“It may make political sense to point to Canada as a solution to high prescription drug prices in the United States. But many economists and health care experts say that importing drugs from countries that control their prices would do little to solve the problem of expensive drugs in the United States, where companies are free to set their own prices. Even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that allowing Canadian drug imports would have a ‘negligible’ impact on drug spending.” (New York Times)
John Kerry for President
Hitchhiker Returns
A new radio series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is being aired on BBC Radio-4; you can listen to each episode on the web for a week after its broadcast.
Life Outtacontext: A Neighborly Encounter from the Right
“The caustic nature of this year’s Presidential campaign hit closer to home today.” — Jeff Gates
Related? Some of us may have neanderthal neighbors; but if you have ever been interested in exploring our neanderthal ancestors (more accurately, “cousins”, not our direct forebears), you will find interesting stuff here from PBS’ Nova.
In the Raw
‘Home-Made’ Porn and Reality Genres: “This paper is an exploration of the growing taste for amateur or ‘reality’ pornography, situating it within the larger context of the rise of reality genres more generally. It sees such a preference as one possible response to the onslaught of images of perfection and the cult of the body beautiful, and thus as a mode of resistance to consumer culture. A ‘taste for the ordinary’ must be understood not only as an erotic preference but also as a part of complex shifts in the very idea of ordinariness. This paper draws on interviews with people working in the image industries, including a maker of homemade porn, to explore the paradoxes of this interest in the mundane.” — Ruth Barcan, of the University of Western Sydney, Australia (Journal of Mundane Behavior)
Google’s Desktop Search is valuable, yet creepy
“…hugely valuable, yet occasionally creepy. Desktop Search does three things in particular that could compromise your privacy when someone else uses your computer…” (Yahoo! News)
Paper: Jeb Bush Ignored Felon List Advice
“Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ignored advice to throw out a flawed felon voter list before it went out to county election offices despite warnings from state officials, according to a published report Saturday…
A software program matched data on felons with voter registration rolls to create the list of 48,000 names. Secretary of State Glenda Hood junked the database in July after acknowledging that 2,500 ex-felons on the list had had their voting rights restored.
Most were Democrats, and many were black. Hispanics, who often vote Republican in Florida, were almost entirely absent from the list due to a technical error. ” (Yahoo! News)
Yeah, right, ‘technical error’…
And: Block the Vote: “Vote-tampering is the inevitable result of a Republican Party culture in which dirty tricks that distort the vote are rewarded, not punished.” — Paul Krugman (New York Times op-ed)
Schneier on Security:
Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram is now available as a weblog, continuously updated instead of once monthly.
Schneier on Security:
Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram is now available as a weblog, continuously updated instead of once monthly.
Death Mask Gallery
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Army Probes Whether G.I.’s Refused a Mission in Iraq
“According to The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss., a platoon of 17 soldiers refused to go on a fuel supply mission Wednesday because their vehicles were in poor shape and they did not have a capable armed escort.” (New York Times) As the military remains bogged down in an increasingly pointless and dangerous morass, I expect we will see increasing insubordination of this sort. It will be interesting to see whether, in an army made up entirely of enlistees, we will even begin to see ‘fragging’ of officers by those under their command as we saw in Vietnam among largely involuntary conscripts. At first blush, conscripts feel more desperately trapped in their pointless mission — and do more desperate things in response — than those who, having volunteered, have a motivation to continue to believe in what they are doing. The outrageousness of the Iraqi occupation in the eyes of those on the ground may, however, make it difficult for them to maintain such self-deception.
Six to Be Tried in Pa. Bush Thong Protest
Six men arrested in July for stripping to thong underwear and forming a human pyramid as Bush’s motorcade passed will be defended by the ACLU on protected speech grounds. The protesters were replicating one of the humiliating positions which Abu Ghraib prisoners were forced to assume, in order to shame the president, they said… but of course that is disorderly conduct.
Sunday Halloween Irks Some in Bible Belt
“Some towns around the country are decreeing that Halloween be celebrated on Saturday to avoid complaints from those who might be offended by the sight of demons and witches ringing their doorbell on the Sabbath. Others insist the holiday should be celebrated on Oct. 31 no matter what.” (Yahoo! News)
Supreme Court Quietly Changes Piracy Debate
Hands Internet services providers and privacy advocates crucial victory “…in deciding to pass on an important Internet piracy case.
The morning papers, however, missed the boat on reporting the significance of the case, with most newspapers skipping the development all together or running wire copy on their sites.
In refusing to hear the case, the justices rebuffed an effort by the recording industry to establish once and for all that Internet service providers should have to hand over the identities of suspected file-swappers who subscribe to their networks. They also tacitly rejected the notion that the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a legitimate tool for tracking down Internet pirates.” (Yahoo! News)
Poll reveals world anger at Bush
“Eight out of 10 countries favour Kerry for president.” (Guardian.UK)
Latest Study: Chemicals Sickened ’91 Gulf War Veterans
“We’re not crazy. If I’m a little nuts, it’s because I’ve been sick so long…”
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“A federal panel of medical experts studying illnesses among veterans of the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf has broken with several earlier studies and concluded that many suffer from neurological damage caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, rejecting past findings that the ailments resulted mostly from wartime stress.
Citing new scientific research on the effects of exposure to low levels of neurotoxins, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses concludes in its draft report that ‘a substantial proportion of Gulf War veterans are ill with multisymptom conditions not explained by wartime stress or psychiatric illness.’
It says a growing body of research suggests that many veterans’ symptoms have a neurological cause and that there is a ‘probable link’ to exposure to neurotoxins.
The report says possible sources include sarin, a nerve gas, from an Iraqi weapons depot blown up by American forces in 1991; a drug, pyridostigmine bromide, given to troops to protect against nerve gas; and pesticides used to protect soldiers in the region.” (New York Times)
The Earth’s most fragile places
“Climate scientists believe there are 12 primary spots to watch for the first devastating effects of global warming.” (Salon)
Medical Bar Code Implant May Not Be Worth the Trouble
“Call me a cynic, but I don’t think a rice-sized RFID chip above my elbow is going to save my life, or anyone else’s. At least not anytime soon…
First off, the chip doesn’t contain any medical information, something that was missed by many accounts, especially on television. It contains a 16-digit code that can be read by a $650 scanner—something that a health care provider may or may not have. These scanners are hooked into software that can pull up medical information, as specified by the patient.
Based on the actual information provided to the care giver, the RFID product is much the same as lower-tech and vastly-cheaper products such as alert bracelets or plastic cards that inform emergency personnel to contact an information center. While the chip may be able to provide information faster, the speed only comes if medical providers have all the right equipment in working order. The other systems are almost universally accessible, and again, they cost much less.
Getting the chip inserted costs between $150 and $200, according a report. After that, the Global VeriChip Subscriber Registry service costs $9.95 a month, billed to a subscriber’s credit card. Subscriptions for similar low-tech services cost less than a third of this price.
As far as I can tell, the VeriChip service suffers from the exact same problem that the low tech versions do: patients will be unwilling to pay for them, and providers won’t trust that patients will update their information.” (Yahoo! News)
Germany in rethink on Iraq force deployment
“Germany might deploy troops in Iraq if conditions there change, Peter Struck, the German defence minister, indicated on Tuesday in a gesture that appears to provide backing for John Kerry, the US Democratic presidential challenger.” (Financial Times)
My fellow non-Americans …
“The result of the US election will affect the lives of millions around the world but those of us outside the 50 states have had no say in it – until now. In a unique experiment, G2 has assembled a democratic toolkit to enable people from Basildon to Botswana to campaign in the presidential race. And with a little help from the folks in Clark County, Ohio, you might help decide who takes up residence in the White House next month.” (Guardian.UK)
Boycott Sinclair Broadcast Group Advertisers
A web site calling for the boycotting of Sinclair lists known advertisers in local markets and their contact info. You can search by market and see what local businesses advertise on Sinclair stations, call them up, and let them know you won’t tolerate Sinclair’s Swift Boat-like political attack masquerading as news programming, and they shouldn’t be paying for it. The site asks for anyone calling advertisers, though, to be polite about it…
Scholars flunk Bush on foreign policy
“An open letter to the Bush administration from a group called ‘Security Scholars for a Sensible Foreign Policy’ argues that the Bush administration’s foreign policy is a catastrophe of historic proportions.
With more than 700 signatories from professors of politics and international relations at institutions including Stanford, Princeton and the University of Wales, the letter begins by declaring, ‘We judge that the current American policy centered around the war in Iraq is the most misguided one since the Vietnam period,’ and goes on to catalog the low points of the Bush administration’s foreign relations (with proper footnoting, of course).” (Salon)
Democracy ver. 2
Florida Election Ballot: What happens when Jeb Bush and Diebold put their heads together?
R.I.P. Jacques Derrida?
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Is Derrida dead? “We know only two things. We do not know. And M Derrida is in no position to enlighten us.” I hope this cheeky Times of London comment is not the only thing that passes for an obituary for Derrida in that august periodical, but it would not surprise me if it were. The central assertion of Derrida’s deconstructionism, as I understand it, that the inherent uncertainties of language defeat any intended clear meaning of the author of a text and leave it with ambiguous significance has been maddening to those who maintain a more classical ideal of truth and have a certain authoritativeness to uphold. Is it with absurdist, ironic or reverent intent that a paragraph of this two-paragraph glyph on Derrida is devoted to (perhaps the ultimate audacious truth hacker) Alan Sokol, and written in what I expect is a parody of postmodern French impenetrable prose?
Kerry Haters for Kerry
“Are you going to vote for John Kerry even though you find him unpleasant, annoying, arrogant, waffling, misguided, or just generally unappealing in some profound way? Then you’ve come to the right place! We’re Kerry Haters for Kerry — perhaps his largest constituency! No need to hide in the Kerryhating closet anymore while you pretend to everyone that he’ll be a great president. Here you are among friends. You can speak freely and honestly. You can admit: ‘He’s awful! And I’m for him!’ Each of us has his or her reasons for arriving at this position…”
These people may tout their tongue-in-cheek sense of humor but they’ll be tonguing out of the other side of their mouth if their emphasis contributes to defeating the effort to evict Bush.
Truth Stranger Than Strangelove
“Dr. Strangelove dared to suggest — with yucks! — that our top generals might be bonkers and that our well-designed system for preserving the peace was in fact a doomsday machine. What few people knew, at the time and since, was just how accurate this film was. Its premise, plotline, some of the dialogue, even its wildest characters eerily resembled the policies, debates and military leaders of the day.” — Fred Kaplan (New York Times)
New Google Service May Strain Old Ties in Bookselling
“Google Print, the new search engine that allows consumers to search the content of books online, could help touch off an important shift in the balance of power between companies that produce books and those that sell them, publishing executives said here on Thursday…
The new service would allow users of Google’s main search engine to search simultaneously billions of Web pages and the texts of hundreds of thousands of books for information on a given subject. They search works by looking for words or phrases in the scanned digital images of the pages of books that publishers have provided to Google.
For each book found, a user would see several pages of the book with the phrase or subject of the search highlighted. The page would also offer links to several online retailers, where the book could be bought. Publishers do not pay to participate in the program; rather, Google would make money from the service by selling advertising on the search pages, and it would share those revenues with the publishing companies.” (New York Times)
The Faith-Based Missile Shield
“The Bush administration’s exorbitantly wasteful missile defense system is about to be formally activated – just in time for Election Day.” (New York Times editorial)
Can Prayers Heal?
Critics Say Studies Go Past Science’s Reach. “The government has spent $2.3 million in the past 4 years to study something that critics say has nothing to do with science.” (New York Times)
The State vs. the Great Man
“…If Cheney seems too-focused on state-sponsored terrorism, Kerry and Edwards at least seem too focused on what might be called the ‘Great Man Theory of Terrorism,’ placing much too much public emphasis on the capture of Osama bin Laden– as if that would make the al Qaeda network (and its future imitators) wither away. … P.S.: I don’t think Kerry really buys this theory–he also said, in Debate #1
‘I believe that a fresh start, new credibility, a president who can understand what we have to do to reach out to the Muslim world to make it clear that this is not, you know — Osama bin Laden uses the invasion of Iraq in order to go out to people and say that America has declared war on Islam.
We need to be smarter about now we wage a war on terror. We need to deny them the recruits.’
That’s why I’m for him. But the opportunistic public focus on bin Laden himself is off-putting. … ” — Mickey Kaus (Slate )
Kerry Haters for Kerry
“Are you going to vote for John Kerry even though you find him unpleasant, annoying, arrogant, waffling, misguided, or just generally unappealing in some profound way? Then you’ve come to the right place! We’re Kerry Haters for Kerry — perhaps his largest constituency! No need to hide in the Kerryhating closet anymore while you pretend to everyone that he’ll be a great president. Here you are among friends. You can speak freely and honestly. You can admit: ‘He’s awful! And I’m for him!’ Each of us has his or her reasons for arriving at this position…”
These people may tout their tongue-in-cheek sense of humor but they’ll be tonguing out of the other side of their mouth if their emphasis contributes to defeating the effort to evict Bush.
The Town Hall Debate
This New York Times editorial singles out what for me was the most outrageous moment in Bush’s debate performance. I hope the import of it was not lost on those who actually still need to use the debates to make up their minds.
“One of the uncommitted voters in the audience sensibly asked President Bush to name three mistakes he’d made in office, and what he had done to remedy the damage. Mr. Bush declined to list even one, and instead launched into an impassioned defense of the invasion of Iraq as a good idea. The president’s insistence on defending his decision to go into Iraq seemed increasingly bizarre in a week when his own investigators reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction there, and when his own secretary of defense acknowledged that there was no serious evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
Even worse, the president’s refusal to come up with even a minor error – apart from saying that he might have made some unspecified appointments that he now regretted – underscores his inability to respond to failure in any way except by insisting over and over again that his original decision was right.”
Air Force pursuing antimatter weapons
Program was touted publicly, then came official gag order: “During the Cold War, the Air Force funded numerous scientific studies of the basic physics of antimatter. With the knowledge gained, some Air Force insiders are beginning to think seriously about potential military uses — for example, antimatter bombs small enough to hold in one’s hand, and antimatter engines for 24/7 surveillance aircraft.” (SF Chronicle)
They’re hatin’ it
“Why do they hate McDonald’s so much? Some of us might not think its food tastes that great, but surely that is a matter of, well, taste. There is no evidence that eating a McDonald’s meal is bad for you, but plenty to suggest that it is being made an easy scapegoat for obesity.
I want to let you in on a scientific secret. There is no such thing as ‘junk food’. Given the news coverage that it attracts, this may sound like saying that there is no war in Iraq. But junk food really is a myth. As Professor Stanley Feldman from the University of London told me: ‘Of course, some foods taste better or are more nutritious. But the idea that some are ‘junk’ – containing nothing of value, or harmful to our health – is nonsense.” — Mick Hume (spiked)
TiVo for Audio?
Podcasts: New Twist on Net Audio: “‘It’s aggregating audio content, but it’s taking one extra step, in that it’s putting it on your device,’ said Adam Curry, who built the first podcasting aggregator, known as iPodder. ‘Not only do these devices play it, but you don’t have to put it there yourself. It just happens automatically.’
To get audio feeds, users simply connect their MP3 player to their computer, go online, and subscribe to feeds they want the podcasting service to provide. Audio content is then pushed from the original source to an aggregator and then to the subscriber.
To some, podcasting is one of the most exciting innovations to come along in quite awhile. They see it opening up an endlessly varied universe of audio content to anyone who wants it at any time.” (Wired)
Feds seize Indymedia servers
“The FBI yesterday seized a pair of UK servers used by Indymedia, the independent newsgathering collective, after serving a subpoena in the US on Indymedia’s hosting firm, Rackspace. Why or how remains unclear.
Rackspace UK complied with a legal order and handed over hard disks without first notifying Indymedia. It’s unclear if the raid was executed under extra-territorial provisions of US legislation or the UK’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). Provisions of RIPA make it a criminal offence to discuss warrants, so Rackspace would not be able to discuss the action with its customer Indymedia, or with the media.” (The )Register
The Scary Little Man
“More unsettling than Bush’s demonstrable agitation was his almost uncanny disconnect from reality.” — William Rivers Pitt (truthout)
Bush Unplugged
The official denial from his campaign is now on the record (Media Channel)
‘How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office’
One Pissed Off Voter (Alternet)
Bush’s Isolation From Reporters Could Be a Hindrance
Some Presidential Advisers Worry That He Could Pay Price During Debates for Being Overprotected. “‘If you don’t talk to the press and deal with audiences with some degree of skepticism, you can’t build understanding so people have confidence in you in hard times. His handlers think they’re doing him a favor, but they’re not.'” (Washington Post)
Hypocrisy On Spy Reform
‘Legislators have embraced the commission’s call for a national intelligence director and national counterterrorism center that would, in theory, coordinate intelligence efforts in the executive branch. But they have ignored or gutted the commission’s proposal for similar reforms in the way Congress oversees intelligence.
“Of all our recommendations, strengthening congressional oversight may be among the most difficult and important,” the commissioners stressed in their final report. They urged that Congress give its intelligence committees control over both authorizations and appropriations — so that the committees would finally have the muscle to provide real oversight.’ — David Ignatius (Washington Post op-ed)
The Verdict Is In
“Sanctions worked. Weapons inspectors worked. That is the bottom line of the long-awaited report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” (New York Times editorial)
Iraq: 12 killed in possible wedding party attack
This is not the first time that US devastation of what military command describes as a suspected ‘safe house’ for foreign fighters is countered by claims by opponents of our occupation of Iraq that what was really attacked was a wedding party. Not that I trust the US government’s version of reality too often, but it does seem that the critics use the wedding party excuse — even at midweek, at that — a little too consistently.
Why Did James Baker Turn Bush Into Nixon?
Frank Rich:: “Only Election Day will reveal if Sept. 30, 2004, set off a political chain reaction to match that of Sept. 26, 1960; then as now the candidates soon settled down into a post-debate statistical dead heat in the horse race (Kennedy 49, Nixon 46, according to Gallup). But at the very least the first Bush-Kerry debate marked the moment that the savvy Bush-Cheney machine lost its once-invincible grip on the all-important TV game and, just like Nixon before it, did so because of its own blunders, not any sorcery by the opposing J. F. K.” (New York Times)
What If Bush Didn’t Lie?
Doug Giebel thinks Bush’s world is falling apart. Readers of FmH know that I have long speculated that Bush is an incurious and malleable patsy of his handlers in the misadministration; a rigid credulous ne’er-do-well of simpleminded faith who has not been lying so much as lied to by his advisers puppetmasters. Giebel agrees, and thinks that what we were seeing in the first debate was Dubya’s dawning realization, despite being the “most insulated leader in our history”, of the contradictions. It is crediting Bush with alot, I know, to think that he is beginning to grasp this. Giebel actually seems to pity the man, which is a neat solution to the pain it causes some of us to hold him in such utter contempt. (Counterpunch)
Related: Here, an intriguing notion of how they might feed the puppet Bush his lines when he is onstage:
Is Bush wired?: “This site is a clearinghouse for discussion of whether President Bush uses an earpiece through which he’s fed lines and cues by offstage advisers. His speech rhythms suggest this, as do some of his word choices and interjections, and his constantly shifting eye movements while speaking. And there’s another form of evidence: Television viewers have sometimes heard another voice speaking Bush’s words before he says them. When Bush spoke at D-Day ceremonies in France last June, for example, viewers watching on CNN, Fox and MSNBC, including mediachannel.org’s Danny Schechter, were startled to hear another voice speaking Bush’s words as if to prompt him. Some said this continued into a q & a. And on the night of 9/11, when Bush appeared on television to address the nation, viewers of one television station in Quincy, Massachusetts heard another voice speaking, slowly and carefully, a few words at a time — words which were then recited by the president. The voice was nondescript, male, definitely not the president’s voice, says Quincy resident Robyn Miller. This went on for at least four sentences, she says, and then the ‘extra’ feed was cut off.” [via boing boing]
Is Dad keeping it real?
Cheney slip sends Net surfers to anti-Bush site
“In answering a question about his involvement with Halliburton, Cheney meant to direct people to FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan site run by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. He urged people watching the debate to go to the site for facts countering Edwards’ statements about the corporation Cheney used to run.
But Cheney cited FactCheck.com, a for-profit advertising site based in the Cayman Islands.
The company decided to redirect traffic to the Soros site after it became inundated with hits — about 100 a second after the debate, John Berryhill, a Philadelphia lawyer for FactCheck.com, said Wednesday.
‘This was to relieve stress on the service and to express a political point of view,’ said Berryhill, who spoke with the site’s administrators shortly after the debate ended.” (CNN)
"the fitful tracing of a portal"
A very happy fourth blogiversary to an all-time favorite and daily read, wood s lot… if you can call it a blog.
One Big Fat Egregious Liar
“Last night, Dick Cheney said, ‘The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.’ Turns out that this isn’t true. Soon after the debate, the media was given a photograph of one such meeting…”
That’s not all. Although Edwards had pretty much been running for president, and indeed missing many important votes, for the past two years, Cheney rarely meets Democratic senators in his weekly trips to the Hill. Although he represented himself as coming to the Senate in his presiding role, he’s really there for a weekly lunch witht he Republican senatorial delegation.
Some more Bush League lies, via boing boing:
“Determined to win the post-debate spin war on Tuesday night, the Bush campaign called on its supporters to flood the news media with quick declarations that Vice President Dick Cheney had come out ahead.
Ken Mehlman, Mr. Bush’s campaign manager, delivered the request in an e-mail message to supporters early Tuesday morning. ” (New York Times )
Why Don’t Americans Care?
Do you know who Halliburton is? Dick Cheney? How about Karl Rove? Alas, most Americans don’t: “It seems hard to believe. But the general rule of thumb is that major cities are slightly more attuned due to aggressive media saturation and how issues tend to make themselves known more urgently, more immediately, whereas Middle America is a scattershot conglomeration of the politically apathetic and the actively disenfranchised, full of people far too busy with their lives and kids and jobs and zoning out on ‘Fear Factor’ and ‘Monday Night Football’ to care about following the elitist, ever dire dramas playing out on the nation’s gilded stages.
Most Americans, in other words, have no idea what the hell a Halliburton is. Or a Karl Rove. Or a Donny ‘Shriveled Soul’ Rumsfeld. Or a Lockheed Martin. Or a Carlysle Group. Or have any idea that Saddam had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Or that WMDs were never found. Or that President Bush has taken more vacation time than any president in U.S. history. Or that Jesus thinks Dubya is ‘sort of a dink.’ Or where Iraq is on a map.” — Mark Morford, (San Francisco Chronicle)
Killer rock
“…we look rock ‘n’ roll death in the eye and examine some of the most ghoulish trends in rock history…”, including the ‘deadest bands in rock’ and the ‘deadliest jobs’ in the field. (New York Daily News)
Sprawl May Harm Health, Study Finds
“People who live in sprawling communities tend to suffer more health problems, according to the first study to document a link between the world of strip malls, cul-de-sacs and subdivisions and a broad array of ailments.” (Washington Post)
Unintended Consequences Dept:
Vitamin boosts may increase death rate of users: “Thousands of people could be dying prematurely from vitamin supplements, researchers report today, stating that the pills increase the death rate of those who take them by 6 per cent.
One in three women and one in four men in the UK is estimated to take dietary supplements for health reasons. But a review of 14 trials of vitamin pills taken by 170,000 people found they increased the death rate by 6 per cent. While they offered no explanation as to what caused the deaths, they discovered that the supplements offered no protection against cancers of the gut.” (Independent.UK)
Could it be that people who take vitamins, as compared to those who don’t, are more anxious about their health, and that this is correlated with the excess mortality, either because they have something about which to be anxious, or because the anxiety itself has adverse health consequences?
The Submerging World
Bill McKibben says that low-lying islands are being drowned. They are the ‘canaries in the coalmine’ of global warming, since
“warm water takes up more space than cold water does. That simple fact of physics, utterly inexorable, is one of the two or three most important pieces of information humans will have to grapple with in this century…
Admittedly, no one intends this destruction — on the other hand, nobody is doing much of anything to stop it, either. Eventually, of course, our inaction will do enormous damage even to our midlatitude fortress continent. Those pictures of crumbling foundations, swelling lagoons — that’s our future too, along with parched deserts, dying forests, discombobulated agriculture. But by the time that future kicks in, later in the century, we will be hard-pressed to say we don’t deserve it. Right now, global warming is coming first for the Tuvaluans — a little like last century’s scourge came first for the Jews. It took us too long, but eventually we roused ourselves to help meet that challenge with sacrifice and with fortitude. I wonder what we’ll do about this one.” (Orion )
One World Health
New Scientist interviews Vicki Hale, founder of the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company, which is obtaining the rights to ‘orphan drugs’ for rare but devastating diseases traditional drug companies have little incentive to address.
Long Strange Trip
“It has been a long trip for psychedelic drugs, but they’re creeping toward prescription status in the US, thanks to a group of persistent scientists who say they can help people with mental disorders and chronic pain.” (Wired)
Bad Thoughts
New Scientist interviews Jamie Whyte, author of Crimes Against Logic.
“In your book you are quite harsh on religion. Aren’t people entitled to their faith?
This is one of my favourite errors. An interesting change has happened, at least in the west. It used to be that people would argue for a particular religious dogma or a clear religious doctrine. That is no longer what happens. The world is increasingly dividing into those who have “faith” and those who don’t. It doesn’t really matter what the faith is. That is why you now get “faith groups” coming together from all kinds of different religions. The weirdest manifestation of this new tendency is when people say: “I’m not a Christian but I believe in something.” Then I say: “Of course, I believe in many things, like there is a chair there and a table. What are you talking about?” And they reply: “Well, you know, something more.” But what “more”? What they mean is something more than we have any good reason to believe in.
That really seems to get to you!
What amazes me is that they like to set themselves up as having a slightly finer sensibility than you or me but in fact they are completely intellectually irresponsible. They used to come up with very bad arguments for their faiths but at least they felt that there was something they should provide. Now mere wilfulness has triumphed. This is what I describe as the egocentric approach to truth. You are no longer interested in reality because to do that you have to be pretty rigorous, you have to have evidence or do some experimentation. Rather, beliefs are part of your wardrobe. You’ve got a style and how dare anybody tell you that your style isn’t right. Ideology is seen as simply a matter of taste and as it’s not right to tell people that they’ve got bad taste, so it’s not right to tell them that their opinions are false. I’m afraid that the cast of mind of most people is the opposite of scientific. “
Italians fall out of love with ‘two Simonas’
“Italy’s adoration of the ‘two Simonas’, the women aid workers abducted in Iraq, began to sour yesterday, as the extent of their sympathy for the Iraqi fight against the allied occupation became clear.” (Telegraph.UK)
On a Matter of Life or Death, a Patient Is Overruled
“In intensive care units, the steamroller of technology starts moving quickly, flattening all ambivalence.
…’If you get through this,’ I whispered to Mr. Smith, ‘I hope you can forgive me.’
I have never been able to balance satisfactorily in my own mind the twin pillars of modern medical ethics: patient autonomy and the physician’s obligation to do the best for his patient. As a doctor, when do you let your patient make a bad decision? When, if ever, do you draw the line? What if a decision could cost your patient’s life? How hard do you push him to change his mind? At the same time, it is his life. Who are you to tell him how to live it?” (New York Times)
In this troubling essay, the physician seems to justify an invasive outright violation of a competent patient’s clearly expressed directives because the patient is grateful several weeks later. The physician asserts that no one really wants to die, and agrees enthusiastically with a colleague, in a travesty of a competency assessment, that if the patient had expressed a wish not to have heroic measures, his thinking wasn’t straight. This style of medicine is pitiful in its singleminded, vain and ultimately of course pointless quest to cheat death at all costs. The pride physicians like this take in their seeming omnipotence and omniscience make me ashamed of my profession. I am surprised that the author was so un-self-conscious as to have no embarrassment at having portrayed himself in this light. There are any number of vignettes most of us can describe — or which you can see on ER every week — that describe the subtleties of medical decision-making in the face of ethical dilemmas… but this is not one.
Cracks in the Facade
“The former U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq says the United States ‘paid a big price’ for not having enough troops on the ground after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime.” (CNN)
“Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared Monday to back off earlier statements suggesting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda.
He also conceded that U.S. intelligence was “wrong” in its conclusions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.” (CNN) What is going on here? Is it possible that, in the aftermath of the debate, as Bush’s inability to admit his mistakes seems as if it will lose the election for him, he is sending out his minions to see how a ‘flip flop’ would play?
Oh, and: Poland (as in “Don’t forget Poland”) is pulling out of the coalition of the misbegotten.
Kerry, Newest Neocon
Safire just doesn’t get it: “As the Democratic Whoopee Brigade hailed Senator Kerry’s edge in debating technique, nobody noticed his foreign policy sea change. On both military tactics and grand strategy, the newest neoconservative announced doctrines more hawkish than President Bush.” (New York Times op-ed)
Two Peoples, One State
Should Palestinians give up on an independent state?:
“As Christians and Muslims, the millions of Palestinians under occupation are not welcome in the Jewish state. Many Palestinians are now convinced that Israeli support for a Palestinian state is motivated not by a hope for reconciliation, but by a desire to segregate non-Jews while taking as much of their land and resources as possible. They are increasingly questioning the most commonly accepted solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – ‘two states living side by side in peace and security,’ in the words of President Bush – and are being forced to consider a one-state solution.” — Michael Tarazi, a legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization (New York Times op-ed)
‘Fairness and Balance’ Dept.
Fabricated Kerry Posting Leads to Apology From Fox News: “Plenty of news media analysts thought Senator John Kerry looked good at Thursday night’s presidential debate, but Fox News went a step further, posting a made-up news article on its Web site that quoted Mr. Kerry as gloating about his fine manicure and his ‘metrosexual’ appearance.
Fox News quickly retracted the article, saying in an editor’s note on its Web site that the article ‘was written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast.” It said, ‘We regret the error, which occurred because of fatigue and bad judgment, not malice…” (New York Times )
The well-respected senior Fox correspondent who wrote the story has been ‘reprimanded’ but continues to report from the campaign trail. Fox has declined to say what action, if any, was taken against those who reviewed the article for posting. The New York Times places this incident in the context of “a time when journalistic errors and lapses both big and small have called into question the credibility of a number of major news organizations”, citing the CBS News embarrassment about the Bush National Guard documents. No mention is made of the Times’ own besmirched record in covering the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and its role in the totally uncritical media coverage of candidate Bush in the 2000 campaign.
Widower promotes John Kerry for president in wife’s obituary
“Send no flowers to commemorate Jane Buffett’s death, her husband asks. Instead, send John Kerry to the White House.
In a paid obituary published in Madison’s two daily newspapers, Roger Buffett celebrated his wife’s years as a mother, homemaker, grandmother and English teacher. But, he said, she was ‘outraged’ by President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and then expecting ‘her grandchildren to pay the bills.’ Other Bush administration policies angered her as well.”
Global : Ideas : Bank
“The global ideas bank aims to promote and disseminate good creative ideas to improve society. It further aims to encourage the public to generate these ideas, to participate in the problem-solving process.
These ideas we term social inventions: non-technological, non-product, non-gadget ideas for social change. These are a mix of existing projects, fledgling initiatives and new bright ideas.
In this way, the Global Ideas Bank is part-suggestions box, part-ideas network and part-democratic think-tank, giving the “ordinary” person a chance to have their creativity recognised, rewarded and even put into practice. “
Scientists Hit Campaign Trail for Kerry
Scientists Hit Campaign Trail for Kerry
Fear of Flying
“A new source has emerged with what she says is personal knowledge about why George W. Bush prematurely left his Texas National Guard unit in 1972 — because nerves, fear and a possible drinking problem were affecting his ability to pilot his F-102A plane. If true, this information further confirms a growing body of evidence that Bush has not been candid about his departure from his unit. At various times the President and his spokespersons have offered shifting rationales, from the planned eventual mothballing of the F-102As, to his doctor’s unavailability to give him a flight physical, to a professional opportunity in another state.
However, Janet Linke of Jacksonville, Florida, says that it all came down to an inability to perform. Linke is the widow of Jan Peter Linke, who was brought into Bush’s National Guard unit to replace him when Bush left the unit and the state for Alabama in May 1972.” (The Nation)
Faith vs. reason
Of everything I have read analyzing the first debate, Sidney Blumenthal best captures the depths of what was revealed about Bush’s fear, inadequacy, unpreparedness and inflexibility when he has to think on his feet. He concludes:
“The greater his frustration in the debate, the more frequently he spoke of his difficulties in coping with “my job.” “In Iraq, no doubt about it, it’s tough. It’s hard work,” he said. Ten times he spoke of his “hard work”: listening to intelligence briefings, training Iraqi troops, talking to allies, having to comfort a bereaved mother whose son was killed in Iraq.
Finally, near the end, Kerry praised Bush for his public service, and his wife, and his daughters. “I’m trying to put a leash on them,” Bush said. That was hard work, too. “Well, I don’t know,” replied Kerry, who also has daughters. “I’ve learned not to do that, Mr. President.” Even in the banter about parental control, Kerry gained the upper hand.
But Bush lost more than control in the first debate. He lost the plot. ” (Salon )
Even forgeting about content, ‘Body language expert’ says Kerry “more presidential”:
“Patti Wood, an Atlanta-based consultant, told BBC News Online that Mr Kerry appeared more respectful and in control.
Mr Bush sounded arrogant and unable to control his emotions, especially in the latter part of the debate, she contends.
However, Ms Wood says, Mr Bush at times radiated warmth in a way that Mr Kerry could not emulate.” (BBC )
But Derrick Jackson thinks Kerry made one crucial mistake in the debate… and that it might end up costing him the election. (Boston Globe op-ed) And Conason cautionsthat, after the euphoria, “…Kerry and his advisors had better not get too cocky over their victory in the first debate.” (Salon) But, for the moment, let’s be cocky… and full of schadenfreude. Here, from the DNC, is a greatest-hits compilation of Bush’s smirks from the debate.
On Television: Candidates Most Telling When They Aren’t Talking
“When President Bush leaned over his lectern and talked directly into the camera, he had the same firm, squared-off look he brings to a presidential address from the Oval Office.
When the networks (flouting the debate rules) cut to Mr. Bush while Senator John Kerry was speaking, the president had the hunched shoulders and the peevish, defensive look of an incumbent under heavy attack.
And it was body language as much as rhetoric and one-liners that distinguished the two candidates in last night’s debate. The networks were right to disregard the campaigns’ ban on cutaways and reaction shots. Instead, all the networks, including Fox News, lavished viewers with split screens and shots of the candidates from almost every angle, including shots from behind the president’s tensely knotted back.” (New York Times)
Resumé
This has done the rounds but deserves to be posted again since it apparently election season:
Past Work Experience:
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.
I produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
I bought an oil company, but couldn’t find any oil in Texas; the company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.
With my father’s help and name, I was elected Governor of Texas.Accomplishments as Governor:
I changed pollution laws in favor of the power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.
I replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America.
I cut taxes and bankrupted Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
I set the record for the most executions by any Governor in American history.
I became U.S. President after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes with the help of major Enron money and my father’s appointments to the Supreme Court.Accomplishments as President:
I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
I entered my office with the strongest economy in U.S. history and have turned every single economic category downward — all in less than two years.
I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most resented country in the world, possibly the largest failure of diplomacy in World history.
I am the first president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
I set the the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one year period,
I am supporting development of a “Tactical Bunker Buster” nuke, a WMD.
I am getting our troops killed, under the lie of Sadam’s procurement of Yellow Cake Nuke WMD components, then blaming the lie on our British friends.
I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. president.
In my first year in office over 2-million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any president in U.S. history.
I set the record for least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
I signed more laws and executive orders effectively amending or ignoring the Constitution than any president in history.
I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.
I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use national reserves as past presidents have done.
I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families — in war time.
I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people) shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I’ve dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.
I’ve made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.
I’m proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history.
My “poorest millionaire,” Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
I am the first president in U.S. history to have almost all 50 states of the Union simultaneously suffer massive financial crisis.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in history.
I am the first president in U.S. history to order a pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
I created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in history.
I am the first president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in U.S. history.
I rendered the entire United Nations viewpoints irrelevant.
I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. “prisoners of war” (detainees) and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
I am the first president in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).
I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.
My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation) presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. history. My political party used the Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.
I am first president in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
I am the first U.S. president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the U.S. than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set an all-time record for the number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling their huge personal investments in corporations bidding for U.S. contracts.
I failed to fulfill my pledge to capture Osama Bin Laden, dead or alive.
I failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the U.S. Capitol Building. Even after 18 months I have no leads and no credible suspects.
In the past 18 months following the World Trade Center attack I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
I removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any president in U.S. history.
In a little over two years, I created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided since the Civil War.Records and References:
I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine. My Texas driving record has been erased and is not available.
I was AWOL from the National Guard.
I refuse to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as Governor of Texas are now in my father’s library, sealed, and unavailable for public view.
All records of SEC investigations into insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.Please consider my experience when voting in 2004.
R.I.P. Dr. John E. Mack
![[Image 'mack.jpg' cannot be displayed]](mack.jpg "John Mack (1929-2004)")
Psychiatrist Dies at 74. Dr. Mack was killed when struck by a car apparently driven by a drunk driver, while in London to speak at a conference. He was a founder of the psychiatry department at the Cambridge Hospital where I trained and was one of my mentors, with whom I collaborated on work on the psychological consequences of the nuclear threat. Mack attracted heaps of scorn (and an unsuccessful move to censure him at the Harvard Medical School, which ended up reaffirming him) for his final decades’ focus on people claiming to have been victims of alien abduction. His sophisticated take on the issue was widely misjudged and ridiculed as credulity, since he was often in the company of credulous abduction adherents. But the New York Times obituary has a more accurate bead on the context and the significance of this work:
“He was drawn to psychoanalytic analysis of the misunderstood or vulnerable, including children contemplating suicide, teenagers troubled by the threat of nuclear war and finally, people plagued by what they believed to be recurrent alien encounters.
In the 1990’s, Dr. Mack studied dozens of people who said they had had such contact with aliens, culminating in his book “Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens” in 1994. In it, he focused less on whether aliens were real than on the spiritual effects of perceived encounters, arguing that “the abduction phenomenon has important philosophical, spiritual and social implications” for everyone. “
