Sunday was the second anniversary of the founding of wood s lot, the curiously named, rich and dense weblog of the mercurial Mark Woods. Could there be anyone in the FmH reading universe who doesn’t frequent wood s lot? If so, get ye hence; the fruits are ripe for the plucking, courtesy of Mark’s generosity. Happy blogiversary, Mark! Many many more…

“The magazine Lingua Franca and its parent company University Business LLC filed for bankruptcy earlier this year…(T)he assets of University Business, including this Website, are to be auctioned in New York City on October 24, 2002…

Since the filing, Arts & Letters Daily has been kept afloat by the goodwill of its editors, Tran Huu Dung and Denis Dutton, and it is now time for them to move on. They will continue to supply content on other similar sites with which they are associated: SciTech Daily Review; Denis Dutton’s Philosophy & Literature site; Business Daily Review. Human Nature Review has fine science reporting, Arts Journal is our favorite for arts news, and Google News is invaluable for newspapers and magazines.”

DAYKU: a.thousand.syllables.for.peace hosted by randomwalks

Chimps do not ape culture: “Experts will today debate whether chimpanzee traditions such as Masonic-style handshakes, mutual back scratching and smashing nuts with hammers make up as real a culture as human art, music and poetry.

If the public meeting in London, backed by the British Academy and the Royal Society, agrees that chimpanzees are part of the cultural domain it may trigger a rethink of mankind’s evolution, putting more emphasis on society and less on genes.” Telegraph UK

Rafe Colburn at rc3 has put together a cheatsheet to the Slate writers’ dialogue about whether we ought to go to war against Iraq. ” If you haven’t yet made up your mind about whether somebody ought to storm into Iraq and send Saddam Hussein to Boot Hill, you should check out the ongoing dialogue among Slate writers arguing for and against the war. Unfortunately, the navigation for the series sucks, because it spans two weeks.” It would seem that Slate writers are mostly pro-war by Colburn’s categorization, but he warns that “the arguments defy easy categorization, and are nuanced and qualified, so don’t just accept my one word summaries.” rc3

When Jeb Bush speaks, people cringe: “The governor’s lesbian joke about the women arrested in the Rilya Wilson case is the latest example of his mean sense of humor — when he thinks the media isn’t listening.” Salon I know there’s a particular sense of gleeful satisfaction to be found in going after the Bushes of the world [I’m a prime offender! — FmH], but is this any more mean-spirited than what you’d hear off-mike from any number of our respected elected officials?

And then there’s this guy:

“Those darn speechwriters. Did it again. I know they’re trying to make me seem smart but this is ridikilis. Okay, let’s rock and roll. If I really try I can pronounce this word, even though it’s got four sillibulls. The fate of the free world depends on it.”

“A group of former Black Panthers fear that their legacy in African-American history is being sullied by a new and harsher brand of Pantherism.” NY Times

” Tomorrow in Washington, Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig will ask the Supreme Court to overturn the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, cynically dubbed the Mickey Mouse Preservation Act. The act is notorious not only because its sponsor was one of the dimmer bulbs in the Congressional chandelier, but also because it purports to be the handiwork of the evil Walt Disney Co. (remember when Disney was good?), which wants to lock up its rights to Mickey and Donald for another 20 years.” Boston Globe

What artists and criminals have in common: “What makes one person choose painting and another robbery? A controversial theory suggests that artists and criminals have a lot in common: they both break the rules.” Guardian UK

“Does soy-based infant formula lead to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? There’s much speculation — but little science — on this association. Shedding some light on this problem, a UC Irvine-led study discovered that a mineral found in high levels in soy milk appears to be linked to behavioral problems.

The study in rats, one of the first scientific inquiries into soy milk and ADHD, indicates that the mineral manganese may cause behavioral problems if consumed in high doses. The study appears in the August issue of NeuroToxicology.

Francis Crinella, professor of pediatrics, and his colleagues at UCI and UC Davis found that giving rats increasing levels of manganese during infancy resulted in behavioral changes at higher doses. The researchers also found that manganese exposure resulted in lowered levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which plays a key role in inhibiting behavior seen in cases of ADHD.” EurekAlert!

A cold new world:

‘Astronomers have dubbed it “Quaoar” (pronounced kwa-whar) after a Native American god. It lies a billion kilometers beyond Pluto and moves around the Sun every 288 years in a near-perfect circle. Until recently it was just a curious point of light. That’s all astronomers could see when they discovered it last June using a ground-based telescope.

But now it’s a world.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has measured Quaoar and found it to be 1300 km wide. That’s about 400 km wider than the biggest main-belt asteroid (Ceres) and more than half the diameter of Pluto itself. Indeed, it’s the largest object in the solar system seen since the discovery of Pluto 72 years ago.’ NASA

Has anyone noticed anyone else using the “Bush: Not in My Name” graphic I whipped up as a “consensus-busting” message (it resides over in the sidebar to the left)? I use it to link to the “Not In Our Names” project. It is also offered over at the shinybluegrasshopper “Attack Iraq? No” site. Feel free to grab it and use it for your own purposes. Please let me know of any sightings.

“Backpack Nation is a work in progress, taking shape day by day. The basic idea is to transform American foreign policy by deputizing and deploying individual travelers as “ambassadors” of the people of America. Each ambassador will be funded with $10,000 in personal expense money for an extended trip through some of the world’s less-wealthy countries, and $10,000 more to give to whatever individual/family/organization/village that he or she deems appropriate.” [via Rebecca’s Pocket]

Boys’ Case Is Used in Bid to Limit Trials of Minors as Adults NY Times

He writes about God, Jung and the symphony. But mostly he writes about what he knows best: life as a homeless man in urban America, a world so far beneath the social radar that many step right over it.

By day, Kevin Barbieux writes in the free-form diarist style of Web logs — known in Internet circles as “blogs” — as “The Homeless Guy.” His Web site (www.thehomelessguy.blogspot.com) has developed a worldwide following.

By night, the balding, blue-eyed 41-year-old stays in a shelter, a car or sometimes a new spot that he has heard might be safe. USA Today

Man lives after he is shot 25 times: ‘A 20-year-old New Orleans man has survived being shot 25 times last weekend by an assailant who is still on the loose, New Orleans police said…”Once that weapon emptied, he produced a second weapon and continued to fire,” police said. “When the second weapon emptied, he produced yet a third and continued to fire.” ‘ New Orleans Times-Picayune

The military minds behind “America’s Army,” the PC game designed to entice geeks into enlisting, have unveiled their newest recruiting tool: a weblog from a soldier stationed in Afghanistan. Wired

“GooPoetry lets you enter a query (any query you’d use with regular Google, with the exception of the phonebook: and stock: searches), and choose a “flavor” (hippie, Shakespeare, beatnik, Swedish Chef, or none).

GooPoetry will run a search, take the titles of the returned pages, and make you a lovely poem. (Or make you a really bizarre word salad.)…”

Here’s a GooPoem generated by entering “Gelwan” and “weblog”, although the site says that the weirder the query, the better the poetry.

Here think… edge !

Here: the Here:

Follow Follow is

Follow Follow Follow closer Follow Here

you is Here: think… Follow

than Follow Follow Follow than think…

Me Follow think… think… Follow Gelwan

you Here Here: Here Herezilla think… Here closer

Here — Here: Follow closer Here

Thomas Friedman: “Iraq is winning control of the agenda by Democratic default, not by Republican design.” NY Times op-ed

An owner’s manual for the investor’s brain: “Suddenly, stunning investment insights are coming from the frontiers of one of the least likely fields you could imagine: neuroscience. In university and hospital laboratories around the world, researchers are using the latest breakthroughs in technology to trace the exact circuitry your brain uses to make the kinds of decisions you rely on as an investor.” Money [Mine certainly isn’t wired for wealth! — FmH]

Richard Rorty: “If we cannot forestall such attacks, we may nonetheless be able to survive them. We may have the strength to keep our democratic institutions intact even after realizing that our cities may never again be invulnerable. We may be able to keep the moral gains–the increases in political freedom and in social justice–made by the West in the past two centuries even if 9/11 is repeated year after year. But we shall only do so if the voters of the democracies stop their governments from putting their countries on a permanent war footing–from creating a situation in which neither the judges nor the newspapers can restrain organizations like the FBI from doing whatever they please, and in which the military absorbs most of the nation’s resources.” The Nation [via Walker]

“The truth is that over the last decade geekdom has gained a baggage of beliefs about the world which are much narrower than that which used to unify us. It has become a culture which has amazingly strict boundaries on what you we can believe whilst still counting as a ‘real geek’. Stranger still is the lack of consistency amongst these beliefs.” The Register

notes the San Jose Mercury News. If you have any use for FmH’s RSS feed, it is here, by the way. [Does anyone know how to get it listed among the choices of channels you can subscribe to on the big aggregators like AmphetaDesk or NewsIsFree?]

Woman falls for Nigerian scam, steals $2.1m from law firm The Register

Less random than people thought:

“Any effort to map the Internet is necessarily incomplete and out of

date the moment it appears. Instead, Albert-Laslo Barabasi and his

colleagues at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, treat the net

as though it were a natural phenomenon. What scientists generally do

with a natural phenomenon that they do not understand is to build a

model of it. Dr Barabasi’s latest paper on the matter, just published

in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, presents a

general framework for improving the accuracy of Internet models.” The Economist

Thomas Friedman: “Iraq is winning control of the agenda by Democratic default, not by Republican design.” NY Times op-ed

2 Much 4 Teachers NY Times

The most remarkable places on earth are also the most threatened. These are the Hotspots — the 25 richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life on Earth. [via Red Rock Eaters]

Politician turns blue from drinking ‘health’ solution

Stan Jones, Montana’s Libertarian candidate for Senate, started taking colloidal silver in 1999 for fear that disruptions linked to the millennium might lead to a shortage of antibiotics.

He made his own concoction by electrically charging a couple of silver wires in a glass of water.

His skin began turning blue-grey a year ago.

“People ask me if it’s permanent and if I’m dead,” he said. “I tell them I’m practising for Halloween.”

He does not take the supplement any longer, but the skin condition, called argyria, is permanent.” Ananova

I may be the only one around who hadn’t already heard of this, but I’m posting the news item as a public service to any FmH readers who may be as clueless as I had been about the Stan Jones jokes you may have noticed around the internet recently.

“The ancient sacrificed remains of 200 fishermen have been excavated from a beach in Peru. Archaeologists believe they were kneeling, tied and blindfolded, facing the waves, then stabbed through the heart as an offering by their conquerors to Ni, god of the sea.

The grisly find represents the biggest case of human sacrifice discovered in South America. Hector Walde, chief of the excavation project at Peru’s National Institute of Culture, says the men probably died in a victory ceremony conducted by the Chimu people in about 1350.” New Scientist

“The computer virus BugBear, also known as Tanatos, is shaping up to be the nastiest released in 2002. Since its first logged occurrence on Sunday, anti-virus company Message Labs said on Thursday it has stopped at least 70,000 copies, 22,000 of which were identified in the last 24 hours.

…

It can also capture passwords and credit card details entered on an infected machine using a hidden program that stores keystrokes. The worm bundles up this information into a local file and emails it to a set of encrypted email addresses stored within the worm.

…

Patches to fix the hole that BugBear exploits have been available for 18 months. But Cluley believes the worm will persist for several more months before it dies out. He says the fundamental problem is that end users are lazy: “They just don’t install the patches and update their anti-virus programs frequently enough.” New Scientist.

More about BugBear here, also from New Scientist.

Housewife seeking appreciation quits housework CNN [Not to be a stick-in-the-mud, but why is this story getting played for its laugh value? Are we that post-feminist? The undervaluation of women’s labor in the home remains a grievous fault with our society. Perhaps it is an example of that adage, “If you tell the truth you had better be funny or they’ll kill you”? — FmH]

Former Italian Porn star offers herself to Saddam: “Former Italian porn star La Cicciolina has offered to give herself to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in exchange for world peace.” Ananova

12th Annual ‘Ig Nobel’ Prizesarrive the week before the Nobels: “Ever wonder why belly button lint tends to be blue? Curious about the sex life of ostriches? Want to know what Fido is really trying to say or how best to bathe him? The answers to these probing questions are included in research honored this week by the irreverent and quirky science magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

The 12th annual ‘Ig Nobel Prizes’ are awarded to scientific achievements that ‘cannot or should not be reproduced.’ ” Yahoo!

Cuba, S.Africa Abandon Racism Talks: “Saying they’ll have no part in discrimination, delegations from Russia, Cuba, South Africa, Colombia and France’s overseas territories on Friday abandoned an anti-racism conference that voted to exclude whites.” AP World News

Muggles take note: The world premiere of the new Harry Potter film will be on Nov. 3 in London. Globe and Mail

…of Bionic Parts: an interview with Dr. Willem J. Kolff, “the inventor of the artificial kidney and the leader of the team that created the first artificial heart, (who) was awarded the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research last week. He is now working on a wearable artificial lung.” NY Times

They Are It: a ridiculous groupie piece on the Strokes (I don’t see the point; to paraphrase, I knew the Velvet Underground and they’re no Velvet Underground…) that tries much, much too hard to tie any significance they may have to the post-9/11 mindset in New York:

“Which is to say the Strokes are a better band than they were a year ago, maybe even more of a band, in the way that all sorts of ”brotherhoods” in the city — and not just firemen — seem tighter now. One rap that the members of the Strokes have had to endure is that they grew up privileged (in Upper Manhattan, mostly) and met at one or another private school and can’t possibly be, you know, authentic. But class got a little more complicated in New York after the trade center dead were tallied and described, and rock ‘n’ roll was never about authenticity anyway but about the contingencies of place and time, identity and pose, inspiration and drive. Who knows for how long, but for now, in New York, and not only in New York, the Strokes are for real.” — Gerald Mazorati in the NY Times

I haven’t seen Red Dragon, but am glad its release is prompting a reappraisal of Manhunter, the previous filmed version of the Thomas Harris novel, which was entirely overlooked despite Michael Mann’s Miami Vice cachet: “…(I)ts scenes of Graham wandering the crime scene and murmuring into his tape recorder are mesmerizing. Manhunter sired and John Doe and Profiler and Millennium and all the other TV shows and movies that borrowed both Harris’ theme and Mann’s hypnotic tone. After this, thrillers would not only become positively fetishistic about forensics, they’d also tend to fixate on a single protagonist who would wander fresh murder sites and re-live the slaughter from the killer’s point-of-view — who would be able, at a terrible cost, to plunge deep into a psycho’s roiling psyche. Manhunter ushered in the age of empathy for the devil.” — David Edelstein in Slate

Why Winona Ryder will do time for O.J.’s crimes

The most common theory for Steve Cooley’s ferocious zealotry is that this is an easy way to restore the sheen to an office so tarnished by failure. Cooley’s predecessor—former District Attorney Gil Garcetti—left office in a welter of criticism over failed prosecutions ranging from Rodney King and Charles Keating to the debacle that was O.J. Simpson. Garcetti will be remembered by history as the guy who never could win the big one.

That Garcetti’s successor, Steve Cooley, thinks nailing Winona Ryder might be a “big one” is either evidence of desperation or a uniquely Hollywood lack of proportion.

There’s one other, more pernicious theory circulating for why Ryder is paying for the long string of failed prosecutions coming out of Los Angeles: According to a new study by Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway, Ryder is paying for a national gender bias against wealthy, successful women… Slate

The World Health Organization says there is no such study — and that most journalists didn’t call to check.

“We’ve certainly never conducted any research into the subject,” WHO spokeswoman Rebecca Harding said yesterday from Geneva. “It’s been impossible to find out where it came from. It just seems like it was a hoax.”

The health group traced the story to an account Thursday on a German wire service, which in turn was based on a two-year-old article in the German women’s magazine Allegra, which cited a WHO anthropologist. Harding could find no record of such a man working for the WHO. Washington Post

Another Bush v. Gore? ‘Is it conceivable that not even two years after the U.S. Supreme Court brought the presidential election to a close with its 5-4 decision in Bush v. Gore, the justices would put themselves on the line again in a state election case that this time could determine control of the Senate? “…Bush v. Gore can rear its head in lots of ways that we can’t anticipate. It’s out there for everyone to use for their different purposes.” ‘ International Herald Tribune news analysis

Judges should consider reducing the sentences of convicted offenders if scientists prove that their crimes were influenced by their genes, Britain’s most respected biological ethics group said yesterday.

As soon as there is reliable scientific evidence linking genes to aggression or violence, this should be weighed in mitigation, just as a criminal’s social or family background already can be, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics said yesterday.

While a genetic predisposition to antisocial behaviour should not be a defence, such information could “assist in determining degrees of blame”, according to a report by a panel of scientists, philosophers, ethicists and lawyers. Times of London

‘Some patients who suffer brain injuries occasionally lose the ability to talk in their native accent – but now scientists may know why.

The condition, called “foreign accent syndrome”, affects only a tiny number of patients.’ BBC

“More than 1.6 million people are killed by violence around the world each year, a major report reveals.

The World Health Organization said that millions of others are left injured as a result of attacks.

Violence is now the leading cause of death among people aged between 15 and 44….

The report shows that violence accounts for 14% of deaths in men and 7% of deaths in women.” BBC

“A year-long online search for the world’s funniest joke is over. The winning rib-tickler emerged from two million ratings of 40,000 entries, submitted by people from more than 70 countries.

The LaughLab experiment was run by psychologist Richard Wiseman and colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. The data showed clear national differences in humour, Wiseman says.” New Scientist

Review: Evolving the Alien: The science of extraterrestrial life by

Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart: “…Cohen and …Stewart are scientists – a reproductive biologist and a mathematician respectively – who love science fiction, despite its frequently flawed depictions of alien biology. This lively work of popular science uses real and science-fictional examples of strange creatures to fuel speculation about life inhabiting other planets… or even suns.” New Scientist

Review: Dr Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation by

Olivia Judson: “Anthropomorphism – ascribing human thoughts and motivations to the actions of other species – used to be the dirtiest word in the animal behaviourist’s dictionary. Not any more. Dr Tatiana brings us a catalogue of vices that would bring a blush to the cheeks of even the most depraved Homo sapiens.

There is nothing in the kaleidoscope of human sexual behaviour that other creatures great and small haven’t tried out before, she says.” New Scientist

Simson Garfinkel: “We need a manifesto! Tiny wireless identification tags are soon going to start showing up throughout your daily life. If you have an E-ZPass transponder in your car or one of several Swatch watches on your wrist, you’re already carrying a wireless tag. Your house, your food and even your clothes might someday be permeated with such tags, which can be read without your permission or knowledge.” MIT Technology Review

In response to my post last week about instant runoff voting, Richard Homonoff sent me this description of numerous other proposed voting methods. I had no idea. If I get the gist, IRV still makes the most sense.

Note to Democrats: Get a Defense Policy — “Once again the Democratic Party finds itself on the defensive on defense.” NY Times op-ed

Of course the Times would say so: ” New Jersey’s Supreme Court made the right call yesterday when it ruled that the State Democratic Party could substitute Frank Lautenberg for the discredited Robert Torricelli as its candidate in November’s election for the United States Senate. The ruling appears to clear the way for a vigorous if necessarily abbreviated campaign, thus giving New Jersey voters the choice they deserve.”

James Crabtree, of voxpolitics

and the i society, takes aim at rightwing bloggers in a New Statesman piece. Since NS doesn’t allow free access to their content, Crabtree reappropriates the intellectual rights to his content and posts it for all to see. It appears at The Work Foundation website, which describes itself in this way:

The dynamic relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) and how it affects us in the way we live and work is the single most critical social and economic issue of our time. iSociety is an independent analysis of that impact on our lives, today and in the future.

Through its projects it is a major three- to five-year examination of the inter-relationship between work, life and ICT. We are taking the first forensic, independent look at the real impact of the new technologies on the way we live and work.

Oil firms wait as Iraq crisis unfolds:

“The world’s biggest oil bonanza in recent memory may be just around the corner, giving U.S. oil companies huge profits and American consumers cheap gasoline for decades to come.

And it all may come courtesy of a war with Iraq.

While debate intensifies about the Bush administration’s policy, oil analysts and Iraqi exile leaders believe a new, pro-Western government — assuming it were to replace Saddam Hussein’s regime — would prompt U.S. and multinational petroleum giants to rush into Iraq, dramatically increasing the output of a nation whose oil reserves are second only to that of Saudi Arabia.” SF Chronicle

However, it strikes me as just as likely that a post-Saddam Iraq, while throwing the doors open to petrochemical companies to help it exploit its oil resources efficiently, would collaborate with OPEC on pricing in order to pull in urgently needed cash for reconstruction, rather than compete with OPEC as this article suggests. Unless, of course, it becomes a US territory.

Ask the pilot — “By popular demand: The full, unexpurgated story of what happens when dry ice is mixed with blue toilet acid at 33,000 feet.” Salon

Mark Fiore: Why We Must Go to War Salon

News Analysis: Playing A Weak Hand Well:

“Iraq’s decision to readmit United Nations inspectors has heightened differences between the United States and its allies and complicated the Bush administration’s task of winning Security Council approval for a tough new resolution.

Seeking to regain the initiative, President Bush announced today that he had reached an agreement with House leaders on a resolution authorizing him to use force if President Saddam Hussein refuses to abandon his efforts to develop chemical, biological and nuclear arms.

The move seemed intended to show the United Nations that the president has the support of numerous American lawmakers and is prepared to take military action on his own if the Security Council is reluctant to act.” NY Times

Also: Path to War on Iraq Gets Murkier

:

“As UN inspectors prepare to head for Baghdad in two weeks, the US seeks tougher terms, and consequences.” Christian Science Monitor

As Trees Die, Biologists Battle Back:

“Such is the power of this plant pestilence that has infiltrated much of California and jumped to Oregon, and that researchers fear could easily spread to the midwest and east. The disease has already killed tens of thousands of trees in California and spread to 17 different species, including huckleberry, big leaf maples, rhododendrons and bay trees. Scientists have found it can also infect the northern red oak and pin oak, species that are widespread in the East and Midwest. Recently, the United States Forest Service declared large regions of the East, including the southern Appalachian Mountains, whose climate would probably suit the disease, as areas of high risk.” NY Times

“They’re naive and clumsy. Is that so wrong?” Slate

“Report highlights dangers in diagnosing social traits“. Guardian UK

Robert Wright: “The more broadly you view the new national security strategy, the clearer its contradictions become…. (T)he Bush administration, with its limited regard for both international law and world opinion, is making America not just sheriff, but judge, jury and executioner. This strategy could lead to a number of outcomes, but national security isn’t among the more likely.” NY Times

“President Bush wouldn’t want to talk about the many issues which the Iraq crisis is obscuring…” Guardian UK

obscuring

‘Self-Esteem Levels Peak in Childhood, Mid-Life. “The main point is that there are two critical developmental periods when self-esteem drops–adolescence and old age,” study author Dr. Richard W. Robins of the University of California, Davis, told Reuters Health… ‘ [more]

Physicists model trading frenzy: “Two physicists have an explanation for the convulsion of the stock market just ten days ago that left traders reeling and economists scratching their heads. The market was behaving like a muffled guitar string, they suggest, thanks to short-termism and technological limitations.” Nature

An online library of articles related to psychological trauma, dissociative phenomena, and the culture of the mind

Mystery Effect in Biotech Drug Puts Its Maker on Defensive. NY Times In this dramatic and convoluted example, we see the law of the unintended consequences at work; the body appears smarter than our attempts to best it, and it is a brand name shopper to boot.

Erythropoeitin (EPO) is given to medically ill, severely anemic patients (e.g. patients in renal failure) to stimulate their failing capacity to make adequate red cells, but in some cases, with a particular brand of genetically engineered EPO, the body recognizes it as a foreign protein and raises an immune response against the drug that does not stop there, but actually destroys the marrow’s remaining innate red-cell producing capacities. (Once that happens, patients need to rely on transfusions to survive, or undergo renal transplantation.)

Interestingly, the version of EPO Johnson & Johnson sells in the US market, which is made for it by a competitor, Amgen, which developed the drug and from whom it licenses the product, does not cause this complication, but the version it manufactures itself in a Puerto Rican plant for non-US markets appears to be the culprit (and the problems seemed to start after the Puerto Rican plant changed its manufacturing process at the request of European authorities who wanted a constituent removed from its formula to protect against another potential health risk, “mad cow disease”.) Amgen also markets EPO under a competing brand name and is trying to exploit Johnson & Johnson’s vulnerability on this issue; J & J has resisted calls to pull the offending product off the market but denies this is a financially motivated decision. It is trying to shift attention to complications from treatment with competitors’ EPO and hang on to its lucrative European market share.

Suspects Sought in Beating Death by Youth Mob in Milwaukee

…U.N. Ought to Hold Up Iraq Inspections. NY Times US disingenuousness is clear. Bush made a show of addressing the UN to seek a consensus but thwarts prospects for multilaterality at the first turn.

‘Israeli forces took up positions in buildings near Yasir Arafat’s compound in Ramallah today, two days after they complied with American demands and lifted a 10-day siege.

Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said that the new arrangement was intended to enable Israel to “put its hands on all those inside who are suspects if they try to come out.”

Palestinian officials said that the Israelis had not truly abandoned the siege, put in place after a suicide bomber killed six Israelis in Tel Aviv on Sept. 19. Nabil Aburdeineh, an adviser to Mr. Arafat, said that it remained dangerous for the Palestinian leader and others to leave or enter the compound. “They are deceiving the Americans,” he said of the Israelis.’ NY Times

A Russian Lama’s Body, and His Faith, Defy Time: “A miracle has occurred here in Siberia. Or it may be a hoax. Others believe science can explain it. It is a question, it seems, of faith.” NY Times

“Bush has many enemies. But he didn’t expect them to include Nancy Reagan; Alzheimer’s grief drives former first lady’s stealth campaign” to get Bush to reverse oppositon ot stem cell research. Guardian UK

Patients to get chemically “sterilised” blood . New Scientist

“Could singing fish novelties be hooked by a proposed law requiring anti-copying technology in digital devices?

Princeton professor Ed Felten thinks so.

The computer scientist has launched a site, called Fritz’s Hit List, that points out devices that could be forced to carry anti-copying technology if Sen. Fritz Hollings’, D-S.C., Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) passes. The bill, which is designed to thwart piracy, would restrict digital products that don’t carry government-approved security technology.

So far, Fritz’s Hit List features a catalog of unlikely devices Felten said would be regulated under the law. They include common objects such as baby monitors and automobile navigation systems as well as seemingly innocuous toys such as the Shop With Me Barbie toy cash register, the Sony Aibo robot dog and Big Mouth Billy Bass.” CNET News

Jay Bookman — Bush’s real goal in Iraq:

This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the “American imperialists” that our enemies always claimed we were. Atlanta Journal-Constitution [via rc3]

Nice to see we’re going about winning hearts and minds in Central Asia about like we did in Southeast Asia… MSNBC

No-fly blacklist snares political activists: ‘A federal “No Fly” list, intended to keep terrorists from boarding planes, is snaring peace activists at San Francisco International and other U. S. airports, triggering complaints that civil liberties are being trampled.

…Federal law enforcement officials deny targeting dissidents. They suggested that the activists were stopped not because their names are on the list, but because their names resemble those of suspected criminals or terrorists.’ SF Chronicle

This issue of Tikkun looks at the “ongoing fear and tribalism within the Jewish comunity. Kim Chernin analyzes the Seven Pillars of Jewish Denial, while Joel Kovel attacks Zionism’s Bad Conscience. Neil Altman draws on the psychology of denial to urge us Not to Get Polarized, and Starhawk asserts that Loving the Jewish Community Means Supporting Justice. Is Alexander Cockburn in denial? Dennis Fox invites him to Join the Expanding Middle searching for Middle East peace.” Tikkun Of note, Tikkun‘s email system has been hacked, according to a recent warning message to their mailing list from its managing editor. Recipients either get hateful letters about Tikkun, Michael Lerner and the efforts toward peace and reconciliation in the Middle East; or messages which purport to be from Tikkun attempting to alienate readers with a distorted message. According to the warning,

this assault has been happening across the board of all groups

supporting peace and justice in Palestine and also groups who

question the wisdom of the Iraq war. We know for sure that the first

set of emails are being put out by a group of right-wing Jews in

Israel and the U.S. There is considerable debate about who is

doing the second set–some people believe that this is the first

step in the new campaign of dis-information and disruption of peace

groups being sponsored by the FBI or CIA now that the domestic

restraints on their activities imposed in the aftermath of the Vietnam

war have been lifted so that they could participate more aggressively

in the war against terror. Others believe that this campaign is one

initiated by domestic right-wing groups who have media

sophistication. We have no idea who is doing this or how to stop

them.

A new technology that allows handheld devices to share files directly, without the need for a PC, could be on store shelves by the end of the year. Several manufacturers, including Hewlett-Packard, are evaluating ways to use an offshoot of the Universal Serial Bus 2.0 specification called USB On-the-Go. Using it, a person could plug a handheld or digital camera straight into a printer to produce a photo. PDAs also could swap documents directly or back up data by connecting directly to a portable hard drive. The technology is also expected to be used in cell phones and MP3 players. CNET

If you use WinXP and are hesitant about installing SP1, which seems problem-ridden

, at least fix the gaping security hole that, according to Brian Livingston,

“allows a malicious person to erase all

the files in an entire Windows XP folder — such as

C:\Windows — merely by sending victims an e-mail, no

attachment required.

I’m choosing not to say exactly how to do this. But the

gist is that Microsoft has created a new protocol it

calls hcp:// for the Help and Support Center

introduced in XP. This protocol can be initiated by a

Web page or an e-mail. Help then runs with elevated

privileges, to devastating effect.”

XPdite, from Steve Gibson, fixes this vulnerability with a single download and click.

Robert Parry: “The U.S. debate over invading Iraq has so far focused on only one part of the nuclear danger. George W. Bush has pushed an emotional hot button by alleging Saddam Hussein is close to having a nuclear bomb and is ready to share it with terrorists…

But what has not been examined in any detail is whether invading Iraq might actually hasten the day when nuclear weapons fall into the hands of anti-American terrorists. Indeed, that nightmare scenario might be as likely or even more likely if Bush gets his way on an invasion.”

At this juncture, inexorably tumbling toward war without much effective opposition, the antiwar Left resorts to more and more dramatic warnings of consequences governed by the laws of unintended outcomes (or is it ‘outcomes governed by the law of unintended consequences’?) and paradoxical intent. A credible antiwar argument has to be plausible and coherent and not seem to be grasping at straws to justify emotionally- or sentimentally-based opposition, if it is to influence any thoughtful listener who is not an absolute pacifist. Criticizing Bush for “alarmist rhetoric” in citing the Iraqi threat, its supposed linkage with al Qaeda, etc., can look like the pot calling the kettle black to some.

There may be a tendency to dismiss as particularly alarmist and manipulative warnings that Bush’s war plans may incinerate us all. As I’ve written in FmH over and over, we are lulled into complacency about nuclear threats by several factors. The first is what one of my mentors, antiwar psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, has called “nuclear numbing”, the difficulty thinking the unthinkable. Moreover, we have recently been further lulled, even if we broke through our denial to be able to contemplate nuclear annihilation in all its gruesome awe-ful detail, into thinking that the doomsday clock has been turned back by the end of the Cold War and that the nuclear threat is a thing of the past.

So it may be a struggle, but shouldn’t we consider with eyes wide open a scenario in which the US invasion inflames Muslim sentiment, Musharraf’s government falls to fundamentalist rioting, and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons fall into the hands of his extremist successors? Or one in which such a radicalized Pakistan inflames India into a nuclear exchange over the festering sore of Kashmir? Or that the US, under its recently revised nuclear posture, will use tactical battlefield nuclear armaments if the going gets rough on the road to Baghdad, or that Israel will be attacked during the war and use nuclear retaliation? And finally,

Another risk from a U.S. invasion would be the possibility of “copycat” interventions by other nuclear powers against their own “terrorists.” The Russians already are eyeing an invasion of Georgia to wipe out Chechen rebels hiding in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge. Farther east, the Indians want to wipe out Pakistani-backed Islamic extremists fighting in Kashmir. Communist China sees challenges from nationalist groups on the mainland and in Taiwan.

By throwing away international rules against invading other countries, the Bush administration might find it difficult to enforce the same rules when other countries are caught in their own wars against “terrorism.” The Consortium

“Parents are probably right to worry about the effect they’re having on their children…” Guardian UK

Women’s Brains Better at Handling Anger: “In a nutshell, the research indicates that men are more aggressive than women because the part of the brain that modulates aggression is smaller in men than it is in women. Both genders have about the same ability to produce emotions, but when it comes to keeping those emotions in check, men have been shortchanged.” ABC

Sun’s covert nerd-reduction programme: “Help is at hand for anybody who fears that their office is about to be swamped by Playstation addicts. It comes in the form of N1, a new sort of über-operating system unveiled on September 19th by Sun Microsystems, a computer maker. N1 will make it much easier to run corporate data centres—thus eliminating much of the work now done by armies of systems administrators.” The Economist

Globe to publish same-sex unions: ‘Citing their value as ”community news of interest and importance to many of our readers,” The Boston Globe said today that it will begin publishing announcements of same-sex commitment ceremonies and civil unions.’ Boston Globe

(February 1, 2039, BOSTON): “A group of researchers at MIT’s Chomsky Institute announced yesterday independent confirmation of their discovery of a series of messages encoded in apparently dormant or unused sections of the human genome. “We’re able to report replication of our results by at least three independent teams,” explained the team’s project director Klara Tulip. “We hence feel quite confident about the results and felt that they were significant enough to warrant preliminary public release.”

Exploiting evolved, mathematical models derived from iterative analyses of network-available audio, video and text files in more than 200 languages, the team scanned files in the Human Genome Library for patterns consistent with the presence of a “semantic system.” “We were actually using the Genome Library as a control data-set to be sure that our model wasn’t producing false positives,” explains Tulip. “We’d developed a mathematical and algorithmic formulation of a meta-language descriptive of all known human linguistic systems and needed to test it against some non-random data that we assumed had no semantic content. We we’re stunned to find that the genome contains sequences consistent with an implied linguistic system.” futurefeedforward

Electoral Yawns: Here’s an interesting idea, also from Dennis Fox. Although Green Party candidates debate whether they deserve the ‘spoiler’ moniker (would those who go to the polls to vote Green have otherwise held their nose and cast a ballot for the liberal Deomcrat, as the Dems suggest, or boycotted endorsing ‘more of the same’ entirely?), Fox suggests the Green Party candidate for governor of Massachusetts, who does seem positioned to help elect Republican Hugh Romney over Democratic machine candidate Shannon O’Brien, should offer to withdraw if the Dems pledge to support instant runoff voting in the future. I agree with Fox that this system (in which voters rank their preferences and, if no candidate gets a majority, the candidate who came in last is eliminated and her/his votes distributed among the voters’ second choices; the process continues until someone gets a majority) would better capture voter preferences and at least stand a chance of, occasionally, enticing me to vote for someone other than “none of the above”.

New Software Quietly Diverts Sales Commissions:

“Some popular online services are using a new kind of software to divert sales commissions that would otherwise be paid to small online merchants by big sites like Amazon and eToys.

Critics call the software parasite-ware and stealware. But the sites that use the software, which is made by nearly 20 companies and used by dozens, say that it is perfectly legal, because their users agree to the diversion.

The amounts involved are estimated by those in the industry to have mounted into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and are likely to continue to grow — in part because most users are unaware that the software is operating on their computers.” NY Times [via Richard Homonoff]

New Software Quietly Diverts Sales Commissions:

“Some popular online services are using a new kind of software to divert sales commissions that would otherwise be paid to small online merchants by big sites like Amazon and eToys.

Critics call the software parasite-ware and stealware. But the sites that use the software, which is made by nearly 20 companies and used by dozens, say that it is perfectly legal, because their users agree to the diversion.

The amounts involved are estimated by those in the industry to have mounted into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and are likely to continue to grow — in part because most users are unaware that the software is operating on their computers.” NY Times [via Richard Homonoff]

Joseph Epstein, author of the recent Snobbery: Think You Have a Book in You? Think Again: “According to a recent survey, 81 percent of Americans feel they have a book in them — and that they should write it. As the author of 14 books, with a 15th to be published next spring, I’d like to use this space to do what I can to discourage them.

… I wonder if the reason so many people think they can write a book is that so many third-rate books are published nowadays that, at least viewed from the middle distance, it makes writing a book look fairly easy. After all, how many times has one thought, after finishing a bad novel, “I can do at least as well as that”? And the sad truth is that it may well be that one can. But why add to the schlock pile?” NY Times op-ed [Recall that Epstein not only doesn’t like writers but he doesn’t like literary critics either.]

From Talking Points Memo by Joshua Micah Marshall:

Though the rationale for liberating Kuwait was powerful in 1990 there was also testimony before Congress at the time about Iraqi atrocities in Kuwait which was later demonstrated to be entirely bogus. The immediate trigger for our involvement in Vietnam — as opposed to the larger rationale for our involvement — was later revealed to be based on exaggerations so great as to basically amount to lies. And one finds this sort of thing in the lead-ups to many other wars, in this country and in others. It’s almost like these little bogus stories are the bon-bons of war, the little morsels and appetizers to chum up those who can’t quite swallow the whole complicated rationale whole.

Karl Kraus: “How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.”

Texas Man Charged for Using Stungun on Stepson Yahoo!

MSNBC ‘blogspots’

Arundhati Roy argues that it is the demands of global capitalism that are driving us to war. Guardian UK

…and ‘Bottle Blondes’ are to blame BBC Health

Bush calls Saddam ‘the guy who tried to kill my dad’: ‘President Bush leveled harsh criticism Thursday at the Senate on homeland security issues, but he revised his stump speech to make clear “there are fine senators from both parties who care deeply about our country.” And, in discussing the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Bush said: “After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad.” ‘ CNN Do you want your family or neighbors to die for a cowboy’s family feud??

You Can do Better Dept: Make your own Bush speech.

I often agree with my friend psychologist Dennis Fox’s politics, but I have serious concerns about the position he takes in favor of ‘jury nullification’ in this article, my misgivings about which I reveal at the risk of appearing too anti-populist and surprise myself with a degree of concern about undermining the rule of law that would have worried me a decade ago. Essentially, the ‘fully informed jury’ movement asserts that juries have the power to find a defendant not guilty even if the evidence supports their guilt, i.e. to “nullify” the law. From this perspective, judge’s instructions to juries that they must make their decision “based on the evidence” are flawed, and defense attorneys cannot “fully inform” the members of the jury that they can acquit regardless of the evidence. Indeed, jurors who believe in the nullification principle will be screened out during jury selection

Fox cites some seemingly plausible reasons for acquitting someone who is clearly guilty:

Bob Newland, the South Dakota Libertarian Party’s candidate for attorney general, and other Amendment A advocates in Common Sense Justice for South Dakota give several examples: parents convicted of child pornography for taking bathtub photos of their toddlers; a man convicted of cruelty to animals for fighting off a vicious dog with a cane; a quadriplegic convicted of marijuana possession for toking to relieve post-surgery muscle spasms. Amendment A would force judges to let defendants like these tell the jury something like this: “I did it, but you’re allowed to go with your gut regardless of legal technicalities. You don’t have to send me to prison. You can let me go home.”

He has an interest in seeing jury nullification put into practice in a number of situations, including “eliminating punishments for marijuana use, consensual adult-sex offenses, hunting and fishing violations, and other victimless crimes tolerated or even committed by large portions of the population”. Jury nullification would stimulate juries to act as the “conscience of the community”, e.g. in acquitting mercy killers. He would also like to see jurors “realize that motives for political action are relevant despite judicial lies to the contrary”, e.g. when protesters are arrested for ” trespassing and other violations incidental to their political agenda.” Here he’s coming dangerously close to undermining one of the central tenets of civil disobedience, essentially that ‘if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.’ The inherent value in acts of conscience of dramatizating one’s political convictions is vastly diminished, if not mooted entirely, if there’s no risk of conviction.

Fox also cites the government’s perpetual war on victimless drug crimes and Ashcroft’s assault on our rights since 9-11 as reasons to insure that juries know they can “just say ‘no'”. He characterizes (at least some) opponents of the FIJA notion as “apoplectic” and caricatures their fears as being about “chaos in the courtroom.” He only addresses concerns about acknowledged “sorry examples” of potential abuse of the jury nullification principle —

…(U)ndeniably, jurors have not always used wisely their power to apply the law flexibly. In past decades, juries have sometimes freed white supremacists who lynched African Americans, men who beat their wives, and others whose aggression was too widely supported

— to dismiss them as “hav(ing) receded in time”.

Dennis, wake up and smell the rat here. Despite all sorts of wonderful empathetic and conscientious ways a fully nformed jury could act, it is hardly true that the threat of potential abuse of the practice is a thing of the past. Most of the challenge to the rule of law comes from the Far Right, and it has been my impression — apoplectic or not — that the jury nullification principle is being driven largely by their agenda. [What else should we make of the fact that the most hopeful of many historical efforts to allow “fully informed” juries is taking place in South Dakota rather than a more progressive jurisdiction? It verges dangerously close to the crackpot conspiracy theory flavor of the Left to suggest that there is a secret covenant between all judges nationwide to deny juries a right under law.] Open this Pandora’s box and all you will see is America’s famous brand of bigots and hatemongers tried —when they are, rarely, brought to trial— by likeminded, homogeneous “juries of their peers” with the right to ignore the illegality of the defendant’s actions because they are in accord with the beliefs that motivated that defendant. And even if I have my own qualms about the legitimacy of our government, I share nothing with those whose invalidation is based on its being a Zionist Occupation Government or a tool of the UN-driven One World Government.

So should I oppose jury nullification merely because I believe the situations where it will be used will be predominantly, overwhelmingly, in support of reactionary and regressive aims? No more than Fox should naively support it because he forsees the principle as having populist or progressive utility. No, at the risk of being elitist, this will not solve the inherent problem — the risk of mob rule under the guarantee of trial by a jury of one’s peers. Rights entail responsibilities, and I think the obligation to judge someone on the weight of the evidence is a good one. Of course, I also think that, on the weight of the evidence, no one would have voted for George Bush, so call me hopelessly deluded… And call me apoplectic, but when the laws are unjust, there are other avenues besides jury nullification that will make the law the conscience of the people, without, yes, chaos in the courtroom.

Addendum: Ed Fitzgerald wrote to make a cogent point — “…Suffice it to say this: jury nullification exists.” It is not evident because jury deliberations are secret, except when obviously guilty suspects walk; and, although defense attorneys are not allowed to mention it explicitly, they are savvy enough to play to juries’ possible impulse to nullify. The system just buries its head in the sand and pretends it doesn’t happen.

I certainly agree with Ed. I remember the realization I had one night during gradeschool, while watching some cops’n’robbers show on television, that the message of that and every TV show that the wrongdoers are always caught and that ‘crime doesn’t pay’ were convenient social fictions being passed off as realities to bolster the rule of law. Certainly, the idea that the legal system always makes conscientious and true decisions is another of those convenient fictions being foisted upon us. (Its consequences include among others the fable that the system precludes the execution of the innocent, which is necessary to pursue capital punishment.) And one version of that is that trial by a jury of one’s peers will always, consistently, across the nation, result in justice being done fairly. The impulse is that it is not in our interests to acknowledge the contrary.

Fitzgerald goes on:

“My solution is somewhat different. Allow lawyers to argue for nullification, and inform the jury that they have the power to nullify, but include strict instructions from the judge as to where and when nullification is an appropriate response. Give them the examples from history, point out that nullification is only cceptable when the jury perceives a higher moral duty than to uphold the law as it is, tell them that they shouldn’t consider nullification simply because it’s unpleasant to otherwise return a verdict, or out of sympathy for a defendant. In other words, I suggest that since nullification will happen (because it cannot be prevented), bring it out in the open and attempt to control it the same way everything else in the courtroom is controlled, through the rulings and instructions of the judge.”

So, unlike Fox, legitimize ‘fully informing the jury’ not because it is such an empowering thing to do, but because it teaches us that the ’emperor has no clothes’ — that rule of law rather than of sentiment and prejudice is a fiction — and perhaps holds out the possibility of keeping a necessary evil in check?

Dennis Fox replies:

I’m glad to see your long comment on my jury nullification piece,

along with Ed Fitzgerald’s excerpts. His solution isn’t a bad one,

and is probably what would happen if Amendment A passes. The defense

lawyer would tell jurors they can think for themselves, and the

prosecutor and judge would tell them they can’t.

Historically, in cases like Southern juries unwilling to convict

supremacists, and 1800s Utah juries unwilling to convict polygamists,

the feds have stepped in and brought defendants into federal court,

where they had more control over the jury pool. In other cases, we’ve

just lived with the consequences, not always unhappily. In Kentucky,

for example, at least in the 1980s, it was just about impossible to

find a jury willing to convict on marijuana charges — pot was the

state’s largest cash crop.

In any case, like most choices this one brings both positives and

negatives. It seems to me the fallback position should be that people

on juries should be given accurate information about what they can

and can’t do. I’m not sure how someone can argue reasonably that the

system works better when people are lied to. Yet I had a student once

who was thrown out of the jury pool as soon as she told the judge she

was taking a course in psychology and law (this at a time when

lawyers and even judges were getting put on juries).

If you’re interested, I have a longer article about jury

nullification, the ninth amendment, and the difference between law

and equity, wrapped up in anarchist context, at

http://www.dennisfox.net/papers/balance.html

, published in

Behavioral Sciences and the Law in 1993. I have other article also

focused on the law and legal fictions and the like.

Your point about civil disobedience also interests me. There’s always

been a debate about whether punishment for CD is necessary to make it

valid or whether it’s just a good PR tool. I’d have to check on this,

but I don’t think Martin Luther King, Jr. pleaded guilty every time

he got busted…

In any case, the law itself recognizes that jurors can sometimes let

people off. Jury nullification is the indirect route. There’s a more

direct route, the necessity defense, in which defendants claim they

did the act but had no choice — the harm they sought to prevent was

more important than the law they broke. This is what got Amy Carter

and Abby Hoffman off after anti-CIA protests at Amherst years ago,

and Sam Lovejoy for knocking down that nuke weather tower — they

jury accepted their arguments and found them not guilty. Tactically,

it seems to me more useful to stay out of prison to fight again

another day than get locked up for taking a moral stand. But this

probably brings us back to one of the battles between Clamshell

Alliance and CDAS…

[As you’ll surmise, I was a Clamshell, and of the persuasion to get locked up — over and over again — for taking a moral stand… — FmH]

“As the number of people executed in the United States since the reinstatement of capital punishment reached 800 on Tuesday, a federal judge became the second jurist this year to declare the federal death penalty unconstitutional.” Lycos

Neuroscience unlocks secrets of Zen garden:

“The beauty of one of Japan’s most popular Zen gardens has long eluded explanation. Now neuroscientists have found that its minimalist design suggests a pleasing picture to our subconcious.

The 500-year-old

Ryoanji Temple garden

in Kyoto contains five outcroppings of rocks and moss on a rectangle of raked gravel. Using symmetry calculations the researchers have discovered that the objects imply an image of a tree in the empty space between them that we detect, without being aware of doing so…” Nature