Again? Life on Mars? “The Allan Hills meteorite from Mars is peppered with tiny
magnetic crystals that on our planet are made only by bacteria.”

Ecological Integrity: ‘Applying the “polluter pays” principle, a Cornell University ecologist and author suggests a way to improve the
environmental sustainability of agriculture: Levy taxes according to food-chain ranking so that products with the worst environmental
impact cost the most.

“We should internalize the costs of dietary preferences. If one chooses to eat high-impact food, one should pay the full costs of such a
choice,” says David Pimentel, the professor of ecology and agricultural science who is a co-editor and co-author of the newly published
book Ecological Integrity: Integrating Environment, Conservation, and Health‘.

RIP Donella Meadows (1941-2001), a founder of the sustainability movement in environmental thinking and lead author of the seminal ecological tract, The Limits to Growth (1972). Trained as a chemist and biophysicist, she taught global trend analysis and system dynamics at Dartmouth and was no stranger to information science; the Limits to Growth project was in no small part a computer modelling effort. She was a recipient of a MacArthur ‘genius grant’ for her work, and participated in an international group of scientists which “built early and critical avenues of exchange between scientists on both sides of the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War.”

How Do Women Rule? …Just Like Men: “Christine Stolba says folks who believe women rulers are nicer don’t know
their herstory.”

Want to raze a village? Boadicea, England’s warrior queen, was just the gal to
get the job done. A revered figure and a sentimental favorite of Victorian
painters, Boadicea is commemorated by a statue that stands on Westminster
Bridge, near the Houses of Parliament. She is remembered for her bravery in
leading a revolt against her country’s occupiers, the Romans, in 60 A.D. Alas,
recent discoveries at an archeological dig near Colchester—a town seized and
destroyed by Boadicea—led dig director Philip Crummy to compare Boadicea’s
program and tactics to “ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans.

Independent Women’s Forum

The California attorney general backs an Oakland cannabis distribution club “in its fight with the federal government over medical marijuana…, arguing that the state has the right to enforce its medical marijuana law,
which was approved by voters in 1996.” AP

Doubters Fault Theory Finding Earlier Puberty: “A widespread belief about the
onset of puberty in girls is
coming under vigorous attack, led
by a group of medical specialists
who say that it is based on flawed
science and that it can have dire
medical consequences.” New York Times

Parkinson’s Cure May Be Near: ‘Scientists may be on the brink of curing
Parkinson’s disease using transplanted embryonic
stem cells, but where and when that new
treatment is tested in humans depends on
unresolved political decisions, researchers
suggested Friday.

Dr. Ole Isacson of Harvard Medical School and
Dr. Ronald McKay of the National Institutes of
Health said Friday they have both “cured”
Parkinson’s in mice and rats, using stem cells
removed from embryos of laboratory animals.’

Declining Mental Skills Can Catch You Unaware. You may lose some basic mental skills and not even realize it.

Supreme Court Limits ‘Americans With Disabilities Act’. The familiar 5-4 majority again affirms states’ rights doctine: it’s all right for states to discriminate on the basis of disability. Next on the chopping block, some speculate, will be the Family Leave Act. Meanwhile, the Immigration and Naturalization Service grants asylum to a young boy who would be persecuted for his disability if he were to return to his native Pakistan. AP

The energy-enhancing drink Red Bull is the latest rage. The buzz is all about which celebrities have been serving it at their parties and who’s been seen walking out with cases of it under their arms. Apparently mixing it with vodka makes the hippest cocktail on the club scene.What’s all the fizz about?

Why I Drive a Hate Crime.

Making your pals feel bad (but not so bad as to lose them) is a refined social skill
highly regarded in my neck of the political woods. It has roots, ironically enough,
in traditional class snobbery as well as in the consumer chauvinism that first spread
from the pages of Playboy and Esquire into the popular consciousness of the early
1970s — a belief that the kind of stereo speakers we own or the wine we drink are
not merely practical choices but statements of identity.

Evaluations of other people’s tastes tend to be political judgments issued from the
bench of one’s own private Nuremberg. No longer content to merely dismiss a
friend’s contrarian tastes as gauche, we detect in them nothing less than a threat to
the planet — implying that the offender is a kind of consumer criminal. In today’s
casual conversations, you run the constant risk of being made to feel guilty (as
opposed to merely stupid) for wearing, eating or driving the wrong product at the
wrong time.

A few months ago, for example, a friend commented on the base villainy of
sports-utility vehicles and their owners. I politely told him that I was an SUV
owner. He looked at me as though I had just admitted to collecting human-skin
lampshades. His response was not new. “That’s your car?” a horrified colleague
had once asked me in my company’s parking lot. “I’m so disappointed — that’s the
kind someone in advertising would buy.” I had my reasons for owning my
Pathfinder, not the least of which has to do with the fact that I actually use it to go
off-road camping. No matter — my choice of transportation was so heinous that, in
the morality of the left, it amounted to a hate crime. AlterNet

The Secret Life of AAA: “Along with the maps, the insurance, and the late-night tows, your friendly
all-American auto club has a political agenda. And it’s no good for the
environment.” Natural Resources Defense Council’s Amicus Journal

Annals of the Erosion of Privacy: Police have anti-nuclear protestor’s numbers: “The (British) Ministry of Defence has opened an internal inquiry into the
extraction of mobile phone information from a nuclear protestor.

The phone’s owner, Juliet McBride, dropped her mobile while being
escorted off an atomic weapons plant in Aldermaston, Berkshire. It
was returned 24 hours later, but allegations that police noted down
all the information on her SIM card has sparked the MoD to launch
an inquiry, the Guardian reports.

Among the information was 80 personal telephone numbers and a
variety of messages, including some from a senior MoD police
officer. The Guardian also reports that one senior MoD bod ordered
the information to be destroyed but was ignored.

… With the
wide-ranging RIP Act now in force, police have the right to monitor
virtually all communication stored or sent electronically.” The Register

What the Hell is… Win XP’s groovy new UI? The Register

Qubert: “It seems the issue over animal testing never dies. The
determined folks at People for Ethical Treatment of Animals
(P.E.T.A), are always in the news pointing their fingers at one
corporation or another and boycotting them for actively
pursuing this method of product testing.

We wanted to see what would happen if we tried to donate
our beloved pet rabbit, Mr. Qbert, to these companies for their
experiments.

In our traditional style of doing things, we got a list of
companies who test their products on animals and decided to
contact them to see if any were interested in adopting Mr.
Qbert.” The outrageous Fade to Black folks are at it again.

Stanley Kramer, Director and Producer of ‘Message’ Films, Dies at 87. To any film-lover, the list will amaze: High Noon, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Inherit the Wind, The Wild One, The Defiant Ones, Judgment at Nuremberg, On the Beach, The Caine Mutiny, Ship of Fools, and the over-the-top It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World. New York Times

Like the new icons? Hey, it’s about as close to a redesign as I might get in awhile. In case it’s not obvious, ” ” contains the permalink to each post (if you ever want to point people to a particular post), and ” ” takes you into Blogvoices to discuss each post. A number in parentheses next to the ” ” icon indicates that there are that many comments there you can review by clicking on the icon.

Blogvoices’ Hottest Threads, across blogs.

What’s Wrong with These Questions? Cornell physicist N. David Mermin poses ten more questions, in response to the heralded August, ’00 New York Times list of questions some physicists said they’d like to ask their colleagues of 100 years from now. It’s evident Mermin is more of a metathinker than that other bunch. Physics Today [via Ethel]

Thanks to the null device for pointing me to the want ad of the week ( if not the month).

New York’s bully in chief meets his match: ” ‘Yo Mama’ artist Renée Cox won’t let adulterer Rudy
Giuliani use Catholicism to beat her up.”

Mayor Rudy Giuliani is taking another shot at the
Brooklyn Museum of Art, wrinkling his pointy little nose
and spitting out labels like “outrageous,” “disgusting” and
“anti-Catholic.” Again he’s accusing the Brooklyn Museum,
which a little more than a year ago raised his ire by
including Chris Ofili’s “Holy Virgin Mary” accessorized
with elephant dung in its “Sensation” exhibit, of being
deliberately inflammatory and defaming the Roman
Catholic Church in order to increase museum attendance.

The current object of Giuliani’s indignation, which, again,
he has not yet seen in person, is a series of photographs by
artist Renée Cox called “Yo Mama’s Last Supper.” Cox’s
depiction of the biblical scene differs from, say, Leonardo
da Vinci’s in that all the disciples are black. What’s more —
and here’s what presumably has Giuliani really upset — Cox
herself poses, naked and lovely, with arms outstretched, in
Christ’s place. Salon

PC, M.D. by Sally Satel: “A doctor argues that
affirmative action
and ignoramus
patients
organizations are
ruining American
healthcare.” reviewed in Salon

In Search of the ‘Gay Gene’. A review of new evolutionary biological explanation of the persistence of homosexuality because of its adaptive value. “Even explains Ashcroft.” Washington Post

In defense of Oprah’s Book Club, which critics roundly dismiss and one has called the “carpet-bombing of the American mind.” The essayist says “Winfrey’s broad appeal is built on her capacity to affirm both the simple and the complex. In the end, Winfrey wants her
audience to read books. Period. She wants her audience to read because, just as much as Harold Bloom, Franz Kafka and
other literary heavyweights, she believes reading is transformative.” National Post

Physics’ new big question: what does ‘is’ mean?. Reading Prof. Lee Smolin’s new book, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (which, the reviewer says, “… makes Hawking’s A Brief History of Time seem as intellectually demanding as Hello“) shows an intellectually credible way to grapple with the philosophical questions that the quest for the Grand Unified Theory of physics brings up — unlike those Quantum-Physics-is-Eastern-mysticism lightweights of a decade ago. Telegraph UK Click here to search for <a href=”http://www.google.com/search?q=Prof+Lee+Smolin&hq=&num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&btnG=Google+Search
“>more on Smolin.

Days of Wonder. This is mostly for the reader who, in response to my posting about the asteroid landing, said something like “So what?”

Mankind’s giant leaps have become so frequent that by the end
of a week which saw two vast achievements most of us had
returned to our smaller concerns, if, indeed, we had taken much
notice of the announcements in the first place. It is an endearing
oddness of our species that while we’re landing on an asteroid
136 million miles away or learning that we have a little more than
double the genes of a fruit fly, we take our keenest satisfaction
from painting the sitting-room or reading about Tom Cruise and
Nicole Kidman. Guardian

And here’s more for the reader (perhaps the same one) who, commenting on my item about the rate of recession of the Antarctic ice cap, said said something amounting to “So What?”: Glacier Loss Seen as Clear Sign
of Human Role in Global
Warming

Studies show that the icecap atop
Mount Kilimanjaro is retreating at
such a pace that it will disappear in
less than 15 years. The vanishing is a
clear sign that a global warming trend
has exceeded typical climate shifts. New York Times

The Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment. Healthy middle-class college students were randomly divided into prison guards and prisoners for a planned two-week study of the psychological effects of simulated incarceration. The study had to be terminated after only six days because of what it did to the mock guards as well as the convicts.

The banality of cannibalism: none of the class of Hannibal Lector. BBC

In case you were wondering, there was nothing routine about Friday’s US airstrike against Baghdad, despite Dubya’s repeatedly billing it that way. Washington Post analysts see it as signalling a get-tough approach to Baghdad. But why? Having used the bankruptcy of the Clinton administration’s Iraq policy as a campaign point, some suggest Dubya and his handlers feel they have to follow through. I think we’re going to be seeing many policy decisions being made with a view toward little more than establishing the illegitimate son’s credibility on the front pages. As The New York Times puts it, Dubya is “giving
notice that he may be new to this, but he doesn’t plan to
show it.” Of course, he’s also signalling a diffidence about multilateralism. Except for Britain, which supported or, some say, even pushed the airstrike, there appears to have been a swaggering disregard for the reactions of the rest of the world, including our allies.

“The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.” — Dwight
Eisenhower

Cockburn vituperative in his inimitable style: “Sneering at Bill, the press
corps has nothing much to be proud of. How come not a single
one of those high-flying, White House-connected newshounds managed
to get hold of the sensational fact, finally disclosed a couple
of weeks ago, that Bill Clinton and Al Gore hadn’t had a significant
conversational encounter in a full year? They finally had a melt-down
gripe session not long before the recent election. As always,
it turns out we know nothing about what really goes on in the
White House. George W. could be tossing back dry martinis, partying
till dawn and four years down the road we’ll still be reading
up him and Laura saying their prayers and tucked up by 10:30.” Counterpunch

Connection Personnel Quit over WBUR Rift. This most literate and au courant of radio talk shows is on my local NPR station, but many of you in other areas are probably familiar with it already, among other reasons because it had an hour on weblogging last May that’s been broadly blinked. The show has recently become nationally syndicated. Erudite host Christopher Lydon and his senior producer were suspended in a contract dispute several days ago, which is essentially about who is going to reap the benefits of the syndication. WBUR was determined not to lose control in the same way they did when Car Talk went national several years ago. The station says The Connection will go on, but without Lydon who’d listen? Key WBUR personnel agree, and have now resigned in support of preserving the show as it is/was. Even if you think he’s abit pompous at times, he rounds up the most fascinating guests and asks the right questions.

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR):First Annual Report on How Power Shapes the News, “the
year’s most egregious examples of owner, advertiser and government influence on the news.”

Sam Smith: A few signs of a democracy in deep trouble.

In case you were wondering, there was nothing routine about Friday’s US airstrike against Baghdad, despite Dubya’s repeatedly billing it that way. Washington Post analysts see it as signalling a get-tough approach to Baghdad. But why? Having used the bankruptcy of the Clinton administration’s Iraq policy as a campaign point, some suggest Dubya and his handlers feel they have to follow through. I think we’re going to be seeing many policy decisions being made with a view toward little more than establishing the illegitimate son’s credibility on the front pages. As The New York Times puts it, Dubya is “giving
notice that he may be new to this, but he doesn’t plan to
show it.” Of course, he’s also signalling a diffidence about multilateralism. Except for Britain, which supported or, some say, even pushed the airstrike, there appears to have been a swaggering disregard for the reactions of the rest of the world, including our allies.

“The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.” — Dwight
Eisenhower

“Women really do lead men on for the first few minutes after
they meet – but without knowing it, says an Austrian scientist… Even when
women find the man unappealing, they do not send clear
rejection signals to begin with, the researchers found.

Women chat happily, send
sexually explicit signals
and encourage the man’s
attention, even if they
have absolutely no
interest in him. This gives
a woman time to assess a
man, says Grammer,
essential in human
courtship, since pairing off
is much riskier for the
female. The only time
women were negative at
all was when a man talked too much.” New Scientist

Thrown Off the Scent: “If humans are using smell to find a good partner for reproduction,
and the pill is turning things upside down, then there could be
serious consequences.” Guardian

The Greatest Hacks of All Time Wired

It’s not all in the genes. From the estimable science writer Matt Ridley: “All over the world, therapists this week reported a wave of panic and depression as
word spread that the human species has only 30,000 genes. People wept openly in
the street, humiliated by the thought that we have only twice as many genes as
flies and worms, and barely more than cress.

Not since Copernicus demoted our planet to a satellite of the Sun, or Darwin
demoted our species to a branch of the ape family, has there been such a pitiless
reminder that there is nothing special about us. Hardly more complex than cress!

If the quantity of our genes is humiliating, the quality does not seem to offer much
reassurance. Scientists reported this week that about 60 per cent of our genes were
direct copies of ones used by flies, worms, yeast and bacteria: themes invented by
our common ancestors and used ever since.” The Age

Men Show Feelings In Lower Left Quadrant Of Face: “When it comes to men, women and emotion, pet theories abound on
whether one sex is more emotional or inhibited than the other.

But since such notions are rarely backed by data, University of Florida
researchers turned to computer technology to quantify gender differences in
one component of emotional expression — how it is revealed by the face.

They discovered that although men and women are equally expressive, men
display most of their joy, disgust or other sentiments in the lower left
quadrant of their face. Women, on the other hand, show their emotions
across their entire countenance.” UniSci

Ian Frazier:Tomorrow’s Bird: soon it’s going to be all crows,all the time. “Since May, I’ve been working for the crows, and so far it’s the best job I ever had.” Doubletake

Kansas Enters the 19th Century New York Times

What’s in a Name? FBI takes the teeth out of Carnivore’s name: ‘The FBI has dressed its online wolf in sheep’s clothing, changing the name of its
controversial e-mail surveillance system, known to this point as Carnivore.

Carnivore now goes by the less beastly moniker of DCS1000, drawn from the work it does as a
“digital collection system.” The investigative agency built the tool to monitor the Internet
communications of suspects under its surveillance, but the system, housed on computers at
Internet service providers, also can collect e-mail messages from people who are not part of an
FBI probe.’ CNet.com

A Metafilter poster kicked off a thread about what blog to take to a desert island if you could only have one. Thanks to all those who thought of FmH. A number of other weblogs unfamiliar to me were up there on respondents’ lips. I’m going now to check out, for example, Dr Menlo, bluishorange.com, Calebos, and An Entirely Other Day.

Study Probes Dyslexia Troubles. An fMRI study visualizes deficits in the left inferior parietal lobe, establishing biological underpinning to this learning disability that is said to affect an estimated 15% of the population (although, in my opinion, is vastly overdiagnosed).

Is Windows XP for you? ‘…(F)or Microsoft chief software architect Bill Gates to call Windows XP a “major Windows
release,” which he did again this week, is disingenuous, in my opinion. It might be major, in
terms of how many marketing dollars Microsoft plans to spend on the product, but
feature-wise, this is a minor upgrade to Windows Me and Windows 2000 Professional.

Perhaps Gates feels he is justified in calling Windows XP “major” because Microsoft is taking
a major gamble with XP to help rejuvenate the PC market.’ ZDNet And WinXP to include pirate music terminator. As the wag writing the news item notes: “Think of it. An operating system designed to lose data!” The Register

Love Clogs the Digital Pipes

Three-Wheeling Driving Days at a Dead End. “Britain’s last three-wheeled car rolled off the assembly line, bringing to
a close 65 years of motoring tradition that has been the butt of endless jokes.

The Reliant Robin, a uniquely British concoction of fiberglass and lateral instability that
brought motoring pleasure to thousands, finally succumbed to a new generation of
inexpensive four-wheel microcars.”

Study Ties Obesity to Soda Pure fruit juice intake was also
tracked, but that did not account for the effect, the study
said. New York Times

Ecstasy & Agony: A 34-year-old with progressive Parkinson’s Disease discovers that MDMA (Ecstasy) has an astonishing effect on his body, relieving his Parkinson’s symptoms. This observation challenges the medical community and pharmacological Calvinists everywhere and is now being studied in hopes of generating new treatment options for Parkinson’s Disease. BBC And Tamara Straus thinks the drug’s cultural significance may be far greater; wondering if Ecstasy isn’t the drug of the millenium, “a postmodern cure in
a pill, that… eases spiritual emptiness and rancorous
individualism; … a chemical salve for
everything from alienation and depression to the
lack of spirituality and community.” AlterNet

In this age of the illegitimate son, The Consortium wants to remind you of what has been called by some the dirtiest political trick ever, the October 1980 coup by which the campaign of Reagan and the elder Bush allegedly sabotaged President Carter’s Iran hostage release negotiations and arguably stole that fall’s Presidential election from him.

Howstuffworks.com’s “How Hoverboards Will Work”. The Airboard is the first commercially-marketed hoverboard scooter. And you can click here for complete instructions on making your own simple hoverboard. “Children should ask for their parents’ permission before attempting to build a hovercraft on their own.”

Conason says the Media’s Clinton Obsession Is Giving Bush a
Free Pass. “That era of bipartisan good feeling promised by George W.
Bush didn’t last long, did it? Three weeks after their leader
took up residence in the White House, Mr. Bush’s friends,
appointees and media claque are in hot,
barking pursuit of the prior occupants.

With the President’s mild demurral,
Republican politicians and Washington
talking heads have displayed little interest in any topic besides
their obsession with bringing down the Clintons. Phony charges
about illicit gifts and office vandalism proliferated, along with
valid complaints about inappropriate pardons and excessive
rental costs. In the reporting of these latest “scandals,” few
distinctions were made between facts and fantasies, or between
the serious and the trivial.” The New York Observer

On the other hand, Jacob Weisberg thinks Bill Clinton, Chump, is getting what he deserves for not learning from his mistakes. “What does come a bit closer to making sense of the Rich
pardon is one of Bill Clinton’s less legendary character flaws:
gullibility. Clinton is, to be sure, a brilliant man and a shrewd
politician with a keen sense of where the interests of others lie.
But throughout his career, he has often shown himself to be a
poor judge of character. A naturally trusting fellow with a
deep craving for approval, Bill Clinton is, to be blunt, a bit of
a sucker. More precisely, he’s an easy mark for a certain type
of hustler. Once convinced that someone is his friend, Clinton
drops his guard and ignores crucial signals of intended
exploitation. After it becomes clear that such a friend has
taken advantage of his trust, Clinton feels bitterly betrayed.
But he’s hardly savvier the next time someone with dubious
motives shows up at his doorstep. ” Slate

Beyond the Bar Code: “Within a few years, unobtrusive tags on retail products will send radio signals to their
manufacturers, collecting a wealth of information about consumer habits—and also raising
privacy concerns.” MIT Technology Review

Biblical strongman was plagued by mental illness, says UCSD psychiatrist Eric Altschuler, who finds he demonstrated six out of the seven cardinal criteria for antisocial personality disorder. As a clinical psychiatrist myself, I hate these constant attention-getting attempts to retrospectively diagnose historical, artistic and spiritual figures with mental illnesses. You might think it’s just an innocent intellectual pastime of my colleagues, but the sensationalistic publicity about these pronouncements perpetuates an irresponsible image that diagnosis can be done at a distance from “surface” features in the absence of access to reports of the subject’s experience. More than that, it “feathers the bed” of the field by pushing the envelope of pathological explanations of extraordinary talents or exploits. New Scientist

Brain Regions Impaired by Alcoholism Identified By fMRI Studies in Young Adult, Female Alcoholics. While neuropsychological testing of which cognitive functions are impaired in long-term alcohol abuse had previously zeroed in on the right frontal and parietal regions, this study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to demonstrate in real-time the malfunctioning of specific brain regions involved. Among other findings, the functional deficits persisted even in the three of the ten women scanned who had been abstinent from alcohol for at least six months. Women apepar to be as sensitive to the adverse effects of alcohol as men even with shorter exposure.

Our friends electric. ‘One in eight people find
computer glitches more
vexing than the break
up of a relationship, a
recent survey on
“office rage” found.

Advocates of “affective
computing” say this
problem stems from the
gulf between
touchy-feely
humankind and cold,
aloof technology.’ They propose computer interfaces and robotic applications that respond to the user’s emotional states. BBC

Scores to attend priest’s ritual Pokemon burning ceremony: “Pokemon magazines and dolls are to be ritually burnt in
Mexico because of their alleged evil influence on children.” Ananova

Sub had civilians at controls. This is no news to anyone anymore. What appeared originally to be a tragic unfortunate accident starts to reek of coverup and ineptitude, US military might at its musclebound worst killing schoolchildren and other innocents. The Navy’s spokesperson certainly ‘doth protest too much’ in the form of denying perseveratively that the civilians at the controls could have had any effect. What troubles me, in the coverage I’ve read of this, is that no one is offering an explanation of, and apparently no reporters are digging for, exactly who these civilians are and why they were being given such a little-boy-with-his-big-toy fantasy treat. Seattle Times
Addendum: While I still haven’t heard this in the American press, the BBC reports that, as I suspected, this was a reward for large Navy donors, in this case to the restoration of the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, ironically the site of the signing of the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII. Apparently, these patronage perqs have not been that uncommon.

McDonald’s Hit by Spitting Email Hoax: A broadly-circulated email states that a South African TV show has footage of McDonald’s workers “spitting on white people’s hamburgers when ordered”, but the TV show denies it:

“An urban legend relating to a well-known hamburger fast-food chain
is currently circulating in SA. This false rumour states that Carte
Blanche has captured hidden camera visuals of the fast-food chain’s
employees allegedly mishandling food meant for customers,” the
Carte Blanche Website states today.

“The programme does not have such footage in its possession.
Should we acquire such footage, we will be the first to broadcast it.”

A source reports McD’s took a 20% revenue hit as a result of the news, but company representatives denied that the email had had any effect. The Register

Looking for Mr. Nader. Nader has been conspicuous in his absence since election day. He says he’s been busy wrapping up his campaign in accordance with Federal Election Commission regulations, but it appears that’s just a pretext. He’s apparently receiving conflicting counsel about whether he’d be helped or hindered by a critical stance toward the Democrats now, in light of his being viewed by some liberals as a “spoiler.” And Nader has an ambiguous relationship with Greens as well. In These Times

Never go skiing with a mobile phone… at least not in avalanche country. If your phone is on when buried with you, it’ll disrupt the signal your avalanche beacon is putting out and prevent you from being located.

Google buys Deja.com. I share in Jorn Barger‘s elation at this, which might be lost on anyone who is not a veteran of Usenet newsgroups.

But here’s the bad news one day later:

Message to Google: Usenet is a few useful conversations, hidden
by lots of noise. Duh.

In recent years Deja had tried to orientate the archive to being the
centrepiece of a shopping channel, with a number of tacky
manoeuvres such as inserting adverts into postings. But they’d
never (almost, but not quite) managed to break the main Usenet
archive overnight, which is effectively what Google has done. You’d
almost think Google wants to be thought of as a bunch of
come-lately, VC-flushed hooligans with no inkling of the history or
the culture of the Internet.

Something as simple as maintaining the Deja interface – Google
acquired the software as part of the deal – while signalling a change
of front-end and soliciting user input, could have avoided this PR
disaster for Google. The Register [via Robot Wisdom]

Joe Conason: Put Ye No Faith in Bush’s Ministers. “It seems likely that the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives will soon become a highly effective patronage scheme…” and some of the beneficiaries are none too savory characters. New York Observer

The debut issue of the Harvard Journal of Convergence, on the policy challenges of “the information and communications technology revolution.”

The New Yorker Goes Digital, but there’s not much online, at least yet. Slate

NEAR Space Probe Lands On Asteroid: “The NEAR spacecraft touched down on
the barren, rocky surface of Eros, successfully
completing history’s first landing on an
asteroid.” Click for images of the touchdown.

Three Strikes And Not Out for Suicidal Man. This story appears in Reuters’ “Oddly Enough” section, but to psychiatric professionals it is not odd at all for someone to repeatedly attempt suicide and fail. Many patients make what we call “low-lethality” or “high-rescue-potential” attempts for a variety of reasons including attention-seeking, ambivalence about ending their life, sadistic urges toward caregivers or family, or to manipulate themselves into psychiatric facilities. Others may be so impaired by their mental illness that, fully intending to die, they are hapless in their attempt. Nevertheless, they are a danger to themselves. What amazes me about this news story is that the man was apparently not hospitalized until after his fourth attempt, which might mean — although not knowing more details of the case makes it difficult to know — that he was not taken seriously. This is a dangerous message to give to a suicidal or quasi-suicidal patient who might respond to the perceived doubt or rejection with renewed attempts.

New Book, Lawsuit Allege IBM Hid Nazi-Era Past. Of course, the perpetration of atrocities expands to utilize the efficiencies of the information processing capacity available to it. But to what extent was IBM a willing accomplice to the Nazi regime? Germany was its second-ranked sales territory despite an international ban on trade with the Third Reich.

The attorney pursuing the lawsuit, and the author of the book (which , curiously enough, was substantially based on corporate correspondence IBM made available through academic research libraries) both assert that IBM’s database technology made possible the cross-indexing of names, addreses, genealogical data and bank accounts without which the Holocaust would have been far less efficient. But are we imposing our obsession with the pervasive effects of technology on modern life on an era that does not warrant it? Historians by and large have yet to weigh in on the issues raised by the book, partially because its content was kept secret until publication.

New Insights Into the Novel? Try Reading 300. The author of this essay embarks on a five-month reading marathon in order to be a judge for the National Book Awards, with a sense of indulgence in illicit pleasures and unexpected dividends as well. When she was finished, she felt she had learned so much about bad fiction-writing that she discarded 200 pages of her own unfinished manuscript. New York Times

Court Orders Modified Napster Injunction: “By swapping music files
online, the 61 million
clients of Napster Inc. are
making unfair use of
copyrighted material, a
federal appeals court ruled
today, in a decision that
could allow a judge to shut
down the service.

The court did not order
Napster to shut down
immediately, but the
company warned that the
decision could ultimately
lead to its closure.” The judge, recognizing that this findings might lead to a last-minute user rush on the Napster site, advised that there be rapid action on a preliminary injunction, though. New York Times. Napster is still alive — but
just barely. “A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled for the recording industry on virtually
every point of law at issue. Napster users, said the court, are
infringing on recording industry copyrights, Napster has a
responsiblity to halt that infringement and a preliminary
injunction shutting down Napster is not just “warranted but
required.”

However, the court also ruled that the injunction must be
modified before it is fully upheld by the appellate court.
Specifically, the court is requiring that Napster be notified in
advance that it is in violation of copyright in particular
cases, and if Napster refuses to bar transmission of the songs
across the Napster network, it will then be in violation —
and will be shut down.” Salon Here are reactions from industry pundits. Several mention that this will invigorate the file-sharing endeavor by bringing the issue back into public awareness and spurring developers correcting Napster’s shortcomings. Salon A page here puts you one click away from an opensource Napster server, various Napster clients and — most important in the soon-dawning post-Napster era — other sharing protocols that are alternatives to Napster. There are twenty-five of them listed here from Gnutella and the now-defunct Scour Exchange to some no one’s ever heard of.

Camille Paglia: ‘We’re Getting Clinton Now as He Really Is.’ ‘The media dropped
the ball on the Monica Lewinsky thing in so many ways.
Everyone acted as if it was just a momentary slip with
Monica. Give me a break! There were women going in
and out of that White House. Now I’m enjoying myself
so much with Denise Rich and her 42-inch bust. It’s like
“Temptation Island.” It’s going to be a whole running
series. “Bill Clinton’s Sexual Adventures.” How many
ways can Bill Clinton now embarrass his wife?’ Newsweek

Caste marks survive India’s killer quake: “There’s one
structure that can’t be shaken in India,
even by a killer earthquake — the caste
system.” CNN [via Rebecca’s Pocket]

Peaceful Apes Can’t Escape Congo’s War. The bonobo is one of the world’s rarest apes–a relatively
unknown, chimp-like species whose sole habitat is a patch of dense jungle in the Democratic Republic of Congo through which runs the front line of the Congolese civil war. The existence of this species came to the attention of zoologists only around 70 years ago. They are described as “relaxed, friendly,
female-dominated and far more interested in sex than in fighting
or brute competition.” Experts fear the bonobos — whose numbers were estimated at around 100,000 in 1980 but are believed to be as low as 10,000 now — are being poached
to near extinction for their meat; as a Belgian conservationist explains, “The armies
on all sides don’t get regular rations, so they eat the wildlife,
including bonobos. And now everybody in the forests have
access to automatic rifles, even the refugees.” ‘Bush meat’ is a delicacy too in Kinshasa. Now a makeshift orphanage struggles to save the species against dire odds.

“My friends think this is a crazy, dirty job. I tell them that bonobos
are just like us. They even are better than us. They are
peaceful. They don’t make wars.” Chicago Tribune

Guardian Unlimited moodmatcher: “(W)e’re so smart we can tell what mood you’re
in and what would make you feel better. Simply do our test and
we’ll find you some poetry to soothe your mood.”

Then there’s Robs Amazing Poem Generator, which makes a poem-like thing out of the content of any webpage whose URL you feed it. Here’s what it came up with from FmH. It’s not as great a syntax-parser as it needs to be, though…

Follow Me Here

mailing list,
messages

to ailments before

the brand new.

Scientist

9:document.write ;

Going to buy a

monochromatic

record and what are believed those who

will be allowed to construct

a state of salty

water holes in trenchant opposition to a little,

relief for the web and

copyrights are not treat the vicinity of Ariel:

history

offers a discrepancy

of finer granularity.

Another maven describes a carbon is my guestbook.

Or being a halftruth is

not only a

carbon sink, locking away carbon is

mylettersareonfire@hotmail.

Miromi’s sketchblog

Moral maze: “Greenpeace vows not to disrupt trials of the GM
rice that prevents blindness in poor countries…
The announcement, at the BioVision conference on
biotechnology in Lyon, France, signals a significant softening in
Greenpeace’s trenchant opposition to GM food.” New Scientist

BSE spreads: “Two Thais are reported to have the human
form of mad cow disease, the first outside
Europe if confirmed.” New Scientist

The Notional Missile Defence site solicited e-mails contributing
notions on how to construct a missile defence system, then wrote to apologize to contributors: “A
one-character error in a one-line computer script at an
Internet service provider sent all your messages to South
Africa–fortunately, and very strangely, to someone known to
NMD,” the NMD message says. “You’ll get an answer as soon
as the person there returns from their travels and sends your
message back. Or you can now visit http://www.nmd.org.uk.&#8221;

The message continues: “Of course, the hundred-million-line
computer programs on which the competing National Missile
Defence scheme would rely will contain no errors at all. Oh
no.”

Interesting email address of the month at Wordsmith.org, originators of the word-a-day list. This month’s Email Address of the Month, for example, is mylettersareonfire@hotmail.com. Click on the link for a complete list.

The Biology of Skin Color: ‘Some theories
advanced before the 1970s tended to be racist, and others were
less than convincing. White skin, for example, was reported to
be more resistant to cold weather, although groups like the Inuit
are both dark and particularly resistant to cold. After the 1970s,
when researchers were presumably more aware of the
controversy such studies could kick up, there was very little
work at all. “It’s one of these things everybody notices,”
(anthropologist Nina) Jablonski says, “but nobody wants to talk about.” ‘ Discover

An Astronomical Alphabet [from Abby]

Genome Map Could Change Mental Care. A new paper in Science by two preeminent psychiatrists, Eric Nestler and Peter McGuffin, waxes enthusiastic about the value sequencing the human genome will have for the treatment of mental illness, drug addiction and even deviant behavior… but don’t hold your breath, IMHO. This rush to jump onto the bandwagon of biogenetic determinism ignores the fact that psychiatry is still mired in the dark ages of arguing nature-versus-nurture in the etiology and treatment approach to most disorders. Furthermore, it’s not likely to be soon that we begin sequencing individuals’ genetic sequences as a routine clinical tool paid for by health insurance as opposed to research grants.

A unified theory of cognisance by curt cloninger, drawing upon semiotics (Eco), neuropsychology (Cytowic), Van Morrison, Olivia Tremor Control, and Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. Spark

Human genome helpless in the face of chocolate EurekAlert!

Men Are Crazy for Women Who Are, Too New York Times

McVeigh Wants Execution Broadcast. The official answer — not on your life. Our Puritanism about not allowing public viewing of executions makes further hypocrisy of the claim that capital punishment is a socially acceptable sanction, doesn’t it?

But in McVeigh’s case, I am persistently nagged by the idea that he’s angling for martyrdom in the militia movement. They’ve already got their own national holiday in Patriot’s Day, the anniversary of both the denouement at Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing. Some suggsted that McVeigh’s timing in rejecting further appeals of his death sentence and asking that an execution date be set was an attempt to get put to death on that date as well.

“I wake up at night in a cold sweat thinking about this”, says Marsha Ivins: Cosmic Construction Worker. ‘The future of NASA’s $60 billion International Space Station
construction project now rests squarely on the shoulders of a diminutive American astronaut
facing “a sequential series of miracles.” ‘

Painkiller Makes It Big on Black Market. The DOJ is becoming concerned about the extent of diversion of Oxycontin (the time-release version of the narcotic analgesic oxycodone) into the street trade. The appeal of this drug is familiar to me from seeing the high proportion of drug-abusing patients admitted to my psychiatric hospital who have found a way to arrange to have this drug prescribed for them legitimately, far out of proportion to their pain-control requirements.

Smokers Denied Transplants at Australian Hospital: ‘Surgeons at The Alfred Hospital here are demanding that
smokers stop the habit before undergoing major heart and lung surgery, according to a
report by the Australian daily newspaper The Age and other media services. The reported
ban has raised a storm of controversy in Australia.

The hospital says asking lung and heart transplant recipients to give up smoking is done as a
way to define who is most likely to do well after a transplant.

“The scarcity of organ availability obliges the Hospital to ensure that the best outcome
from the ‘gift of life’ of an organ donation occurs,” according to a statement from the
hospital.’ Reuters

I must say that, at first blush, I find this appealing but it’s clearly the start of a slippery slope. Where should the line be drawn about controlling lifestyle contributions to ailments before you’ll be allowed to receive effective therapy?

Genome Map Could Change Mental Care. A new paper in Science by two preeminent psychiatrists, Eric Nestler and Peter McGuffin, waxes enthusiastic about the value sequencing the human genome will have for the treatment of mental illness, drug addiction and even deviant behavior… but don’t hold your breath, IMHO. This rush to jump onto the bandwagon of biogenetic determinism ignores the fact that psychiatry is still mired in the dark ages of arguing nature-versus-nurture in the etiology and treatment approach to most disorders. Furthermore, it’s not likely to be soon that we begin sequencing individuals’ genetic sequences as a routine clinical tool paid for by health insurance as opposed to research grants.

Stop the FTAA. The next stop on the anti-globalization protest circuit is Quebec City’s Summit of the Americas, April 20-22, where thirty-four countries (the Western Hemisphere excluding Cuba) will be negotiating the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an “expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)” formulated and negotiated behind closed doors with the business sector fist-in-glove with government representatives. “It will be a resistance based on one No and many Yeses. No to corporate greed, violence, exploitation and irresponsibility. Yes to real democracy, human rights, peace and equity.”

Man returns armored truck money: “A man suspected of walking off with more than 125 pounds of cash that
fell out an armored truck returned all $640,000, still wrapped in
plastic, to authorities Friday.” CNN

Giuliani Internalized: “The next mayor will inherit a city where the left is
dead, capitalism is embraced and residents have made
their peace with bourgeois values. But then you never
really believed those squeegee guys had rights, now
did you?” New York Times Magazine

Gays in the British Military: Ask, Tell and Then Move On. The UK moves toward the future while the US moves toward the rear. New York Times

Researchers Say New Drug Could Reduce Sepsis Deaths: “The drug, a genetically engineered version of a natural
substance from human cells called activated protein C, will
be marketed under the brand name Zovant if it is approved.
Experts predicted that Zovant would be very expensive, but
a spokesman for Lilly declined to discuss the price.

The drug is not an antibiotic, and does not treat the
underlying infections that lead to sepsis. Instead, it quells
inflammation and abnormalities in blood clotting, which
contribute to the high death rates of 30 percent to 50
percent among patients who contract sepsis.” New York Times

Cockburn and St.Clair: “…And now the bloodbath will begin…” The Crimes of Ariel: “Sharon’s history offers a monochromatic
record of moral corruption, with a documented record of war crimes
going back to the early 1950s.” Counterpunch

When Local ISPs Go National, All Customers Get Is Grief. My dialup access is through one of the nation’s oldest independent ISPs, the World at Software Tool and Die around the corner from my house in Brookline, MA. Certainly belongs on someone’s best-kept secrets list: never a busy signal, optimal speed, prompt competent technical assistance, constant quality improvement… I dread the day they’re bought out. Now if they’d only partner with someone to offer DSL with the same quality…

Sleeping Illness Drug in Production. “A U.S. company has agreed to supply a cure for
the deadly sleeping sickness disease for free to poor African
villages because the drug has another, moneymaking use –
reducing women’s facial hair.” AP

The devil has always been in the dance: “The idea of uncontrolled, wild dancing as something dangerous
stays with us: the club must be licensed for entertainment; the
rave strictly policed. The idea of people enjoying themselves,
whirling like banshees out of control is deeply unsettling to
authority. Uncontrolled passion must be restrained.

Yet in the not-so-distant past, hundreds of thousands of people
took part in frenzied outdoor orgies and wild displays of dancing
that lasted for weeks. People would dance themselves into a
state of elation, tearing off their clothes, laughing, weeping and
having sex with strangers.” The Guardian

Beckett Reels: The Beckett-on-Film Project is finished and the 19 films will be screened this week in repertory in Dublin. What would Beckett have thought of them, as the garrulous playwright who embraced the possibilities of 20th century media, wrote his plays not only as texts but entire theatrical events, and was not shy about citing deviations from his intent? Irish Times