OnStar system reports accident the car’s owner tried to flee and conceal Risks Digest [via Red Rock Eaters]

Work or die. Fox news commentator Bill O’Reilly proposes torturing heinous criminals in a gulag-style work camp in Alaska as an alternative to the death sentence.

My Cat Hates You

Failure at nonconscious goals explains negative ‘mystery moods’: “Have you ever been in a bad mood that you couldn’t explain and wondered what put you in a funk?

A researcher at Ohio State University found that such negative “mystery moods” can occur when people fail at a goal that they didn’t even

know they had.” EurekAlert!

Stalking Dr. Steere Over Lyme Disease: “Last year, Dr. Allen Steere, one of the

world’s most renowned medical

researchers and rheumatologists, began to

fear patients. It was not so much the ones he

had treated, though he occasionally had to

worry about them too, but the ones who

had started to call his office, threatening

him, claiming he was responsible for their

suffering. They insisted that he was denying

them treatment for an acute form of chronic

Lyme disease, a strand of the ordinarily

more modest infection that they believed

slipped into the bloodstream undetected

and remained there for years, causing joint

pain, chronic fatigue, suicidal depression,

paralysis and even death. Affirming their

diagnoses were a growing number of

patient advocacy groups, practitioners and

psychiatrists who argued that the disease

had become a full-scale epidemic, a

modern-day plague crippling thousands of

Americans.

As the world’s foremost expert on the illness,

however, Steere did not believe many of

them had Lyme disease at all, but

something else — chronic fatigue or mental

illness or fibromyalgia — and he had

refused to treat them with antibiotics. Many

doctors and insurance companies had

followed his lead, and in turn, hordes of

patients had started to stalk him. ” New York Times Magazine I’m of two minds on this issue which is at the crux of modern medicine’s difficulty dealing with the mind-body problem. I agree with him that many people ill with psychiatric conditions desperately push to have their dysfunction explained in terms of a bodily ailment instead. But we understand just the very tip of the iceberg about the effects of physical illness on the “black box” of the CNS. Surely it is not true that what is merely not yet proven is automatically “unscientific.”

Stalking Dr. Steere Over Lyme Disease: “Last year, Dr. Allen Steere, one of the

world’s most renowned medical

researchers and rheumatologists, began to

fear patients. It was not so much the ones he

had treated, though he occasionally had to

worry about them too, but the ones who

had started to call his office, threatening

him, claiming he was responsible for their

suffering. They insisted that he was denying

them treatment for an acute form of chronic

Lyme disease, a strand of the ordinarily

more modest infection that they believed

slipped into the bloodstream undetected

and remained there for years, causing joint

pain, chronic fatigue, suicidal depression,

paralysis and even death. Affirming their

diagnoses were a growing number of

patient advocacy groups, practitioners and

psychiatrists who argued that the disease

had become a full-scale epidemic, a

modern-day plague crippling thousands of

Americans.

As the world’s foremost expert on the illness,

however, Steere did not believe many of

them had Lyme disease at all, but

something else — chronic fatigue or mental

illness or fibromyalgia — and he had

refused to treat them with antibiotics. Many

doctors and insurance companies had

followed his lead, and in turn, hordes of

patients had started to stalk him. ” New York Times Magazine I’m of two minds on this issue which is at the crux of modern medicine’s difficulty dealing with the mind-body problem. I agree with him that many people ill with psychiatric conditions desperately push to have their dysfunction explained in terms of a bodily ailment instead. But we understand just the very tip of the iceberg about the effects of physical illness on the “black box” of the CNS. Surely it is not true that what is merely not yet proven is automatically “unscientific.”

Stalking Dr. Steere Over Lyme Disease: “Last year, Dr. Allen Steere, one of the

world’s most renowned medical

researchers and rheumatologists, began to

fear patients. It was not so much the ones he

had treated, though he occasionally had to

worry about them too, but the ones who

had started to call his office, threatening

him, claiming he was responsible for their

suffering. They insisted that he was denying

them treatment for an acute form of chronic

Lyme disease, a strand of the ordinarily

more modest infection that they believed

slipped into the bloodstream undetected

and remained there for years, causing joint

pain, chronic fatigue, suicidal depression,

paralysis and even death. Affirming their

diagnoses were a growing number of

patient advocacy groups, practitioners and

psychiatrists who argued that the disease

had become a full-scale epidemic, a

modern-day plague crippling thousands of

Americans.

As the world’s foremost expert on the illness,

however, Steere did not believe many of

them had Lyme disease at all, but

something else — chronic fatigue or mental

illness or fibromyalgia — and he had

refused to treat them with antibiotics. Many

doctors and insurance companies had

followed his lead, and in turn, hordes of

patients had started to stalk him. ” New York Times Magazine I’m of two minds on this issue which is at the crux of modern medicine’s difficulty dealing with the mind-body problem. I agree with him that many people ill with psychiatric conditions desperately push to have their dysfunction explained in terms of a bodily ailment instead. But we understand just the very tip of the iceberg about the effects of physical illness on the “black box” of the CNS. Surely it is not true that what is merely not yet proven is automatically “unscientific.”

Happy Father’s Day: Can Fatherhood Be Optional? New York Times Op-Ed

In This Death Penalty Case, the Choices Were Too Few: “On Tuesday, the federal government is scheduled to conduct its second

execution in less than two weeks, after there were none for a

generation. Juan Raul Garza will be put to death for several drug-related

murders he committed a decade ago. One could argue that Timothy McVeigh’s

exceptional crime made him a likely candidate for execution in any society that

employs the death penalty. But the Garza case forces us to confront troubling

questions about not only the general fairness of a capital punishment system that

has a disproportionate impact on African-Americans and Hispanics, but also the

fairness of depriving Mr. Garza of a basic protection that every other federal

inmate on death row has received.” New York Times Op-Ed

Timothy Garton Ash: Joining the Continent to Unite the Kingdom: “Europe used to worry about the German Question.

Now it has a British Question. Will Britain at last fully commit to Europe?

And, with the growing autonomy of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, what

will remain of the old United Kingdom? … (H)istorians may look back on this election as the beginning of a new

Britain: a federal kingdom of Britain, within a larger federal Europe. New York Times Op-Ed

Stalking Dr. Steere Over Lyme Disease: “Last year, Dr. Allen Steere, one of the

world’s most renowned medical

researchers and rheumatologists, began to

fear patients. It was not so much the ones he

had treated, though he occasionally had to

worry about them too, but the ones who

had started to call his office, threatening

him, claiming he was responsible for their

suffering. They insisted that he was denying

them treatment for an acute form of chronic

Lyme disease, a strand of the ordinarily

more modest infection that they believed

slipped into the bloodstream undetected

and remained there for years, causing joint

pain, chronic fatigue, suicidal depression,

paralysis and even death. Affirming their

diagnoses were a growing number of

patient advocacy groups, practitioners and

psychiatrists who argued that the disease

had become a full-scale epidemic, a

modern-day plague crippling thousands of

Americans.

As the world’s foremost expert on the illness,

however, Steere did not believe many of

them had Lyme disease at all, but

something else — chronic fatigue or mental

illness or fibromyalgia — and he had

refused to treat them with antibiotics. Many

doctors and insurance companies had

followed his lead, and in turn, hordes of

patients had started to stalk him. ” New York Times Magazine I’m of two minds on this issue which is at the crux of modern medicine’s difficulty dealing with the mind-body problem. I agree with him that many people ill with psychiatric conditions desperately push to have their dysfunction explained in terms of a bodily ailment instead. But we understand just the very tip of the iceberg about the effects of physical illness on the “black box” of the CNS. Surely it is not true that what is merely not yet proven is automatically “unscientific.”

Happy Bloomsday!

“Really creepy”: Watching Movies With Julianne Moore. “This used to terrify me, just terrify me,” said

Julianne Moore, popping a Milk Dud into

her mouth and staring at the television

screen with happy, fearful anticipation. “It’s

like a mother’s lullaby, only really creepy.

Look at the Dakota, how terrifying it looks,

and yet normal at the same time. I used to

live a block from there on 71st Street.

Wow, I love the beginning of this movie.”

While Ms. Moore can be very analytical,

particularly when discussing the

performances in the film and the way Mr.

Polanski’s direction accentuates them and

pulls viewers through the story, more often

she is simply caught up in the experience of watching the film again. “Wow, isn’t

that great?” she will say after a shot that impresses her, or, “Look at that, did you

see that?” after an acting moment that strikes her as particularly subtle and

difficult. For her, watching Rosemary’s Baby is a pure pleasure, and watching it

with someone else is a cause for sharing the pleasure, not for beating it to death

at every turn with analysis.” [After all why bother?] New York Times

The NY Press‘ film critic sends up The Sopranos whle extolling new British “gangster-horror film” Sexy Beast [via Robot Wisdom] While Sexy Beast sounds interesting, the faux-populist rant about The Sopranos seems largely incoherent anti-elitism to me. And just who does he think reads the NY Press; Daily News readers??

“These Bush years need some truth-tellin’. Needs some critiquin’.” — Cornel West. How to Be a Better Playa. An invitation-only “Hip-Hop Summit”, with rappers and record executives counseled by African American elders including Cornel West, Congressional representatives, and Louis Farrakhan, resolved to turn hip-hop’s dominant cultural position into political clout through a hip-hop political action committee, moves to get out the hip-hop vote, the creation of a hip-hop think tank at Columbia University… Nagging doubts about the genre’s capacity to transcend gangstah-ism and misogyny remain. Washington Post [via Robot Wisdom]

Goldfish Bowl Sends 26 People to Hospital

Red Planet Viewer’s Guide: Earth and Mars Converge. At its June 13th opposition, it’ll be the closest it’s been in the past 12 years. “At opposition, Mars will no longer be a morning star — it’ll be a dazzling ‘all-nighter’, rising near

sunset and reaching its highest point in the sky at midnight. Modest telescopes will reveal normally

invisible details including Martian clouds and icy polar caps.”

Vitamin C a Carcinogen?

Schizophrenic Executed In Ohio Despite Protests: “The state of Ohio, ignoring protests

internationally and at home, on Thursday

executed a man depicted by his lawyers as a

schizophrenic too mentally ill to understand what

was happening to him.” Reuters Here’s a California Criminal Law Review paper on Mental Illness and the Death Penalty.

Guided Tours of Hell. Writer Denis Johnson’s attempt at nonfiction is reviewed by author Ted Conover, who it appears must not like Johnson. He damns the writing with, at best, faint praise, and he dwells at length on negative aspects of Johnson’s self-revelation in these essays. It works; I didn’t like Johnson much either after reading this review. New York Times

Sony Admits It Used Employees as Bogus Fans — “Still reeling from revelations that its

advertising department had concocted

a phony film critic and used him to promote

four Columbia Pictures releases, Sony

Pictures Entertainment has now admitted

that two of its own employees posed as

ordinary moviegoers in on-the-street

interviews to promote another Columbia

release last summer.” New York Times Should moviegoers take this evidence of an unprecedented degree of manipulation and mindfuck with complacency, or has anyone proposed a boycott of Sony/Columbia pictures? The lawsuits viewers are bringing, claiming they’ve been damaged by being so misled, will probably be thrown out as frivolous, but if a significant change in the company’s profit/loss data were identified publicly as a consequence of the company’s actions, would other companies’ film executives take pause before they crossed a similar line? Do we believe there haven’t been similar instances of manipulation by others already?

The Spike Report pointed to this New York Times story on the Daily News’ Scramble to Woo Back Grocery Ads cancelled after it ran a series of articles on the filth and health code violations in many of New York City’s supermarket chains. To repair the damage with such an important group of advertisers, The News produced at its expense yesterday a glossy four-page “advertorial” supplement with laudatory content about the supermarket industry. Supermarket executives consider themselves the wronged parties and experienced the advertising supplement as their due. One demanded the firing of the reporter and editor responsible for the critical series as a condition to resume advertising. New York Times

San Francisco man becomes first American to grasp significance of irony. herdofsheep.com [via David Brake]

A Bit About Words — the columnist considers recent objections to something I do in my writing, the use of ‘they’ for a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun. “Since feminist writers drew our attention to the fact that the English language has

deeply ingrained male-biased conventions, those of us with a conscience have tried to find a way of compensating for our lack of a pronoun which applies

equally to male or female referents.” I believe that such sensitivity is important, and that the form as well as the content of good writing can be consciousness-raising. I’ve considered and rejected other proposed alternatives as less preferable to ‘they’. Surprisingly, the objection that this use of ‘they’ is an inelegant modernism is countered in this essay with examples of this usage by preeminent English-language writers dating back five centuries. [via Daily Dean] And more commentary on linguistic artifice. This time from Safire, about, er, archers [via metaforage]

Power failure here in Brookline, Mass. last evening. It hit the neighborhood sometime before we got home from playing in the sprinklers in the park on the first really hot day of the summer season. The power wasn’t restored ’til sometime after 4 a.m. this morning, my laptop’s batteries were run down, I’m not up to wireless posts from my Palm device yet. And, anyway, we liked playing in the dark. That’s why you got no new entries here yesterday.

“Arguably the most interesting and disturbing program on cable television these days…” “A disembodied

late-middle-aged face dominates your tv screen: expressionless

dark eyes under a huge forehead, mouth pursed in what’s either a

smile or a grimace–you never know…. it never

leaves the screen and its expression never changes. … The show’s other component is the soundtrack, which consists of

relentless stream-of-consciousness monologues… in a central or eastern

European accent, against a disturbing ambiance of

satanic-industrial clangings and wind-tunnel moanings.” NY Press [via Robot Wisdom]

The biggest beat of all: “If you’re really into dance music, you probably know two-step garage. If you’re not — if the difference between house and techno seems like little more than

the punchline-ready distinction between country and western — maybe you’ve seen it referenced in a magazine. Maybe it meant something, or maybe you

just wrote it off as another example of dance music’s tendency to spit out new genre names as signifiers of readymade revolution. Either way, two-step is a

legitimately distinctive new style that owes a lot to drum ‘n’ bass and the futuristic minimalism that dominates American pop and R&B. But its debt extends

equally to every other strain of dance music that has cropped up in the past 25 years. Giddy disco, soulful house, mechanistic techno, rhythm-crazed

hardcore, bouncy Jamaican dancehall, big-bottomed Miami bass, gin-sipping G-funk, glitchy ambience — they’re all there.” Salon

Huntington’s disease: Italian discovery may suggest a new approach for developing therapies: “Like a good parent, a protein called huntingtin helps to safeguard key nerve cells in the brain. When the huntingtin protein is defective, however,

certain neurons can become damaged, resulting in Huntington’s Disease, a debilitating and fatal form of brain degeneration characterized by

physical, mental and emotional disturbances.” EurekAlert!

The Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sleeping in Airports. “For travellers who are really on a budget and are looking for a way to skim a few bucks off their travelling expenses, why not consider sleeping

in an airport? Many airports are actually better than local lodging. And to top it off — it’s free! Your friends and family may look at you funny

when you return with your airport stories, but that’s only part of the fun.”

‘The More Things Change’ Dept: With Shiver of Fear, Russians Sense a Return to Police-State Ways. “It is not an easy thing to quantify, much less to prove.

But among intellectuals and activists here who advocate a

democratic Russia in the Western mode, a gnawing concern is

arising that the relative freedom from state surveillance and

restriction that citizens have relished in the last decade may be

drawing to a close.” What do you expect after choosing a former KGB officer who was director of the Federal

Security Service as President? At least here in the U.S. we’ve got a bumbling ne’er-do-well businessman instead… And:

China is conducting the largest crackdown on

Internet cafés since the Web came to the country, the Internet

edition of the Shenzhen Legal Daily reported Thursday… The crackdown hits the main way rural Chinese reach the web. International Herald Tribune

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting focuses on Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. The Sunday Times commented, “A blazing example of what online journalism should be, using a website’s freedom to set the agenda and its limitless space to explore the issues.”

Burning now an option to clean up ocean oil spills previously thought incombustible — Every time there’s been a major catastrophic oil spill, you could’ve found me wandering around with a numbed look (different from my usual numbed look) and wondering with anyone who would listen to me why they couldn’t dispose of the oil slick by igniting it. Now,

“…researchers have shown in laboratory experiments that some open water oil spills previously thought to be

incombustible potentially can be cleaned up via burning, the most efficient, rapid and environmentally friendly option…. When feasible, it is an

inexpensive technique that can have a very high efficiency of removal, possibly greater than 99 percent. The burning is very rapid and any

resulting ecological damage is less severe compared to conventional oil removal methods.

However, the window of opportunity for using burning is often limited by wave and wind conditions and by the proximity of the spill to

populated areas. In addition, over time, oil spilled at sea becomes mixed with water forming an emulsion that is difficult or impossible to ignite.

Now, Penn State researchers have widened the applicability of burning by showing that diesel fuel emulsions up to 80 percent water and crude

oil emulsions up to 35 percent water can be ignited. In laboratory experiments, they demonstrated that positioning an external radiant heat

source near the spill facilitates ignition. In addition, they have developed simple charts for use as a quick reference to determine the minimum

external heat source needed to facilitate burning.” EurekAlert!

Phil Jackson’s Book Club: “Nietzsche may not seem like typical bedside reading for Shaquille O’Neal, the NBA’s dominant center, but unorthodox Lakers coach Phil Jackson thinks

there’s something in Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is to enrich Shaq’s game, both on and off the court. Jackson drives his team toward mastering

the spiritual and physical components of the game and each season supplies a recommended reading list to his team, matching a specific book–from

philosophy and biographies to mysteries and literary fiction–with each player and assistant coach. Phil Jackson shared his recommendations with

Amazon.com.”

Putting Digital Pen to Paper: “The president and CEO of Anoto wants to make sure you’ll

always have a digital copy of anything you write, even if

it’s on a Post-it note… By combining a digital pen with a

Bluetooth wireless radio link, a miniature

camera and a piece of paper marked with

a faint pattern of coordinates, (he) has developed a way to

record handwriting and transmit it as a

fax, e-mail message or a text message

via wireless phone or personal digital

assistant… ‘You will use this pen the way you use any

other pen. The only difference is that you will

always have a digital copy of anything you write.’ The Industry Standard

Q: How do you pass off a cancer-reducing

mobile add-on? “The cancer issue – quite rightly – won’t go away. For every study

concluding that phones pose no risk, there is another saying they

can cause brain tumours… The controversy continues over reports that mobile phone

manufacturers have patented cancer-reducing add-ons, when they

claim there is no risk to humans from the phones.” The Register

Since being mugged in Toronto

two years ago, his past has been a blank. And no one

has come forward to identify him. Is there anybody can tell me who I am?

“I, a person suffering from amnesia, in the City of Vancouver,”

begins one of the more unusual affidavits to come before the

Canadian courts in recent years. It was a statement of a man

who may or may not be 26, who may or may not be British, and

who may or may not be named Philip Staufen. All he knows, in

the words of the affidavit, is the following: “I am a white male,

Caucasian, about five feet, nine inches. I weigh 150lbs. I have no

visible marks on my body. I have no memory of any events prior

to waking up in the hospital in November of 1999.”

The man stumbled into Toronto general hospital with a bloody

face, a damaged nose, a British accent with perhaps a hint of

Yorkshire in it, and very little else. No wallet, no identification

and no idea who he was. His hair was dyed blond and his

clothes were from brands available anywhere in the world, with

no identifying labels. When the hospital authorities insisted he

provide a date of birth and name, any name, before they could

treat him, he came up with the first name that flashed across his

mind, Philip Staufen, and the first date he could think of, June 7

1975.

The Guardian UK

New Cell Standard: Goodbye, WAP? “The world’s leading mobile phone makers and operators introduced an industry-wide initiative

Wednesday that they hope will bring true Internet functionality to next-generation cell phones and lay the

ghost of past failures.” Wired

Palm to split — official. The troubled company will rid itself of either its software or its hardware business, says CEO. He just won’t say which yet. And, dealing with the glut in inventory of existing models caused by the sudden downturn in the PDA market just as it rolled out a new range of products, Palm gave attendees at a developers’ conference in Orange County free wireless-enabled Palm VIIx’s and a free month’s subscription to Palm.net. The Register

Dr. Laura Does It Again, Offends Tourette’s Sufferers: “Poor Dr. Laura. The queen of talk-show

intolerance is learning — the hard way — that the

Internet will hold her accountable, one angry

bulletin board posting or e-mail after another.” ABC News

“Next time you use your StarTac,

remember Patrice Lumumba.

The full story behind the Congo’s

bloody mineral trade… Tantalum – the refined extract of Columbite-tantalite (coltan for short)- is a hot product. It’s used in everything

from mobile phones made by Nokia and Ericsson to computer chips made by Intel, according to the Industry Standard. The

Congo supplies 7% of the world’s tantalum, and demand is only growing. Almost all the Congolese tantalum comes from

rebel-controlled coltan mines where they maintain brutal control over the local population. According to the Industry

Standard, the rebels have earned millions of dollars from western technology companies who have so far done little to

avoid purchasing “conflict” tantalum. A recent UN report called the companies trading minerals in the Congo ‘the engines

of conflict in the DRC.’ ” NoLogo

Adbusters: July 4th — “Where yesterday flew the Stars-and-Stripes, today will fly the

Brands-and-Bands. Some will wave it at the head of parades, some will

swap it for Old Glory in front of the Wal-Mart or City Hall, some will unfurl

it from highway overpasses. Some have even promised to paint it on the

side of their houses.”

The Truth and the Hype of Hypnosis: ‘…the study of hypnotic phenomena is

now squarely in the domain of normal cognitive science, with papers on hypnosis published in some

of the most selective scientific and medical journals. Of course, spectacles such as “stage hypnosis”

for entertainment purposes have not disappeared. But the new findings reveal how, when used

properly, the power of hypnotic suggestion can alter cognitive processes as diverse as memory and

pain perception.’ Scientific American

Dead Man Talking: “When all that’s left of your loved one is a voice on an answering machine, how can you hit delete? … People have been struggling to deal with the artifacts their late lamented leave behind at least since humans began to bury their dead… But it’s the unearthly outgoing announcements on the answering machines that have given ‘Hi, I’m not here right now’ new meaning. Washington Post

Veteran U.S. Envoys Seek End to Executions of Retarded; they ‘say the practice puts the

United States at odds with the rest of the

world, creates diplomatic friction, especially

with European allies, tarnishes America’s

image as the champion of human rights and

harms broader American foreign policy

interests.

Calling the execution of the mentally

retarded a “cruel and uncivilized practice,”

the diplomats say that it subjects the United

States to “daily and growing criticism from

the international community.” ‘ New York Times

‘I tawt I taw’ a bunny wabbit at Disneyland: New evidence shows false memories can be created EurekAlert! [thanks, Tom]

Hackers Lay Off Death Video. No signs yet of hacker interception of the video feed of McVeigh’s death. Wired

They Think They Feel Your Pain. “Munchausen’s by Internet” is easier than the real thing, and just as compelling. Wired

Daring Marketers Add Fizz To Fruit, Milk, Cereal, Yogurt. Believe this publicity and brace yourself for an onslaught of carbonation in all sorts of food ranging from coffee to fruit and breakfast cereal. An adherent suggests that a small carbonation box will be the next must-have kitchen appliance. It’s Pop Rocks for the new millennium.

Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in ’74 — “The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February,

2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable

brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient

in cannabis.’ AlterNet

In Virginia, Young Conservatives Learn How to Develop and Use Their Political Voices: “boot camp for young conservatives who aspire to power.” New York Times

David Horowitz is at it again: The AIDS epidemic is the fault of gay activists Salon

America’s newest celebrity dies in Terre Haute; media coverage is inane.

Review: The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy

by Noreena Hertz argues that

“a combination of globalisation, and the growing power of major

corporations, mainly American and European, is rendering democratic

governments impotent to influence key decisions that affect the lives of

ordinary people. So far, so conventional. But she takes the argument one

step further. In surrendering to the global capitalists, governments are

themselves debasing democracy, making it quite useless for people to

vote. People sense their powerlessness and the redundancy of ballot-box

politics, and take to the streets of Seattle, Davos, the City of London,

or wherever.

So direct action usurps democracy.” The Guardian UK

A Mind for Consciousness: Can we find specific neuron groups in our brains that are the seat of consciousness? Can we get at this with an animal model, when it’s not even certain animals are ‘conscious’ in the required sense? Hero worship of a neuroscientist tattooed with the Apple logo… Scientific American

AFI’s 100 Years…100 Thrills. The American Film Institute’s list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies.

A Vegas for veterans: “The planned World War II monument looks like a white elephant. Why not

focus on rebuilding lives rather than a feel-good memorial?” Arianna Huffington in

Salon

Time for justice in Oklahoma: “Although it was an unfortunate tragedy, the Oklahoma City bombing was

not — as it has been labeled in the media — the worst act of domestic

terrorism in peacetime America. If body count, property destruction and

the generational effect on human life is the measure, then the worst act

of domestic terrorism in peacetime America was the 1921 massacre of an

estimated 300 mostly African-Americans in Tulsa, Oklahoma.” Tompaine.com

The Untamed Sounds of ‘Outside Music’; listening to music that “exists outside just

about everyone’s cultural radar.” New York Times

Court Rules on Heat – Sensor Searches. A home marijuana grower was convicted after a search occasioned by a heat-sensing device detected the heat of his grow-lamps through his walls. Now the Supreme Court upholds his contention that the search violated his privacy; that it was more like an unreasonable search and seizure than it was like merely seeing something from outside the house. This surprising pro-privacy ruling came from a 5-4 majority which crossed ideological lines, uniting Scalia (who wrote the opinion) and his shadow Clarence Thomas with liberals Ginzburg, Souter and Breyer. The cynical, conspiratorial me suspects that they shuffled the alliances on this one — relatively inconsequential, in that it doesn’t hamper law officers with heat-sensing equipment too much to get a warrant for such a search — to deflect criticism about how fundamentally inflexible and divided the Court is. New York Times

The Court also ruled that, while a child born to an American mother is automatically a U.S. citizen, no such automatic right devolves upon a child born to an American father. As NPR put it, this was the first time in decades that the Court ruled along lines of a gender stereotype.

Can he do that? “An increasingly

controversial Texas

judge orders a man not

to have sex until he’s

married.” This is the same district court judge “who made a name [yes, the colloquial name for a relative of the donkey. -ed.] for himself earlier this month after ordering registered sex offenders to identify themselves with signs in their yards.” Salon

Questions for Jeffrey Baxter: Crossover Artist: Explains how he got from a “tokin’ , takin’ it to the streets” Doobie Brother to a Republican chauvinist national missile defense advisor…

Would you give up rock ‘n’ roll to save the world?

Of course. I have been blessed to grow up in a country where I can pick up a

guitar and be able to pay the rent. But I could certainly have a full-time job in

the national security area and still play the guitar. A lot of people in Washington

play music.

Who on the Hill has chops?

Orrin Hatch is a very good songwriter. Congressman Collin Peterson is a good

guitar player and a really fine performer. Chris Cox is a fine lyricist.

Does he care how seriously the interviewer takes him? Be sure to read all the way to the end of the interview for Baxter’s cocky putdown of him. New York Times I wasn’t aware of “Skunk’s” new role, but here’s a Google search on “Jeffrey Baxter” and “missile defense” for some context. He’s identified these days as a missile defense consultant to the Defense Dept. and the Lawrence Livermore Lab, he’s got ties to conservative “freedom-fightin’ ” California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and he’s a boardmember of the “Safeguarding America For Everyone Foundation” which lobbies for the deployment of NMD. In a 1999 New Republic article entitled “Bottom of the Barrel”, the California Republican party is described as “desperate enough” to attempt to draft Baxter as a Congressional candidate. [Oh, well, how much can you expect from a Doobie?]

The mind, the body – and how to talk yourself out of an illness. Because of accumulating data about the physical substrate of mental activity, essayist Robert Matthews thinks Susan Aldrich, whose new book Seeing Red and Feeling Blue he’s reviewing, had a brilliant insight in asserting that talk therapy must cause brain changes when it works. But this has been apparent to psychiatric practitioners and theorists for a long time, and research evidence is not new. Matthews is right about one thing, though; that , although these challenges to Cartesian mind-body dualism are compelling, it is a deeply engrained attitude in commonsense consciousness. But positing instead an unsophisticated holism is little better. Telegraph UK

Mobile Messaging: Not in the USA. “Yes, people in Europe and Asia can’t live without their short message service.

No, people in America can’t have it.” Lack of intercarrier interoperability and the pricing structure of cellular use in North America are the culprits. Wired

What is an emotion? “More than 90 definitions have been offered over the past century, and there are almost as many theories of emotion—not to mention a complex array of overlapping words in our languages to describe them. (Prof. Robert) Plutchik offers an integrative theory based on evolutionary principles. Emotions are adaptive—in fact, they have a complexity born of a long evolutionary history–and although we conceive of emotions as feeling states, Plutchik says the feeling state is part of a process involving both cognition and behavior and containing several feedback loops.” American Scientist Here’s an interesting table with various psychological theorists’ differing ideas about what the basic emotions are.

Medicine men threaten court action over traditional cures. ‘African medicine men are taking European scientists to

court to stop them “stealing” their traditional cures.

Healers from Zimbabwe have teamed up with others in

Ghana, Nigeria and Rwanda to protect 10,000 native

treatments including toad secretions.

They are demanding a share in any of the profits made by

the drug companies now planning to exploit them.

The move comes after Lausanne University announced its

plan to market the snake tree bean bark lotion as a cure for

athletes foot.

According to the Daily Record one healer, Wimbiru Mhofu,

said: “I was born using this and the Europeans stole it.” ‘ Ananova

Can You Believe This? Study Examines Why Young Urban Women Have Sex — ‘the vast majority of young women who participated in the study

report that they have sex because they “like” or ”love” the person

they choose to have sex with. About one-third said the main reason that

they had sex was that they “liked having sex.” ‘

Why the Dysons keep faith in their genes: “Anyone yearning to settle down and live happily ever after should look for

a Dyson. New scientific research has revealed that over the past 800 years

members of the family have proved the most faithful and fertile partners in

Britain.

Dr Brian Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford University, studied the

DNA of 10,000 men with a broad cross-section of British surnames as part of

a project to map genes in Britain and Ireland. He identified the families likely

to have the highest proportion of identical DNA patterns in their Y

chromosomes – that is, those thought to have one common ancestor – and

discovered that, of the names surveyed, the Dysons had a remarkable 80 per

cent of men who shared the same pattern.

The Y chromosome is passed unchanged from father to son, so if a wife

becomes pregnant as the result of an adulterous fling she will bear a child

with the family name but not the family Y chromosome.” Telegraph UK

Bookies slash odds on alien life: “Bookies in the UK have reportedly slashed the odds on the

Prime Minister making an official confirmation that aliens

exist. This comes after a Scottish photographer snapped a

picture of a possible UFO.

William Hill has halved the odds after Mark Runnacles

snapped the object flying over Glasgow. Student

Alexander McCallum, 38, of Dalmarnock, also took a photo of a UFO over Glasgow, which

he says looks identical to Mr. Runnacles’, who works for a Scottish newspaper.” Cosmiverse

Bookies slash odds on alien life: “Bookies in the UK have reportedly slashed the odds on the

Prime Minister making an official confirmation that aliens

exist. This comes after a Scottish photographer snapped a

picture of a possible UFO.

William Hill has halved the odds after Mark Runnacles

snapped the object flying over Glasgow. Student

Alexander McCallum, 38, of Dalmarnock, also took a photo of a UFO over Glasgow, which

he says looks identical to Mr. Runnacles’, who works for a Scottish newspaper.” Cosmiverse

Bookies slash odds on alien life: “Bookies in the UK have reportedly slashed the odds on the

Prime Minister making an official confirmation that aliens

exist. This comes after a Scottish photographer snapped a

picture of a possible UFO.

William Hill has halved the odds after Mark Runnacles

snapped the object flying over Glasgow. Student

Alexander McCallum, 38, of Dalmarnock, also took a photo of a UFO over Glasgow, which

he says looks identical to Mr. Runnacles’, who works for a Scottish newspaper.” Cosmiverse

Americans ‘becoming more superstitious’: “A Gallup poll has revealed that more Americans now

believe in phenomena than they did 11 years ago.

It found that more people now believe in haunted houses,

ghosts and witches. The only phenomena to have seen a

decrease in belief is devil possession which went from 49%

in 1990 to 41%.” Ananova

Bookies slash odds on alien life: “Bookies in the UK have reportedly slashed the odds on the

Prime Minister making an official confirmation that aliens

exist. This comes after a Scottish photographer snapped a

picture of a possible UFO.

William Hill has halved the odds after Mark Runnacles

snapped the object flying over Glasgow. Student

Alexander McCallum, 38, of Dalmarnock, also took a photo of a UFO over Glasgow, which

he says looks identical to Mr. Runnacles’, who works for a Scottish newspaper.” Cosmiverse

Nowhere to hide: “We can tell you if you’re guilty or innocent. You can’t fool the lie detector that knows what you are thinking.”

You have just been arrested on suspicion of murder. You’re sweating it out in the interrogation room with a pair of beefy detectives. But your lips are sealed–you know your rights.

Then with a smirk they slip a thing like a hairnet covered in dozens of tiny electrodes over your head and sit you down in front of a computer. Pictures of the crime scene begin to flash up on the screen interspersed with multiple-choice questions.

Flash! A photo of a brick wall. Flash! “What lies behind this wall?” Flash! “Cement and blacktop?” Flash! “Sand and gravel?”

Flash! “Weeds and grass?”

You said nothing. You were even trying not to think. But sorry buddy, your brain just gave you away. It couldn’t help but show an electrical start of recognition at the image matching the memory of hurdling a wall and wading through a backyard of weeds as you fled. New Scientist

News Analysis: A Mideast Lull That May Not Last. Dismal outlook on the fragility of the cease-fire. Among other things, Sharon and another Israeli cabinet minister chose this moment to intensify efforts to undermine Arafat. Israeli critics say the statements were orchestrated, as one put it, “…to prepare public opinion, in Israel and around the world, for a

large-scale military operation that will topple the Palestinian Authority and lead

to Arafat’s expulsion.” Israel demands that Arafat “arrest en masse Islamic militants he released from detention earlier this year,” which he refuses to do. Paradoxically, hawkish Israelis see Arafat’s being able to restore calm as an indictment, not a credit; it proves, ending polarized debate, that he has indeed been in control of the Intifada and responsible for the bloodshed all along. In an atmosphere of such eroded trust, it is hard to see how any brokered agreement on security arrangements could hold for long with the difficulty of taking the next step of reopening political negotiation. New York Times

I join Jorn Barger of Robot Wisdom in saying about this photo, “Don’t miss — can’t describe.”

The Dramaturgy of Death. Garry Wills discerns fourteen types of capital punishment in terms of the social and emotional purpose served, of which a given execution embodies a certain combination. But, he argues,

“they all demand,

in logic, maximum display and publicity. The outlaw’s status must be proclaimed for people to act on it.

The other effects sought—whether cleansing, order enforcement, delegitimation, humiliation, repayment,

therapy, deterrence—can only be achieved if an audience sees what is being done to satisfy, intimidate,

soothe, or instruct it. “

But our ethos forbids “cruel and unusual punishment,” so we choose painless execution methods that do not disfigure, and

“we now provide (the condemned) with a long and costly

process meant to ascertain guilt, with free legal aid if he cannot afford his own, with counseling and family

visits, with reading of his choice and TV, a last meal to his specifications, a last request, religious

attendance, guaranteed burial, a swift and nearly painless death. We shut up his last hours from the

general public, and act as if this secret rite will deter by some magic of mere occurrence. We treat the

killing as a dirty little secret, as if we are ashamed of it. Well, we should be ashamed. Having given up on

most of the previous justifications for the death penalty, we cling to a mere vestige of the practice, relying

most urgently on one of the least defensible defenses of it, “

“…the insistence on using the deterrence

argument when it has been discredited by all the most reputable studies”, yet many politicians look to the polls instead of the policy studies in supporting the death penalty. Deterrence theory has the wind knocked out of it, too, by the increasing public awareness of the numbers of innocent people wrongly condemned to die, after “incompetent defenses, faked evidence and negligent procedure.” If the public knows it’s a matter of chance if the right person is caught and killed for a capital crime, deterrence won’t work.

“These considerations join longer-term flaws in the deterrence argument. Juries are readiest to

convict people for crimes of passion, sexually charged rape-murders, child-abuse murders, or

serial killings. To see these offenders caught will not necessarily affect the person most likely to

have the coolness and calculation that deterrence requires. And obviously they do not affect

other people in the grip of obsessions, mental instability, or drug- or alcohol-induced frenzy.

Plato was against executing those guilty of a crime of passion (Laws 867c-d), but our juries

reflect more the anger of society than the didactic strategies of deterrence. In doing this, the

juries fail to make the calculations that we are told future murderers will make. The whole

theory is senseless.”

Wills similarly disposes of the argument that execution creates ‘closure’ for the victim’s survivors. And he closes by holding our moral hypocrisy up to us in the mirror of our Clown Prince:

“Conservative Catholics, who are aghast at fellow believers’ willingness to ignore the Pope on matters like

contraception, blithely ignore in their turn papal pleas to renounce the death penalty (addressed most

recently to the McVeigh case). And I have not seen Bible-quoting fundamentalists refer to the one place in

the Gospels where Jesus deals with capital punishment. At John 8:3-11, he interrupts a legal execution

(for adultery) and tells the officers of the state that their own sinfulness deprives them of jurisdiction. Jesus

himself gives up any jurisdiction for this kind of killing: “Neither do I condemn you.” George W. Bush said

during the campaign debates of last year that Jesus is his favorite philosopher—though he did not

hesitate to endorse the execution of 152 human beings in Texas, where half of the public defenders of

accused murderers were sanctioned by the Texas bar for legal misbehavior or incompetence. Mr. Bush

clearly needs some deeper consultation with the philosopher of his choice.” New York Review of Books

Support San Francisco’s finest : Salon is on the block and unable to find a buyer. “Its woes suggest that the media adage ‘content is king’ is fine until the kingdom starts running out of cash.” Guardian UK

Rebecca Blood points to this news that warms my heart (in a minor league way). I’ve resented the supermarket and drug store “loyalty program” discount cards ever since they made their entry onto the scene, for two reasons. Most insidiously, they create a database of my buying history to hit me with more targeted marketing efforts. (What, did you think the store was doing it just as a favor to you??) And they drive up prices by reserving sale prices previously offered to everyone for a subset of their clientele. Personally, I’m glad to forego the discounts for my privacy, but not everyone’s resources allow that. I speak up, loudly, in the cashier’s line about my reservations every time the store personnel react with incredulity or negativity about my disdain when they ask me if I have the magic card. Now it seems doubts are being raised by some consumers, and some supermarket chains are dropping the programs. Christian Science Monitor

Playing as myself, I turn out to be Norm from Cheers! Who are you?

Still Fab by Charles Paul Freund: The resurgence of Beatlemania prompts an insightful revisionist inquiry into the sources of their original popularity. “By 1966, the Beatles were far more interested in melody than in beat, had largely abandoned the influences

from American country music and American blues that had been apparent on their earlier recordings, and

were building an increasing number of their compositions around narrative lyrics that told stories rather than

expressed adolescent emotions. The more they developed as composers and lyricists, the less they tried to

harmonize like the Everly Brothers or whoop like the Isley Brothers, and the more they drew on their own

roots in British popular music. While they continued to use rock elements to make their music, there is

almost as much British Music Hall in their later work as there is rock.

The apotheosis of their personal development is not the avant-garde experimentation of the White Album

(only a few of its cuts get much play anymore). It is Abbey Road, which, dear as it is to the hearts of many

rock enthusiasts, could just as well be hailed as the greatest pop album of all time. Certainly, it could have

been played almost in its entirety on MOR radio.” It was, by the way, not on a youth-oriented rock’n’roll station but a MOR station in Washington DC that the Beatles first caught on with American audiences. Reason Magazine

Haruki Murakami is the New York Times Book Review’s featured author, on the occasion of the arrival of Sputnik Sweetheart. Although the reviewer finds it “less ambitious than The Wind-Up Bird

Chronicle (which folds a devastating account of Japan’s occupation of

Manchuria into its paranormal plot), (it) offers an elegant distillation of

Murakami’s cool surrealism.” Links to reviews of his other books; an interview in which he discusses what Japan is reading with Jay McInerney; and first chapters of Sputnik Sweetheart and his new nonfiction piece on the Aum Shinrikyo nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway, Underground, about which I’ve previously written. While we’re on the topic, Francie Lin wonders exactly what’s so compelling about him, in Threepenny Review: “Haruki Murakami writes the most bizarre novels—dark, cool, eminently

rational in tone, they are nevertheless populated with psychics and

monsters, and frequently cut with intermittent dreams, or dreamlike

facts, or memories of dreams that only achieve a measure of reality by

forming the basis of his characters’ uneasy lives. His stories have plots

that in summary make no sense, and yet while reading, you are

propelled along by a suspense so great that even the most fantastic

elements of Murakami’s underworlds appear to be merely the logical

pieces of a broader, more coherent intent. The sensation is not entirely

pleasant; a friend of mine once complained that Murakami novels were

laced with heroin, and this seems remarkably apt, for the books have a

kind of drugged, heady fascination about them that quickly becomes

addictive.”

The End of Innocence? Zero tolerance for Canadian boy who runs riot with chicken finger The Register; and official Dr. Seuss site hacked to death.

Media circus deathwatch begins. USA Today

An FmH reader comments on confirm.to:

“The confirm.to trick doesn’t add a hidden tag to the email, it sends

the email to the people working at http://www.confirm.to, and then they

re-send the email, adding a receipt request to it.

This also means that when you use it, the people at confirm.to have a

copy of the email you just sent. You may not want that. Not to

mention, it only works if the recipient has HTML mail turned on.

Most modern email programs already have a confirmation option built

into it. With Outlook, for example, you can click on TOOLS, and then

REQUEST READ RECEIPT to do the same thing. Eudora, The Bat, and most

common mail programs have this as a feature.”

Jury Awards $6.4 Million in Killings Tied to Drug: ‘A Wyoming jury has awarded $6.4 million to the family of a man who killed three relatives and himself after taking

the antidepressant Paxil.

Though many lawsuits have claimed that antidepressants in the same class of drugs, which includes Prozac and Zoloft,

have caused suicidal or violent behavior, this is the first case a plaintiff has won, lawyers in the case said.

Charles F. Preuss, a lawyer for the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline said the verdict on Wednesday was a surprise.

“This issue was raised in the early 90’s, and since that time all the scientific articles have concluded that these

antidepressants do not cause suicide or homicide or suicidal thoughts,” Mr. Preuss said.’ New York Times

When I heard that this suit was going to trial, I wrote here about how ridiculous it seemed. This verdict is just wrongheaded. Without establishing that the agitation was caused by the medication (which he had just begun the previous day) as opposed to the patient’s underlying psychiatric distress, the jury’s sentimental judgment on the pharmaceutical company’s liability seems to revolve around “the company’s failure to sufficiently warn doctors and patients that the effects of

the drug could include agitation and violence,” as the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued. They’re clearly going for the “deep pockets”; I’m no apologist for the pharmaceutical industry but the liability on this account, if any, belongs with the prescribing physician, who has the responsibility to be sufficiently informed about the medications (s)he uses, to provide informed consent to the patient to whom (s)he prescribes, and to adequately assess and followup.

It is one of my pet peeves that, as in this case, internists and other primary care MDs without sufficient mental health subtlety take lives into their hands by prescribing so readily for “depression.” The rest of the medical profession feels that what psychiatrists do is sufficiently arcane that comraderie with them is difficult; IMHO that should be more reason, not less, to refer rather than avoiding referring and trying to irresponsibly manage disorders for which they are ill-equipped and out of their depth (usually, with the usual medical hubris, without even realizing that that is so!) The drug manufacturers’ blame, if any, lies in targeting the primary care MDs so heavily in their marketing. If you promote the SSRI antidepressants as so easy to prescribe that any fool can do it, then any fool will. I emphasize that I know nothing about the specifics of the doctor’s actions in this case; my comments are generic. I’m mostly concerned because of the effect I’m going to see the publicity over this case having in my practice — on patients’ willingness to accept effective, safe and urgently needed treatments.

Juxtapose the above with the tragic mass killing of 1st and 2nd grade schoolchildren in a suburban Japanese elementary school. The “apparently deranged man” responsible for the act had an arrest record for attempting to poison students at another elementary school but had not been prosecuted because he was psychiatrically disturbed. New York Times

Controversy over high-intensity-discharge auto headlights USA Today

“Mr. Bush, you should heed the words of those you quote”.

Whoever writes speeches for President Bush either went to seminary or wanted to.

Bush’s major addresses are minor sermons filled with religious rhetoric…. Bush talked about “the weapons of the spirit” in a speech two Sundays ago. He was at the University of Notre Dame making a pitch for his faith-based initiative.

The President attributed the “weapons” phrase to Dorothy Day, who was a socialist, a pacifist, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. She died in 1980… It’s difficult to say what Day might have thought about being quoted by a man who made $14 million just for buying and selling a baseball team.

Day’s daughter and granddaughter didn’t care for it. In a May 23 letter to the Rutland (Vt.) Herald, Tamar and Martha Hennessy wrote:

“Dorothy’s life’s work was dedicated to picking up the pieces of human wreckage, the result of policies that continue to be perpetuated by the Bush administration.

It is shameful to have her efforts associated with an administration that gives priority to corporate profiteering over human needs…”

Memphis Commercial Appeal [via higgy’s page]

A source at MetaFilter reports that everyone was laid off from Automatic Media — which means R.I.P. Feed, Plastic and maybe Suck.

Procter & Gamble hoping to get more mileage out of olestra plant. Sales of the fat substitute have been disappointing, largely because of the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s consciousness-raising about its potential to cause gas, bloating, diarrhea and nausea as well as blocking the absorption of some nutrients. Now P&G is talking with federal regulators about using its manufacturing facility, currently operating at less than 50% of planned capacity, to make a similar substance that could be used to absorb oil spills and toxic chemicals for environmental cleanup. SF Chronicle

Chuck Taggart and I share the same unforgiving outrage about the theft of the American electoral process: ‘Read it. Be angry. And under no circumstances

listen to anyone who rolls his or eyes at you and tells you to

“just give up and move on”. ‘ Looka!

Where no Telescope Has Gone Before: “Radio telescopes, infrared and ultraviolet

detectors, x-ray and gamma-ray satellites — they’ve

revealed details of a cosmos teeming with exotic

objects like black holes and pulsars that don’t show

up through the eyepiece of an optical telescope.

Indeed, every part of the electromagnetic spectrum

has offered one surprise or another to astronomers.

Now, say astronomers, prepare to be surprised again. Just last month scientists at NASA’s

Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) opened a new wavelength band for high-sensitivity

astronomy: ‘hard’ x-rays.” Read more to find out about ‘hard’ x-rays and why this is such a feat. Science@NASA

Amorphophallus titanum – Web Cam ‘Latest update:

“Big Bucky” began to bloom this

afternoon after reaching a

height of 8 feet, four inches.’ [thanks, Higgy and Ditty!] Here’s another amorphophallus website, with better visuals, thanks to Looka!

Space News: Humans on Europa: A Plan for Colonies on the Icy Moon of Jupiter. “Frigid and ice-covered, Europa is believed to harbor a giant liquid ocean beneath its

crusty arctic surface, a primordial sea whose tidal motions are driven by Jovian gravity and

warmed by intense radiation given off by the giant planet.

Yet despite the planet’s fearsome environment, members of the Artemis Society, a private venture

dedicated establishing a permanent, self-supporting community on the Moon, also have set their

sites on the creation of a human colony at Europa.” And: “NASA selected two proposals Wednesday for possible

fly-by missions to faraway Pluto, keeping alive the possibility it will launch a spacecraft to the

yet-unexplored planet.” And: Asteroid Belt Like Ours Spotted Around

Another Star. “Astronomers announced today what they say is

the first solid evidence for solid rocks orbiting another star, an asteroid belt that might be similar to

the one surrounding our own Sun between Mars and Jupiter.

If true, the research points to the possibility of potential Earth-like planets in the making, or planets

that have been destroyed, or possibly even a giant planet like Jupiter that, though unseen,

orchestrates the chaos of collisions that created the debris.” And: Recent X-ray data suggests massive black holes were fed by monstrous galactic collisions.

Julian’s RockList Site: “At the end of each year, critics & readers of music publications select their favorite albums and singles

of the year.

Lists from publications including: New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Select, Q, Mojo, Rolling Stone,

Spin, & Village Voice, various European publications and several independent fanzines from around the

globe plus the complete John Peel Festive 50’s are included on this site.

There are critic single and album lists from 1974 to 2000, pop poll results from 1952 to 2000, personal

lists from critics including Dave Marsh and Robert Christgau plus All Time Best Film Soundtrack and

Banned recordings.” [via MetaFilter]

Place yourself on the Political Compass. I’m a solid southwesterner, as if you couldn’t already tell.

FBI Shooter in Ruby Ridge Killing Can Be Tried. Amazing precedent by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals finds that Lon Horiuchi can be prosecuted on involuntary manslaughter charges brought by the state of Idaho after an errant shot killed Vicki Weaver during the Ruby Ridge standoff in August 1992. His “malice or excessive zeal” invalidates the immunity federal agents are usually given for violations of state law in the performance of their duties. “The appeals court decision marked a fresh bombshell in a case which has been taken up by

right-wing groups and anti-government activists as an example of how federal agencies allegedly

trample the rights of U.S. citizens.” The vehement dissenting opinion used the usual hackneyed verbiage about the “chilling effect” this would have on federal law enforcement. Reuters

Cluster Ballooning: “I’ve flown helium cluster balloons nine times over the past several years, making me the most active among the three or four people worldwide

who have ever flown cluster balloons (see History and Technical Notes). A summary of my flights follows, along with links to photographic

accounts of some of the individual flights.” He’s been as high as 21,400 ft., with bottled oxygen and Air Traffic Control clearance. His next flight over the Sierras this summer will be used in a video using ballooning to teach math and science concepts to schoolchildren.

An Amorphophallus titanum, the world’s largest flower at 8′, with a fragrance like rotting meat, is about to bloom at the Botany Dept. of the University of Wisconsin. The plant is native to Sumatra and there have been only 15 blooms in ‘captivity’ in the U.S. The link takes you to a live webcam watching and waiting. Write me, please, if you happen to log in and find that the blessed event has occurred. [via MetaFilter]

Romany gypsies are threatening to sue IBM over its alleged

involvement in the Holocaust. ‘In a case similar to that brought and then dropped by Washington

DC law firm Cohen, Milfield, Hausfeld and Toll earlier this year, the

action revolves around IBM’s Hollerith tabulating machinery.

This is believed to have been used by the Nazis to track and identify

their victims.

“The spontaneous, unceasing, self-willed delivery to IBM Germany of

IBM machines….is a conscious and deliberate act of participation in

an administrative organisation dedicated to…racial destruction,”

said (the) groups’ lawyer…’ The Register

At last they’ve found life after evolution: “Entrants for this year’s Aventis Prize,

the world’s most important science

book award, have departed from the

usual formula…” Telegraph UK