Annals of the Erosion of Privacy (cont’d.): ACLU Action Alert: Secret Evidence. “This week, the House may vote on a bill, which has

already passed the Senate, to drastically expand

government power to seize personal information

without judicial approval.

The bill, H.R. 3048, would allow law enforcement to

obtain any kind of document it wants, without first

getting a search warrant or a subpoena from a court.

These documents include any written or electronic

document possessed by an individual or, more

frighteningly, any document held by a third party (such

as bank records, credit card records, telephone

records, school records or an Internet Service

Provider’s customer records). The bill would gut the

Fourth Amendment requirement that private documents

should be searched only after a court issues a warrant

based upon probable cause.” If you agree with ACLU’s efforts to oppose this bill, two clicks will send a fax to your Congressional representative saying so.

The Presidential candidates responded in detail to queries from the New England Journal of Medicine about their positions on health policy issues: the uninsured, Medicare, patients’ rights, and quality of care.

Ritual Objects of Cosmology: “DISCLAIMER: Manipulation of the space-time continuum may have unexpected consequences. We are not responsible for the release of

quantum singularities, or any electromagnetic, gravitational, nuclear or temporal effects including orbital perturbations, annihilation of

matter, suspension of physical laws, time loops, or other consequences, intended or not, that may result from normal, excessive or improper

use of these devices.” Explore the fermion accelerator, the graviton detector, the quantum flask and other exotic devices.

Both Oppose E-Mail Tax Bill (Good, Because It Doesn’t Exist). Someone in the audience asked Hilary Clinton and Rick Lazio, at their Oct. 8 debate, about their positions on the pending legislation that would levy a tax on email messages. Now you know, I know, and the New York Times knows that that is an endlessly recycling internet myth for the endlessly gullible, but Clinton, Lazio and their moderator took the bait and ran with it (and we’re eating up the egg on their faces?)

Coming soon to a launch pad near you!

Carnahan’s Death Reshapes Senate Battle. Immediately, the chances of the Democrats gaining control of the Senate have plummeted. And Lieberman’s maintaining his candidacy for his Connecticut Senate seat while running on the Presidential ticket doesn’t help. Washington Post

“They revolted against their leader, but not against themselves,” says Leon Wiseltier. Milosevic’s overthrow is nothing like the fall of the Communist regimes a decade ago. Kostunica is no Lech Walesa, but rather an “unembarrassed…nationalist who does not see or does not wish to see that the tribal sentiment of his people…has not been the solution but the problem.” The Serbian people were outraged at what Milosevic had done to them, not what he had done to Croatians, to Bosnians, to Kosovars. In other words, “what brought him down were the unhappy consequences for Serbia of his failure in his ugly adventures. And the notion that the opprobrium that was visited upon Milosevic’s Serbia was in any way deserved — that it was the right result of Belgrade’s criminal actions — seems not to have figured prominently in the thinking of the Serbian crowds.” Wiseltier thinks more could have been asked of the Serbian people. The New Republic

Bush Gets a Free Pass From Inquiring Minds. Good to see the news media picking up on Dubya’s prevarication on his military record as well as beginning to police their own unquestioning acceptance of Republican claims that Gore lies and exaggerates. New York Observer

I’ve seen more instances of the word schadenfreude in the last month than in the previous year. Are we taking more pleasure from others’ misfurtunes recently? Here’s the result of a Google Search.

Bold enterprise: “An antimatter-aided space drive might bring deep-space missions within our grasp. Engineers at NASA and

Pennsylvania State University say that by the end of the century, spacecraft could reach the edges of the Solar

System and beyond.

They believe an antimatter drive could lead to a one-year round trip to Jupiter, a five-year trek to the

heliopause–the boundary separating the Solar System from interstellar space–and, in a 50-year trip, the Oort Cloud,

source of the comets.” New Scientist

The bombing of the USS Cole has reinforced Republican campaign rhetoric about a re-infusion for the US military, as if any added amount of manpower or military hardware could stop this kind of attack. But the incident is also the occasion to question the wisdom of US ‘engagement’ policy, says the Christian Science Monitor‘s Cameron Barr.

The idea, warmly embraced by President Clinton, is that a government

should cozy up to its potential adversaries in the hope of winning them

over.

Indeed, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh hardly seems a likely friend

of the United States. He is Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s warmest

political supporter, his country has long been a home away from home

for a variety of militant groups, and his brand of politics is a good

distance short of fully democratic.

Isn’t isolationism always the refuge of some after a U.S. tragedy, or misadvanture, abroad?

Go ahead, lick your wounds. Beyond 2000

Culture, the non-issue: Has the anti-arts far-right lost the culture war against the “blasphemers and the pornographers”? Philadelphia Inquirer

Sit down and clap. It’s one of my pet peeves, and Stephen van Esch’s as well, that people give a wild standing ovation after any performance, no matter how mediocre. Why is this, and what is it doing to the arts? Spark

Former jazz piano cult figure Keith Jarrett is back from the frailty of a debilitating chronic illness. But does he have the chops to enchant jazz listeners anew, or will “sickly pallor” in his work become a “mark of heroism for the Jarrett cult”? New Statesman

NewsWatch blows the whistle on the Los Angeles Times’ struggle to start a drug scare.

A critical eye for detail. John Sutherland is an immensely popular literary critic — some thought that a contradiction in terms — who “examine(s), with forensic precision, neglected details and

apparent anomalies in classic novels and plays, and thus inject(s) new life into well-loved

literature. He has been instrumental in reviving the art of close reading at a time

when many literary academics use deconstruction and other arcane theory to place

themselves between readers and books, with the result that criticism becomes a

narcissistic end in itself, rather than a skill that deepens the pleasure of reading.”

Baby Girl Receives Arm From Twin who had died at birth. Reuters

Bizarre scenes from the “million Family March” in Washington, which involved only around several per cent of a million. Rev. Louis Farrakhan oversaw a Sun Myung Moon-like mass wedding ceremony. The Unification Church was a co-sponsor of the rally. He also didn’t come forth with any of the anti-Semitic or anti-white rhetoric for which he is renowned. And speaker after speaker urged attendees to get out and vote.

Why does an anti-depressant work for some people, but not others? One of the mysteries of psychopharmacology has been accounting for the two- to four-week latency of antidepressant response after a depressed patient starts taking the medication. A complicated cascade of neurochemical changes has to occur, resulting in altered brain functioning. Now a team of Toronto neurologists using positron emission tomography (PET scanning) have demonstrated a progressive sequence of changes in the brain function of patients in those weeks and the absence of those predictable changes in patients who will turn out to be nonresponders to the antidepressant studied, fluoxetine (Prozac). PET scanning visualizes levels of brain activity in various regions by imaging rate of glucose metabolism. The hippocampus, a “hot” region in current neuropsychiatric research on a variety of disorders, was one of the areas implicated.

The Fingerprint Mouse from Sejin America allows you to use a fingerprint to restrict access to a

computer system.’ Hey Neat!

Emerging Disease News: Ugandans Slap Quarantine on Ebola Virus Areas. A new outbreak over the last two weeks has killed 43, the WHO says. Ugandan authorities threaten those breaking the quarantine with death. The Ebola virus,

which first emerged in what was then Zaire in 1996, is a

hemorrhagic virus that causes patients to bleed to death

through every orifice — including the eyes and ears.

There is no vaccine and no known cure. It is spread through

contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids and can kill

within 48 hours.

One doctor said the symptoms were “like watching someone

dissolve before your eyes.”

Medical staff in Gulu Monday were clearly overwhelmed, but

even with the best treatment in the world, Ebola is usually

fatal. Some 793 people have died out of 1,100 cases recognized

by the WHO since 1996. Reuters

Court Says No House Vote for D.C.. Democratic principles fall prey to the letter of the law. The District of Columbia representative in Congress can’t vote just because the Constitution says that membership of the House “shall be

apportioned among the several states.”

New realities? ‘The “standard model” of the way the universe works is just

about complete. Time to start looking for a new one.’ With an incredibly lucid summary of the aforementioned “standard model”. The Economist

The New Science of Character Assassination. Even more impressive domestic counter-terrorism from Phil Agre’s Red Rock Eater mailing list. Required reading, no matter whether you like Gore for President or not, to prepare yourself for the relentless, contemptible Republican distortions about his record only likely to heat up the last days of the campaign further. This is a point-by-point examination and rebuttal of claims by Dubya’s handlers and the largely reprehensible way they are covered in the media, with appropriate links.

Skilled Terrorists, Financing Believed Behind Ship Blast

. “This wasn’t just two guys with a dream,” said a U.S. counter-terrorism expert

who asked not to be identified. “This was carefully planned. You need people with

explosives expertise, with logistics expertise, who know how to put together a cell,

know how to do surveillance. . . . This isn’t the work of a bunch of amateurs.”

The United States has spent more than $1.5 billion to upgrade security at

U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas since the August 1998 terrorist bombings of

American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 220 people.

The apparent attack on a 4-year-old warship, sheathed with half-inch armor and

bristling with the latest high-tech weaponry and radar, suggests a deliberate attempt

to humiliate those efforts.

…And apparently very easy to do. Los Angeles Times

Review of Laurie Garrett’s Betrayal of Trust: the collapse of global public health. Garrett’s last massive tome, The Coming Plague, was all you ever need to read (at over 700 pages) about the rather scary picture of emerging infectious diseases, and began the process of examining whether global public health capabilities were up to the threat. Here’s another 700+ pages that apparently completes the job. “For those who shop early for the holidays, Betrayal of Trust should be on your list. Laurie Garrett, a health reporter for Newsday and contributor to The Washington Post, has written a well-crafted and meticulously documented treatise on global public health. Before you roll your eyes, let me reassure you: This book reads like a Robert Ludlum thriller. Garrett and her critical eye travel from Minneapolis to Kikwit (the Congo), from Sura (India) to Kiev. Nothing escapes her: Plague, pollution and prostitution are all examined in turn.” The Washington Post

Love: a qualitatively, not just quantitatively, different neurological activity than liking.

“Neurologists have found that, when you see your beloved, parts of

your brain ‘light up’. The heart has nothing to do with it,

suggesting St Valentine’s Day cards should be emblazoned, not

with images of the heart, but of the medial insula.

A study by Professors Semir Zeki and Andreas Bartels of

University College, London, to be published in the journal

NeuroReport next month, confirms that being in love is

physically different from merely liking someone.

Physical effects of this brain activity may account for the

traditional sensations associated with love, including euphoria,

butterflies in the stomach, love sickness and love addiction.” Guardian

Love: a qualitatively, not just quantitatively, different neurological activity than liking.

“Neurologists have found that, when you see your beloved, parts of

your brain ‘light up’. The heart has nothing to do with it,

suggesting St Valentine’s Day cards should be emblazoned, not

with images of the heart, but of the medial insula.

A study by Professors Semir Zeki and Andreas Bartels of

University College, London, to be published in the journal

NeuroReport next month, confirms that being in love is

physically different from merely liking someone.

Physical effects of this brain activity may account for the

traditional sensations associated with love, including euphoria,

butterflies in the stomach, love sickness and love addiction.” Guardian

Love: a qualitatively, not just quantitatively, different neurological activity than liking.

“Neurologists have found that, when you see your beloved, parts of

your brain ‘light up’. The heart has nothing to do with it,

suggesting St Valentine’s Day cards should be emblazoned, not

with images of the heart, but of the medial insula.

A study by Professors Semir Zeki and Andreas Bartels of

University College, London, to be published in the journal

NeuroReport next month, confirms that being in love is

physically different from merely liking someone.

Physical effects of this brain activity may account for the

traditional sensations associated with love, including euphoria,

butterflies in the stomach, love sickness and love addiction.” Guardian

Time for contemplation…

Love: a qualitatively, not just quantitatively, different neurological activity than liking.

“Neurologists have found that, when you see your beloved, parts of

your brain ‘light up’. The heart has nothing to do with it,

suggesting St Valentine’s Day cards should be emblazoned, not

with images of the heart, but of the medial insula.

A study by Professors Semir Zeki and Andreas Bartels of

University College, London, to be published in the journal

NeuroReport next month, confirms that being in love is

physically different from merely liking someone.

Physical effects of this brain activity may account for the

traditional sensations associated with love, including euphoria,

butterflies in the stomach, love sickness and love addiction.” Guardian

Ringing disapproval. Thinkers like James Katz, communications professor at Rutgers, and David Karp, a Boston College sociologist, think they’ve figured out what’s so annoying about cell phone use in public. The phrase Katz uses is that it’s “like cutting up the park,” which I think is probably a reference to the seminal ecological article, Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968). The concept is somewhat analogous to Hardin’s, indeed. The idea is that the cell phone user is privatizing public space and indicating a disregard for others whose rights have been appropriated. It strikes me that this explains what, to a lesser extent (yes, around 50% less, because it’s just listening and not speaking) is similarly annoying about public walkman use.

Scientists control the content of dreams. However, the significance of the findings reported in this article are not really along the lines of “lucid dreaming” or anything like that. The exciting thing was the demonstration that patients with damage to the brain region called the hippocampus, who as a result have no short-term memory, nevertheless dreamed of their day’s experience. Arguably, this is one of the most direct confirmations of the role of the unconscious in shaping the content of dreams, which has recently come under fire.

Lennon Killer Had Hit List of Stars. Mark David Chapman continues to be a seriously disturbed and confused man, it seems, reading this report of his recent parole board hearing. New York Post

Do Horror Films Filter the Horrors of History? There could be no more concrete confirmation of the idea that horror films echo the fears of the day than the fact that Tom Savini, master of visceral gore as makeup artist for such films as Dawn of the Dead and Friday the 13th, served in Vietnam photographing corpses for the U.S. Army.

Israeli Left’s Ideals Take a Beating Amid Violence

“There is a deep crisis of conscience for the left in this country, for those of us

who were brought up believing that peace was possible, that we should pay the

price and that Arafat was our partner. The most severe

damage caused by recent events has been to the solidarity, commitment and belief

of the Israeli left in the peace process.” Los Angeles Times It’s been more painful to follow recent Middle East events than much else in the world; maybe naively, I thought at times that peace was within reach, and then to watch it fall so utterly apart, and the killings start again. However, some feel, at least in retrospect, that Israel never bargained in good faith. Read one Jewish leftist intellectual, Michael Lerner’s, anguished, apologetic appraisal of Israel’s failure in the peace process.

ATTRITION Web Page Hack Mirror. “For reference and posterity sake. And we are tired of having to visit

thirty two sites to reference these. Having them in one location is nice.” Regularly updated, this lists and archives hacks of various websites by guerrilla culture-jammers.

No more neanderthals. “I am now convinced that Neanderthals are alive and well in our

society. While we may have grown beyond our primitive huts

and scavenging ways, many Neanderthal characteristics are

with us today. Look around you; I’m sure that you could point

out a few of our primitive ancestors right now.

Now, I don’t mean the jerk who cuts you off or the moron who

pays for three bucks worth of gas with a credit card. I’m talking

about the people whose cognitive functions have not moved

beyond those of their ancestors.” It’s an interesting hook to what turns out to be a pretty prosaic essay, but I like the way it’s characterized. I’m sure you have your own examples of the survival of the neanderthal…

Terrorism: terror or tease? “People need to decide if

it’s worth maintaining an artificial state of anxiety and being

watched by the government to be protected from something

that may not exist at all.” Spark

The internet: the new source for real hip-hop.

So

here’s a recipe for success in pushing product, check this out,

you’ve got to plaster your album cover with corny computer

graphics of fat cars, dollar signs, diamonds and other material

objects, and, oh yeah, don’t forget the two busty women

(un)dressed in bathing suits and high-heels. And here’s some

advice for all you ambitious emcees: when y’all write, don’t put

any thought into your lyrics, just write about what everyone

else is writing about, be it sex, money, designer clothes,

whatever. Just make sure it sounds like either Jay Z or one of

The Hot Boys –guaranteed instant success.

Hip-hop, excuse me, hip-pop is all about sameness. You’ve got

to follow whatever’s hot to experience any kind of success,

well, economic success anyway. Spark

Double or quit “A lone researcher says he can cut an electron in two. If

he’s right, quantum physics is dead.” New Scientist

Miracle Update: Window Clean, Virgin Gone New York Daily News

Two Florida teenagers discover they have the same name, birth date, Social Security number, and the coincidences don’t end there.

‘Oz’ author sought Indian genocide. L. Frank Baum wrote, a decade before the publication of ‘The Wizard…’:

The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies, inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession,

lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With this fall the nobility of the redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of

whining curs.

“The whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier

settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians.

“Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable

wretches that they are. We cannot honestly regret their extermination. Lawrence (KS) Journal-World

Postcard delivered after 93 years. “A postcard delivered in the US 93 years after it was

originally sent contains only a one-word message –

“Hello”.

US Mail staff handed over the card at Joliet, Illinois,

after tracking down the relatives of its now deceased

addressee.” Ananova And whle we’re at it: Bottle-message washes up in NZ after 44 years.

Fear of Flying: Team of Aircraft Wiring Experts Finds Frequent Flaws in Jetliners; and : F.A.A. Is Ignoring Questions of

Defective Bolts, Audit Finds New York Times

Former advertisers speak… The rush is on to distance themselves from the controversial Dr. Laura show.

“…the largest mass poisoning of a population in

history… The scale of the environmental disaster is greater than any seen before; it is beyond the

accidents in Bhopal, India, in 1984, and Chernobyl, Ukraine,

in 1986.” Independent [via Robot Wisdom]

Who is buried in Yeats’ tomb?

There in the tomb the dark grows blacker,
But wind

comes up from the shore:
They shake when the

winds roar,
Old bones upon the mountain shake.

Irish Times [via Robot Wisdom]

Longevity is linked to IQ. “A study of 300 individuals spanning almost 70 years suggests that

intelligence, rather than social background, may determine

whether people enjoy good health and a long life.

People who sat an IQ test at the age of 11 in 1932 were ranked

in exactly the same order when they took the exam again at the

age of 77, showing that intelligence is stable throughout life. But

researchers also found that those with high IQs tended to live

longer because they made the right health decisions during their

lives.” Telegraph

Hazards of a healthy choice. Drinking low-fat rather than whole milk may more likely infect you with food-poisoning bugs. Small dairies use pasteurizing machines designed before the popularity of reduced-fat milk and, once modified to skim off the fat, often performing inadequate pasteurization, according to new research. New Scientist

Emerging Disese News: Global disease traced to tropical logging. “Logging and the accessibility it

offers to remote forests and to

wider hunting opportunities may

play a central role in the emergence

of new diseases that imperil human

health, according to a new study by

researchers from Johns Hopkins

University School of Public Health. ” Environmental News Network /i>