“Forget drug-free and nuclear-free zones. A growing grassroots movement seeks to make the United States a Patriot Act-free zone, one city at a time.

Or, at the very least, the people behind the movement hope to make their cities constitutional safe zones.

In the past two years, more than 300 cities and four states have passed resolutions calling on Congress to repeal or change parts of the USA Patriot Act that, activists say, violate constitutional rights such as free speech and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

Barring that, the resolutions declare that their communities will uphold the constitutional rights of their residents should federal law enforcement agents come knocking on the door of local authorities for assistance in tracking residents. This means local authorities will insist on complying with federal orders only in ways that do not violate constitutional rights. The resolutions are not binding, however, and do not affect the federal government’s actions.” (Wired)

Declan McCullagh:

“It’s time to abolish the Federal Communications Commission. The reason is simple. The venerable FCC, created in 1934, is no longer necessary. Its justification for existence was weak 70 years ago, but advances in technology since then have eliminated whatever arguments remained. Central planning didn’t work for the Soviet Union, and it’s not working for us. The FCC is now an agency that does more harm than good…” (CNET)

Simplistic headline belies more provocative content:

Causes of violence traced to human nature: “Artistic cruelty is hardly a thing of the past,’ writes Steven Pinker, Harvard psychologist and author of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.

In explaining human thought and behavior, Pinker, whose courses include ‘The Human Mind,’ ‘Cognitive and Behavioral Genetics’ and ‘Evolutionary Psychology,’ argues that to refuse to acknowledge our evolutionary human nature distorts both the science and scholarship of today. Contrary to the title of his recent book, Pinker believes and argues with clarity, human beings are not born with a blank slate on which parents, environment, culture and society write. [This does not contradict the title, IMHO. The title makes it clear that Pinker thinks the ‘blank slate’ concept is misguided. — FmH]

Although the book covers a variety of topics including nature versus nurture, it is the chapter on violence I turned to upon learning of the recent revelations of human abuse once more against humans.”

As a clinical psychiatrist, this finding is of professional interest in terms of adjusting the assumptions I bring to bear when assessing and treating hoarders. But the more crucial impact is the questions the researchers raise about the basis for diagnostic classification. Lumping disorders by symptomatic appearance makes sense if you are trying to talk to your patients about the pattern and sources of their distress. If, however, it is biological adjustment that is your main concern, it has to be done differently.

: “New research into the brain patterns of compulsive hoarders shows the disorder may have been misclassified and victims could be getting the wrong treatment, U.S. scientists reported on Tuesday.

Brain scans show the biology of America’s estimated 1 million compulsive hoarders is significantly different to that of other people diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.

Hoarding is usually classified as obsessive-compulsive disorder, a catch-all term for a range of symptoms such as constantly repeating actions like handwashing or checking to make sure a stove is turned off.

‘Our work shows that hoarding and saving compulsions long associated with OCD may spring from unique, previously unrecognized neurobiological malfunctions that standard treatments do not necessarily address,’ Dr. Sanjaya Saxena, who led the study, said in a statement.

“In addition, the results emphasize the need to rethink how we categorize psychiatric disorders. Diagnosis and treatment should be driven by biology rather than symptoms,” Saxena added. ” (Yahoo! )

“The IQ test is 100 years old – but do its multiple-choice sums and sequences really measure anything, or is it just a way to make money? Matthew Sweet examines the bizarre world of cleverness, and attempts to join Mensa, the club for smart alecs” (Independent.UK)

Book Review: Forever Young: A cultural history of longevity by Lucian Boia:

“Where did we go wrong? Adam lived to the age of 930 and his grandson Methuselah to 969. The first generations of Chinese and Indian people are said to have lived for thousands of years. In our time, however, Jeanne Calment only clocked up a measly 122 years.

Historian Lucian Boia of the University of Bucharest, Romania, is as much concerned with the mythology of longevity as the reality. In Forever Young, he demonstrates how little our obsession with cheating death has changed.” (New Scientist)

Does Anil Dash deserve an iPod more than some other link spammer? Can he make it to the top?

“The Bush campaign is seeking to enlist thousands of religious congregations around the country in distributing campaign information and registering voters, according to an e-mail message sent to many members of the clergy and others in Pennsylvania.

Liberal groups charged that the effort invited violations of the separation of church and state and jeopardized the tax-exempt status of churches that cooperated. Some socially conservative church leaders also said they would advise pastors against participating in such a partisan effort.” (New York Times)