover fragmentary narratives, laden with physical and

psychological histories.”

“Don’t do housework on

New Year’s Day. Sweeping dirt out through

the front door was akin to sweeping away the

family.”

—One tradition to consider following

today, the inauguration of the

Chinese New Year of the Dragon. Happy new year! I was born in a year of the dragon myself.

Is anybody reading this weblog? If you’re out there, please drop me a line to let me know. I fear I’m sending these thoughts out into the utterly cold and empty void to dissipate as random electrons…

The Bush Bubble by William Saletan

Well, I’m violating a promise I made to myself that this blog wouldn’t get involved in the largely meaningless and inconsequential quadrennial quibbling we call Presidential politics. If there are any Bush supporters reading this (and there probably aren’t, if you’ve followed my ideological bent as previous postings reflect it…), William Saletan (in Slate) thinks you’re not thinking for yourself: “Here’s what George W. Bush has accomplished: He won the

governorship of a big state without Republican opposition in a

year in which every palatable Republican nominee was swept

into office. He administered that institutionally weak office

during a national boom that poured surpluses into state

treasuries and enabled governors and legislators to cut taxes

without cutting spending. He accumulated enough time in

office to become a plausible presidential candidate just as the

country’s Democratic president was discrediting his heir

apparent with yet another scandal, and just as Republican

congressional leaders were discrediting themselves by

reducing their agenda to the president’s impeachment, thereby

clearing the Republican presidential field for Bush.

You were supposed to vote for Bush because everyone else

was supposed to vote for him. In New Hampshire, they didn’t.

Bush says it’s just a blip in the market, and you should keep

holding his stock. But he’s already lost most of his lead in

South Carolina. If he suffers another defeat there, people will

begin to ask why they should vote for him even if he’s not

inevitable or more electable than his rivals. McCain, Alan

Keyes, and Gary Bauer have spent two years explaining why

you should vote for them even if nobody else agrees with you.

Bush ought to be able to answer the same question.”

“The Turning Point Project was

formed in 1999 specifically to design and produce a series

of educational advertisements concerning the major issues

of the new millennium. The ads will appear in The New

York Times and, funds permitting, other newspapers

through spring of 2000. The issues discussed are those that

will be crucial in determining the quality of life on Earth in

the near and distant future. Despite this, they have not been

given the in-depth coverage in the major media that they

deserve.” Their list of featured issues includes the extinction crisis, genetic engineering, industrial agriculture, economic globalization, and “technomania”. Their board of directors includes the estimable Jerry Mander, whose thinking and agitating I have been influenced by since his “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” in the ’60’s (read it if you can find it!).

CRT – Campaign for Responsible Transplantation

Raises concerns about the risk of facilitating the transfer of devastating animal viruses to the human population through xenotransplantation. “The Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization and

eminent scientists have acknowledged that xenotransplantation could

transmit deadly animal viruses to patients and the general public.

Baboon Cytomegalovirus was recently detected in stored blood from

a recipient of a baboon liver who died in 1992. Pigs can carry

bacterial, viral, fungal, protozoal and helminth pathogens, as well

as prion proteins, implicated in ‘mad cow disease’. Known pig viruses

include the porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) that have infected

human cells. In 1998-99, the novel Malaysian “Nipah” virus jumped

from pigs to humans, infected 269 people, killed over 100, left dozens

brain-damaged, and led to the mass slaughter of one million pigs. The

swine flu epidemic of 1918 killed 20-40 million people worldwide. We

know relatively little about pig viruses, or animal viruses in general.

There may be dozens waiting to be discovered.” Of course, several recent devastating infectious diseases, including HIV and gruesome hemorrhagic fevers such as Marburg and Ebola, presumably made the jump from animal reservoirs… On the other hand, are we merely tapping into a new virulent arena for human xenophobia?

Is anybody reading this weblog? If you’re out there, please drop me a line to let me know. I fear I’m sending these thoughts out into the utterly cold and empty void to dissipate as random electrons…

The Bush Bubble by William Saletan

Well, I’m violating a promise I made to myself that this blog wouldn’t get involved in the largely meaningless and inconsequential quadrennial quibbling we call Presidential politics. If there are any Bush supporters reading this (and there probably aren’t, if you’ve followed my ideological bent as previous postings reflect it…), William Saletan (in Slate) thinks you’re not thinking for yourself: “Here’s what George W. Bush has accomplished: He won the

governorship of a big state without Republican opposition in a

year in which every palatable Republican nominee was swept

into office. He administered that institutionally weak office

during a national boom that poured surpluses into state

treasuries and enabled governors and legislators to cut taxes

without cutting spending. He accumulated enough time in

office to become a plausible presidential candidate just as the

country’s Democratic president was discrediting his heir

apparent with yet another scandal, and just as Republican

congressional leaders were discrediting themselves by

reducing their agenda to the president’s impeachment, thereby

clearing the Republican presidential field for Bush.

You were supposed to vote for Bush because everyone else

was supposed to vote for him. In New Hampshire, they didn’t.

Bush says it’s just a blip in the market, and you should keep

holding his stock. But he’s already lost most of his lead in

South Carolina. If he suffers another defeat there, people will

begin to ask why they should vote for him even if he’s not

inevitable or more electable than his rivals. McCain, Alan

Keyes, and Gary Bauer have spent two years explaining why

you should vote for them even if nobody else agrees with you.

Bush ought to be able to answer the same question.”

“The Turning Point Project was

formed in 1999 specifically to design and produce a series

of educational advertisements concerning the major issues

of the new millennium. The ads will appear in The New

York Times and, funds permitting, other newspapers

through spring of 2000. The issues discussed are those that

will be crucial in determining the quality of life on Earth in

the near and distant future. Despite this, they have not been

given the in-depth coverage in the major media that they

deserve.” Their list of featured issues includes the extinction crisis, genetic engineering, industrial agriculture, economic globalization, and “technomania”. Their board of directors includes the estimable Jerry Mander, whose thinking and agitating I have been influenced by since his “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” in the ’60’s (read it if you can find it!).

CRT – Campaign for Responsible Transplantation

Raises concerns about the risk of facilitating the transfer of devastating animal viruses to the human population through xenotransplantation. “The Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization and

eminent scientists have acknowledged that xenotransplantation could

transmit deadly animal viruses to patients and the general public.

Baboon Cytomegalovirus was recently detected in stored blood from

a recipient of a baboon liver who died in 1992. Pigs can carry

bacterial, viral, fungal, protozoal and helminth pathogens, as well

as prion proteins, implicated in ‘mad cow disease’. Known pig viruses

include the porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) that have infected

human cells. In 1998-99, the novel Malaysian “Nipah” virus jumped

from pigs to humans, infected 269 people, killed over 100, left dozens

brain-damaged, and led to the mass slaughter of one million pigs. The

swine flu epidemic of 1918 killed 20-40 million people worldwide. We

know relatively little about pig viruses, or animal viruses in general.

There may be dozens waiting to be discovered.” Of course, several recent devastating infectious diseases, including HIV and gruesome hemorrhagic fevers such as Marburg and Ebola, presumably made the jump from animal reservoirs… On the other hand, are we merely tapping into a new virulent arena for human xenophobia?

Panorama: Transcript of a special BBC report on a physician who may have killed as many as one hundred of his patients.

Swiping at Crime Solving cases with the help of metrocard records: ”

A swipe at a turnstile in

Manhattan, for example,

demolished a crime suspect’s

alibi that he never left Staten Island the day of a

Central Park West robbery, authorities said.” Never use your farecard on the way to or from a compromising position, I guess. Not to mention your car’s toll transponder, or your credit card, or your ATM card, or….

Panorama: Transcript of a special BBC report on a physician who may have killed as many as one hundred of his patients.

Swiping at Crime Solving cases with the help of metrocard records: ”

A swipe at a turnstile in

Manhattan, for example,

demolished a crime suspect’s

alibi that he never left Staten Island the day of a

Central Park West robbery, authorities said.” Never use your farecard on the way to or from a compromising position, I guess. Not to mention your car’s toll transponder, or your credit card, or your ATM card, or….