In a new Oxford University-published book, The End

of Time: The Next

Revolution in Physics,

the independent maverick physicist Julian Barbour

asserts that time

simply doesn’t exist. This

by itself is not so shocking.

My friend Artie, for

example, has always

insisted that there’s only

change, not time. Things

move around; time may

just be a way of noting

that. But Barbour goes

further. He says there’s no such thing as motion

either. Instead, Barbour sees a universe filled with

static instants — instants that contain “records” that

fool any conscious beings who happen to find

themselves encased in one into believing that things

have moved and time has passed.

Barbour’s theory meets one test of important new

ways of looking at the universe: It doesn’t, on the

face of it, make a lot of sense. [Feed]

And Julian Barbour’s own website discusses his ideas further.

The music never stopped. From discussion at the New York Academy of Sciences covered in the Globe and Mail. Was the development of music an individual biological adaptation that helped endowed members of the species survive, evolutionarily selected for and genetically encoded? Several bits of evidence point that way, some argue. Music is universal, in all human cultures. The age of the oldest archaeological evidence of musical instruments suggests its extremely early development in human evolution. Lullabies are universal; maybe happy contented infants have a survival advantage if sung to. Musical ability might make one more attractive to potential mates, viz. the way pop stardom and sexuality are intertwined. Tribal bonding through music is such an innately powerful experience; the survival advantages of group cohesion are obvious. But others feel that this is little different from other cultural developments like writing and visual art — cultural but not biological adaptations. ‘ “As far as biological cause and effect are concerned, music is useless,” (Steven) Pinker wrote in

his 1997 book How the Mind Works. “Compared with language, vision, social reasoning

and physical know-how, music could vanish from our species and the rest of our lifestyle

would be virtually unchanged.” ‘

The Queen Is Dead. How Judy Garland went from gay icon to an embarrassment. The Atlantic

Superfish are no superfix for hunger. Jean-Michel Cousteau writes about these genetically modified salmon that grow twice as large six times as fast as a natural Atlantic salmon, while consuming only 3/4 of the food. 100,000 of these, raised by a Canadian firm, await regulatory approval for sale to U.S. markets, the largest in the world for farmed fish. Like the first green revolution, this is supposedly a response to world hunger. But we should know by now world hunger isn’t so much a problem of undersupply as inequity of distribution, and just as the green revolution took care of agribusiness first, this development is mostly good for biotechnology. The problem is that some mathematical models indicate that introducing transgenic fish into a native population — and do you believe that sequestration is possible?? — may so adversely influence the overall fertility of the species that it will lead to extinction. So hurry up and eat your salmon. Environmental News Network.

Now contrast the above concerns with this critique of a related issue — environmentalists’ concerns about the introduction of non-native species into ecosystems. Reason magazine covers the controversy created by philosopher Mark Sagoff’s contention, at this spring’s meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, that

arguments over which landscapes are to be preferred…should be recognized for what they are and debated on their proper terms, as

value judgments that are rooted not in science, but in aesthetics. The fact is that tastes vary. Some people love

to look at fields of amber grain and to hear the gentle lowing of cows in a barn. Others prefer prairie grasses

dotted with wildflowers and the rude huffing sounds of bison. Ecology will not and cannot tell us which

landscape is “better” or should be favored. The most beautiful landscape or ecosystem, like beauty itself, is in

the eye of the beholder.

In conflict, voice of Kashmiris unheard: “For 40 years, many in India’s only Muslim-majority state have

longed for union with the neighboring Islamic state of Pakistan.

But a decade of death and destruction, wrought by a

Pakistan-supported insurgency, and by Indian forces’ harsh

efforts to suppress it, has changed all that. Most Kashmiris are

now alienated from both masters in New Delhi and

self-proclaimed saviors in Islamabad.” Noticed how generic this problem of relatively powerless Muslim populations interfacing with greater powers is in the hotspots in disparate parts of the world? Off the top of my head, as well as Kashmir there’s Chechniya, Kosovo, East Timor, Azerbaijan…Boston Globe

Death in Venice. Joshua Micah Marshall: “It’s true that all of America’s

G-7 partners, save Japan, have abolished capital

punishment, but the reason isn’t, as death-penalty

opponents usually assume, that their populations eschew

vengeance. In fact, opinion polls show that Europeans

and Canadians crave executions almost as much as their

American counterparts do. It’s just that their politicians

don’t listen to them. In other words, if these countries’

political cultures are morally superior to America’s, it’s

because they’re less democratic.” The essayist tries to show that the death penalty opponents’ argument is flawed, but IMHO it’s his that is flawed. He wants to set up the straw man argument that liberals always claim to ‘speak for the “little guy,” the “working family,” or, in Al

Gore’s recent phraseology, “the people, not the

powerful” ‘, to claim that liberal opponents of the capital punishment are hypocritical. But no death penalty opponent I’ve ever known or read argues that it’s the will of the masses! They say that it’s morally preferable and our legislators should rise to a higher standard, precisely as Marshall describes is the case in western Europe and Canada. Impassioned political positions always condescend to public opinion, don’t they? Otherwise they wouldn’t be controversial.

And, in more death penalty scrivening, Benjamin Soskis argues that the current move for moratoria on execution, as in Illinois, may actually strengthen the death penalty, based as they are not on a fundamental objection to the central principle that a state may take a life but merely concerns about the imperfect application of that principle. The New Republic

See the International Space Station from your own back yard

“With the aid of free NASA software, stargazers and space enthusiasts can track the

progress of construction on the ambitious space research

facility.

And they can do it with the naked eye.

A new web site developed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight

Center in Huntsville, Ala., is making it easy and exciting for

enthusiasts across the country and around the world to

catch a glimpse of the orbiting facility.”

Featured Author: J. K. Rowling If you still need to catch up on what the Harry Potter business is all about, the New York Times has collected its reviews of the previous three books, articles about the author and the phenomenon, coverage of the backlash, and Janet Maslin’s and Stephen King’s reviews ofGoblet of Fire.

Hope Erodes for Azerbaijan’s Sea of Refugees. One out of every eight people in thsi country lives in a refugee camp. The government of Azerbaijan does nothing. The UN High Commission on Refugees signs off with a shrug. While this New York Times article has clearly chosen to depict the worst of the worst, should any human being live like this?

And not a moment too soon…

Oil Leak Forces Halt of Second Japan Nuke Reactor, two days after an earthquake had forced the shutdown of another reactor at the plant. As usual, officials stress that no radiation was released into the outside environment.

Is this what happens when disgruntled ex-workers don’t have access to firearms?

New low in denying protection of law by blaming the victim‘s ‘stupidity’.

Court Rules Rude Cab Driver Went Too Far. Could you ever see a ruling like this in a major U.S. city??

Blind Analyst Killed by Angry Patient. The patient also killed the analyst’s wife and then himself. Five years of analysis, which the assailant’s wife claimed had made him worse, had cost him $130,000, for which he had sought a refund. The 91-year-old analyst reportedly used a technique called “water magnetism“, a term I’ve never heard of in conjunction with psychotherapeutic technique and which smacks of quackery in the telling; perhaps more appropriately described as money magnetism?

Animators Say, ‘That’s All, Folks’. In the aftermath of the hasty closing of Fox Animation Studios, the future of traditional ‘pencil-on-paper’ animation is in question…except, of course, for Disney and wannabee Dreamworks.

Hope Erodes for Azerbaijan’s Sea of Refugees. One out of every eight people in thsi country lives in a refugee camp. The government of Azerbaijan does nothing. The UN High Commission on Refugees signs off with a shrug. While this New York Times article has clearly chosen to depict the worst of the worst, should any human being live like this?

Thousands Form Human Chain Around U.S. Air Base in Okinawa on the eve of expected arrival of G8 leaders for summit conference. Recall this is the base where three marines were convicted of the rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl in 1995, another marine was recently arrested and charged with the molestation of a 14-year-old girl while she slept in her bed at home, and an airman was apprehended after a hit-and-run accident.

Ruling Frightens Stalking Victims. Michigan’s 1993 anti-stalking law was thrown out on federal appeal, as criminalization of “a substantial amount of conduct protected by the First Amendment”. The ruling “may mean Michigan stalking victims cannot count on state law to

protect them from their tormentors anymore, and that 125

convicted stalkers now behind bars could soon be back on the

street.”

Hate (or Hate Crime) becomes a partisan issue.

Celebrity Donors. A list of Hollywood’s high-roller contributors to Bush, Gore and Nader, including links to information about each contributor. Center for Responsive Politics

Automakers urged to implement ‘smart car’ devices. Federal safety officials say new technology offers first credible possibility of eliminating much of the human error behind collisions. (Approaching innovations include radar to sense stationary obstacles, night vision, adaptive cruise control that senses the distance to vehicle ahead, smart steering assistance to keep a car travelling down the center of its traffic lane, linking emergency services to car-borne GPS etc.) Nando Times Some human error, of course, may not be eliminated. There was a replay of an extraordinary audio clip from last year on this evening’s All Things Considered on NPR. Jack E. Robinson, the hapless Republican contender for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, had been getting carried away ranting to an ATC interviewer over his cellular phone about the Massachusetts Republican leadership’s lack of confidence in him, as he drove down the road. All of a sudden, slam! he has a clearly audible auto accident.

Radioactive runoff reported near Los Alamos lab. Yes, indeed, as feared, first significant rainstorms since the wildfires are flushing radioactive isotopes down Los Alamos Canyon.

EyeTracking Online News. For four years, a study by Stanford University and the Poynter Institute has examined online news readers’ eye tracking patterns. They find, contrary to expectations, that the eyes go first to text rather than photos or graphics. A further finding from the study is that banner ads do catch readers’ attention for long enough to perceive the ad. Many other findings about online news-reading habits here.

Quakes may explain the mystery of the Oracle of Delphi. Reading that (archaeological) headline, why did I think of the information technology industry first? [grin]

New autism study buoys parents’ hopes but has doctors worried: “First, parents clamored

for the hormone secretin in hopes it would help their autistic children, but the tests proved

disappointing. Now a new theory is triggering desperate parents’ interest – and this time the

stakes are higher because it could spur misuse of the nation’s most precious antibiotic,

vancomycin.” No placebo-controlled trials yet. Nando Times

Is it Wise to Bet on Mathematical Progress? The publishers of a book about a man obsessed with Goldbach’s conjecture — a deceptively simple but famously unproven mathematical hypothesis from 1742 — have offered a $1m prize for a reputable proof of the conjecture before March 2002. They’ve indemnified themselves against the possibility of having to pay out; thus, the underwriter of the iinsurance policy is in essence placing a bet against a solution to the conjecture within the timeframe. Would mathematicians agree on the odds — around 100:1 — that the unnamed insurance company took on? Lingua Franca

The next new important antipsychotic drug wins FDA nod. Concerns about ziprasidone’s cardiac safety held up approval in 1998 but new clinical data is clears it for release. Schizophrenia, the major target condition for antipsychotic medications, is an immensely tragic disease with a devastating toll. A series of newly developed medications has made it far easier to treat in the last decade, the first real advances since the initial introduction of antipsychotic medications in the 1950’s set in motion the possibilities (for better or worse) of deinstitutionalization and community treatment of the seriously mentally ill. Despite the broad incidence of schizophrenia and the likelihood that your life has intersected with that of someone who has the disease or has the disease in their family, the seriously psychotic are a disenfranchised population; so this revolution does not attract as much public attention as the previous decade’s more “sexy” breakthroughs in antidepressant drugs, starting with Prozac. No bestselling Listening to Zeldox or Zyprexa Nation in the offing, I’m afraid.

And what’s up with this? It seems that marketing consultants have decreed that almost all newly developed psychiatric medications have to have an ‘x’ or a ‘z’ — if not both — in their brand name to be taken seriously these days. Zeldox, Zyprexa and Clozaril are three of the last five antipsychotics. If we include ‘q’, we can add Seroquel. Turning to antidepressants, we find Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Trazodone, Celexa, Serzone, Luvox and Effexor. Zyban is sort of in there too; it’s Wellbutrin marketed for smoking cessation instead of antidepressant use.

You buck this trend if you read here.

So you think you’re in love? Further fascinating data from functional MRI, this time about the areas of the brain involved in the “brain activity” called being in love. Areas of the brain involved in visceral emotion, the experience of elation, and the brain’s reward system are activated when subjects are shown pictures of their love object but not when shown pictures of friends of the same gender as the loved one. New Scientist

Mind phantoms. A Swiss neuroscientist attempts to explain ghosts as an epiphenomenon of brain damage. While I agree that very strange sensory or cognitive experiences follow from damage to parietal regions responsible for distinguishing self from non-self, I think this idea about ghosts is quite reductionistic, regardless of one’s beliefs about the paranormal. New Scientist

Fossil Fantastic. Thanks to a reader who sent me this blink to a webpage from Los Angeles Metro Rail about the remarkable, repetitive Ice Age fossil finds of a tunnelling machine operator working on their system.

The View From the Top. President Clinton freelances for Newsweek on the Middle East peace negotiations.

R.I.P. Jan Karski at 86; Warned West About Holocaust. Begged by Warsaw Jews to take news of their plight to the west as he prepared for a secret mission from the Polish Resistance’s government-in-exile to London and Washington, Karski, who was a Polish Catholic, went into the Warsaw Ghetto to witness firsthand. The Polish Underground actually arranged to infiltrate him into a concentration camp in the uniform of a Ukrainian guard. He remained embittered for the rest of his life by the reluctance he felt from the Allied governments to act on the news he conveyed.

There were five points that the two men in the Ghetto

asked Mr. Karski to pass on to the Allied leaders:

Preventing the extermination of the Jews should be

declared an official goal of the Allies fighting Hitler.

Allied propaganda should be used to inform the German

people of the war crimes taking place and to publicize

the names of German officials taking part.

The Allies should appeal to the German people to bring

pressure on Hitler’s regime to stop the slaughter.

The Allies should declare that if the genocide

continued and the German masses did not rise to stop

it, the German people would be held collectively

responsible.

Finally, if nothing else worked, the Allies should carry

out reprisals by bombing German cultural sites and

executing Germans in Allied hands who still professed

loyalty to Hitler.

Mr. Karski later said that the Jews’ proposals were “bitter

and unrealistic,” as if they knew such a program could not

and would not be carried out, and that he had told them

their five points went beyond international law.

For the rest of his life he remembered the response of the

man accompanying Mr. Feiner: “We don’t know what is

realistic, or not realistic. We are dying here! Say it!”

Unless I’m sadly mistaken, the heroism of this man, of whom I had known nothing until I read this obituary, needs to be better known. New York Times

Tom Lehrer: Songs & More Songs By Tom Lehrer. Rhino Records re-releases most of the work from the ’50’s and ’60’s (except for his highest-charting album, That Was the Year That Was) of this perverse and reclusive mathematician-turned-songster and ’60’s cult figure. Here are the liner notes. And here is a realaudio of “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”. Lehrer has painfully consented to several high-profile interviews, like this one in the Washington Post, in conjunction with the release, in contrast to much of the intervening decades when he was content to cultivate the rumor that he was dead.

Drowned in the Desert. Several weeks ago, I posted an entry about research on using the analysis of vapors from decomposing corpses to establish the time since demise. I mentioned the counterclaims of the forensic entomologists that their accuracy in establishing time of death needed no improving upon. Here’s a review of the memoir by preeminent forensic entomologist Lee Goff.

It is a fine

thing, rare in fiction and not so common even in

non-fiction, to read an account of how an expert applies his

talent. It is the nearest thing to magic in the real world, and

not to be despised merely because Goff’s skill lies in a

place where people prefer not to look: where maggots feed

on the flesh of dead people.

As a founding father of the modern science of

forensic entomology, Goff is most often called on to

determine the time of death of a murder victim, and his

accuracy can awe…I was glad

there were no photographs in the book, only tasteful line

drawings of insects. Beetles, ants, wasps, flies, mites and a

centipede all parade in Goff’s bestiary, but it is maggots

which rock his world.

…A forensic

entomologist was baffled by the unusual size of some of

the maggots on the corpse of a 20-year-old woman found

stabbed to death by a logging road. It turned out that the

big maggots, which had grown more than twice as fast as

they should have done, had been feeding from the victim’s

nose, which was suffused with cocaine from years of drug

abuse.

By the way, Goff’s major research methodology involves murdering scores of pigs each year and planting them in the wild to study their decomposition under various circumstances. London Review of Books

The Center for Responsive Politics reviews the corporate donors to the coonventions this summer, most of whom have major issues pending before Congress. Eight corporations (AT&T, AIG, Microsoft, HP, GM, Global Crossing, Lockheed Martin and American Water Works) are nonpartisan — funding both parties’ summer bashes in equal measure, although most of them have favored the Republicans in other campaign contributions this season. The cost of the Republican Convention is an estimated $50 million, up from $30 million four years ago. The Democrats, who also spent around $30 million in 1996, are laying out $35 million this time around. Taxpayers fund $13.3 million of each convention (why on earth should we be paying for this??), and for the remainder the parties depend on corporate largesse. You can click through from this site to access lists of all the donors giving $100,000 or more to either party.

Russia’s Poison Mushroom Death Toll Rises to 95, many in one region. Gathering wild mushrooms is a popular Russian summer activity. A local variety of death cap has apparently mutated to resemble ordinary edible mushrooms; many of the victims are older people with failing eyesight.

Peter the Penguin Wades Ashore After 600-Mile Swim: In what is claimed to be the largest wildlife evacuation in history, 20,000 jackass penguins were removed from their island nesting places off the western Cape Horn in South Africa three weeks ago, trucked across the country and released to swim home. This gave environmentalists time to clean up the penguins’ habitat after it was fouled by an oil slick from a sunken ship. Almost exactly six years earlier, an oil leak from another sunken ship decimated the same penguin population; some of the currently rescued birds wear tags from the rescue effort six years ago.

Expert Says Response to Bio Attacks Can Traumatize. A researcher who has studied a sample of emergency responses to threats of biological attack (most commonly, anonymous letters allegedly contaminated with anthrax) says the current hysteria is leading to overreaction. ‘In 27 of the 40 incidents Cole studied, people who might have been exposed to a toxin were

undressed, sometimes in public, or scrubbed with a solution containing bleach. In half of the

incidents, people were hospitalized or given antibiotics.

“Interviews with officials and victims indicated that many victims were psychologically or

physically traumatized. Some suffered allergic reactions to bleach,” Cole said.’

Researcher Urges Less Use of Anti-Bacteria Products

‘Ingredients in soaps and cleansers intended

to fight bacteria could promote the growth of drug-resistant

“superbugs” that might otherwise be kept in check with little

more than a vigorous scrub.

The efforts of humans to keep their bodies and the things they

touch bacteria-free are misguided, Tufts University

microbiologist Dr. Stuart Levy told the International Conference

on Emerging Infectious Diseases.’

Tattoos Trigger Muscle Wasting in Three Men

“In the July 18th issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, doctors

from Israel report on three cases in which young men who had

recently gotten tattoos began losing muscle in the surrounding

area. All had tattoos on the upper body and suffered the muscle

meltdown in their shoulders and arms. Two also had nerve

damage.

There was no other explanation for the mysterious muscle wasting, and unfortunately, the

damage is permanent, Dr. Israel Steiner of Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem told

Reuters Health. Exactly how a tattoo would trigger muscle atrophy is unclear, he said, but

the possibilities include injury from the needle, bad technique on the part of the tattoo

artist, or the pigment in the tattoo ink. Some research, he noted, has suggested tattoo

pigment contains potentially toxic compounds.”

China-Russia Pact Condemns U.S. Missile Shield Plan. It should come as no surprise that the U.S.’s stubborn insistence on forging ahead with the missile defense plan seems to be driving Russia and China closer. They issued a joint warning about the grave security consequences of U.S. persistence. ‘Missile threats cited by the United States as grounds for NMD

(were) “actually a ruse to cover its attempt to violate the ABM,”

said the Sino-Russian statement, referring to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic

Missile treaty.’ If we really want NMD to protect us against missile attacks from “rogue states” and not to garner a strategic imbalance against other nuclear powers, I still say that the best way to show the world that we’re not disingenuous would be to gift China and Russia with the technology (if we ever perfect it…).

Three Russian organized crime figures have been using the old phantom chicken scam to defraud banks of millions.

Put some gravity back in your life: A French experiment reveals that the tubulin-based cytoskeletons of most cells will not develop properly in weightless conditions. Serious dent in prospects for prolonged space missions, and Lord knows what it’d mean for fetal development under weightless conditions, if we ever get there. New Scientist

“A four-year old Indian girl has married a stray dog in a traditional Hindu service — and it wasn’t

a case of puppy love at first sight.

The bizarre ceremony was prompted by an astrologer who told

the girl’s father that the ceremony would transfer the evil

effects of the planet Saturn from the girl to the dog.

The girl, Anju, had suffered several illnesses and had fallen in ponds, fractured bones and

burnt her hand in the kitchen, the father, Subal Karmakar, said.

…Residents of the village, mostly illiterate, enjoyed the feast but ridiculed the ceremony.

‘He is superstitious, but why should I care if he wants to waste money and give us a feast? I

enjoyed the rice, meat, curd, lentil and sweets,’ said Fakir Chand Durlab, Karmakar’s

neighbor.”

Postal Inspectors On The Rampage: THE POSTAL JUSTICE PROJECT:

“This web-site is dedicated to all postal workers, past and present, who have been subjected to criminal harassment at the hands

of the postal inspectors. Also, if you know of a friend or relative who has made complaints about their employer, the U.S. Postal

Service, that you dismissed as crazy, this web-site is also for you.”

Web piracy is hitting Hollywood sooner than the studios thought. “Hollywood, your nightmare is here. Thanks to two

pieces of software — one ‘liberated’ from Microsoft

Corp. by a global underground of video buffs and

computer hackers — high-quality digital movies,

available on a variety of Web sites, can be stored in 10%

to 20% of the space that had been required just six

months ago. That means that PC users with high-speed

DSL or cable-modem connections can download a

full-length movie such as “The Matrix” in an hour or two

from a spreading network of illicit Web sites. The entire

film can fit on a single CD or be stored on the

computer’s hard drive.” MSNBC

eCRUSH – “Got a secret crush? Find out if your crush likes you back without the risk of rejection.”

Tardigrade appreciation headquarters.

“A personality cult …has made Joyce what he never

was, in the name of a cause that is dubious in the

first place: the sustaining of the Joyce industry itself in its own attempt to refashion the modern novel

along the lines of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The

problem is that, to turn Joyce into a totem, the

industry has had to tell a lot of lies.

The lies began after the war, when the so-called New

Critics needed a modern novelist to represent their

art-for-art’s- sake views that made the pleasure-pain

of complexity and contradiction the height of

aesthetic experience.” New Statesman

“The

unique kind of hurt resulting from the rejection of ( an author’s) submitted

manuscript” is weighed by Canadian psychiatrist Vivian Rakoff. ‘Examples of writerly narcissism abound: It is the rare

author who does not flip first to his entry in the journal or newspaper,

or who does not stop to pause obsessively inside every bookstore,

anxiously searching for his book on display.

It has long been known that writers suffer from a much higher incidence

of mood disorders, including depression and mania, than other people.

The precise medical reason for this has never been adequately

explained. But Rakoff believes it is because writing is less a true

expression of the artist’s life (except in the case of the daily diarist)

than it is a “form of compensation and redress for denied satisfactions.” ‘

A story purportedly written by Gabriel García Márquez on how he is dying of cancer, published in an Italian magazine, prompted this reply from the author’s agent Carmen Balcells to a request for British publishing rights: “García Márquez is ashamed that this rubbish might be

considered as a text written by him. It has gone around the world and I

have no means of righting this usurpation of his name. It seems to proceed

from a Colombian actor whom I hope I will never run into or I will insult

him as he deserves.”

Assessment: Thabo Mbeki – Why has South Africa’s excellent president gone loco?  by David Plotz

Mbeki faces a health catastrophe of

unimaginable proportions. The West keeps

haranguing him to buy drugs that he can’t afford,

without trying to find a solution that he can. For 58

years, he has never succumbed to desperation or

folly, no matter how dire the situation. If South

Africa has become so troubled that even the

unflappable Mbeki is coming unhinged, the world

should worry.

Slate

Circuses’ survival a tightrope act. Here’s more on the controversy over misuse of circus animals, which has reached the level of House Judiciary Committee hearings. It also seems that far fewer people are running away to join the circus and spend long, low-paid hours on the road. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Postmodern Nursing. The essayist contends that the nursing profession is still mired in not having found a way to integrate humanistic compassion and scientific rigor.

Retired Navy Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll voices his alarm, in an LA Times opinion piece, that We Are Taking a Detour From Deterrence.

The U.S. Senate is preparing to take a major step to abandon all pretense that U.S. nuclear

forces exist only to deter war. An amendment to the pending Defense Authorization Act for

2001 would lead to the development of a new nuclear weapon designed expressly for

fighting.

The new weapon is to be a low-yield device with earth penetration capability, intended to

destroy deeply buried bunkers.

“…Not only is the Senate’s action a throwback to those unlamented days of preparing to

prevail in nuclear war, but it also is a flagrant repudiation of a solemn pledge the United

States made in May at the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York. We

joined with Britain, France, China and Russia in a commitment to accomplish the total

elimination of nuclear arsenals, leading to nuclear disarmament.

Senator Paul Wellstone seeks State Dept. investigation of Colombian death squad activity tied to Colombian military. President Clinton last week signed the bill providing hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance to Colombian government counter-narcotics efforts. Wellstone has previously tried and failed to shift $225 million from this appropriation to domestic substance abuse rehabilitation efforts.

Human Rights Watch sees a pattern behind the recent Philadelphia police brutality case — of excessive police force in subduing suspects after high-speed chases. “Several officers in the Philadelphia videotape were clearly attempting to stop other officers

from hitting and kicking Jones. Those officers deserve recognition for behaving in a

professional manner, Human Rights Watch said.”

Animal Protection Institute meets Ringling Bros. Circus’ arrival in LA with thirty anti-circus billboards. “When you buy a ticket to the circus, the animals pay the price. People mistakenly believe

that animals aren’t mistreated in larger circuses like Ringling Bros.,” said Dena Jones,

Program Director for the Sacramento-based Animal Protection Institute. “Unnatural living

conditions, brutal training methods, and a stressful life of travel are common to all circuses,

regardless of size. We’re placing the billboards to remind people that the only humane

circuses are those that don’t use animals.”

Death without dignity. “…recent evidence suggests that attempts at

physician-assisted suicide often meet with unexpected

complications. What’s more, almost no one in the medical

community is doing anything about it…Doctors are apparently hungry for information. Steven Heilig,

director of the Bay Area Network of Ethics Committees, an

umbrella organization for the region’s hospital ethics

committees, recalls a meeting at which two physicians from

the Netherlands gave a presentation on the Dutch system of

physician-assisted suicide: ‘Someone asked a clinically

specific question — I think it was about dosage — and this sea

of pens suddenly emerged, poised to write down everything

they said.’ ” Salon

An interesting proposed solution to cybersquatting that seems to make sense. The Register

The useful Spike Report from the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review points us to the public relations nightmare surrounding a news photo of NY governor Christie Todd Whitman frisking a black suspect with glee during a 1996 ride-along with state police in Camden. The New York Times editorialized about her gaffe last week:

The man she frisked had apparently already been

searched by the troopers for weapons and drugs and then

handed over to the governor. The man had not been accused

of any crime.

… the fact remains that the posed look of the photograph

and Mrs. Whitman’s smiling expression add up to the

appearance of a gratuitous insult. The controversy over the

photo may also help explain why Mrs. Whitman has had so

much trouble putting the political problem of racial profiling

by New Jersey state troopers behind her.

Richard Stallman likes this apocryphal letter to Dr Laura [via Gulfstream].

I mused the other day about getting a guest editor when I’m gone for parts unknown for three weeks at the end of the summer. Now I find, reading Rebekah Allen’s blorg (“Come for the nipple. Stay for the content”), that she’s tapped beebo.org‘s Michael Stillwell while she’s away in Madagascar. [Beebo does some useful weblog statistics and ratings, BTW.]

A thoughtful article on weblogging, and not just because, after the author interviewed me at length, his description is complimentary: “It’s just slightly hyperbolic to say his

weblog is akin to a newspaper edited by Oliver Sacks.” (And I had never mentioned to him that Sacks is one of my pleasures in life.) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Check Your Freedom at the Front Door: CNET’s “list of your top ten legal nonrights on the web.”

Check Your Freedom at the Front Door: CNET’s “list of your top ten legal nonrights on the web.”

Magnetic storm forecast following giant sunspot flare. “Colorful

lights could dance in the sky this

weekend, as a giant solar storm sends

charged particles crashing into the

Earth. Besides the bright northern

lights, the storm could threaten power

grids and radio transmissions.

A massive solar eruption took place

early Friday, the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration reported.” I keep going out at the peak of these magnetic disturbances but have yet to see the coveted and magical aurora borealis.

Divorce online: Not exactly point, click and split, does this innovation ease the pain of a remorseless process or make easy impulse divorce that much closer? “People who want to petition for divorce can choose to log

on to the Internet, download – for a price – all the required

documents, fill them in and email them to the service’s

legal team.” BBC

Where are you if you haven’t noticed that these things are everywhere?

Computer game given adult rating. “In what could become a landmark case, as well

as a thorn in the side of video game developers

in North America, Mary-Louise McCausland,

British Columbia’s provincial film

commissioner, ruled yesterday that the PC

version of Soldier of Fortune is to be

considered an ‘adult film’ in her jurisdiction.

The ruling means that that game is subject to the

restrictions that come with that classification.

According to the board’s categories, an ‘adult film’ is

intended for ‘anyone 18 years of age or older.’ “

Le Monde‘s exhaustive primer on the Middle East and the “peace process”.

How would the Scopes Monkey Trial go today, Beliefnet asks on the 75th anniversary of the incendiary Bryan-Darrows contest.

R.I.P. F.M. Esfandiary, the futurist and “chronic optimist” who legally changed his name to FM2030 because of his

confidence that he would live to 100 (the year 2030) and beyond, has died at 69. Believing that immortality could be

achieved by replacing worn-out organs with synthetic substitutes and thus that age was irrelevant because a person might

have artificial body parts of many different ages–he had a hip that was only 2 years

old–he died Saturday in New York City of cancer of

the pancreas–one body part for which no substitute has been created and which he

recently denounced as “a stupid, dumb, wretched organ.” LATimes

Hate Speech or Free Speech?Albanian-language newspapers in Kosovo have taken to printing the names, photos and daily whereabouts of Serbs they believe to be war criminals. One such ‘celebrity’ disappeared and was found stabbed to death a week later. The UN’s interim administration for the region then began to crack down on the papers. Are they doing enough to protect Serbian civilians there? Brill’s Content

What Are We Doing in This Handbasket? Philippine Garbage Slide Toll Reaches 144. Perhaps 150 more are buried under the rubble. Typhoon rains had prompted a 2.5-acre collapse at a campsite of around 80,000 people who survive by climbing the mountain of gabage daily to scavenge for items of value.

A couple of important jury decisions today. Big Tobacco Ordered to Pay $145 Billion; how much chance is there that this won’t go without appeal? And Jury Finds U.S. Not to Blame in Waco Case. “Specifically, the jury said that evidence showed the ATF did not

fire indiscriminately during the initial raid, that the FBI did not

cause the fire when its tanks penetrated the compound walls

and did not violate orders by not having firefighters on hand.” Interestingly, however, the issue of whether FBI agents fired on Branch Davidians fleeing the burning compound was severed from the rest of the lawsuit and has not yet been decided, pending the recovery from surgery of the expert witness who had recreated the infamous FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) video some had claimed showed evidence of FBI gunfire.

On November 7, 1940, the first Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge collapsed due to wind-induced vibrations. Someone was fortunate enough to be filming at the time; many of you have probably seen the remarkable footage. Situated on the Tacoma Narrows in Puget Sound, near the city of Tacoma, Washington, the bridge had only been open for traffic a few

months. Well, they’ve almost done it again, this time with a pedestrian structure. London’s wobbly Millenium Bridge was closed on its opening weekend last month (before it frankly collapsed!). It seems that soldiers on the march know that they have to break step before crossing bridges to avoid a version of this problem. New Scientist

Children of the Night: Will Howling at the Moon Help Wolves to Breed?

“A wolf expert is howling at the moon around

a British stately home to encourage a pack of timber wolves to

breed.

As dusk falls at Lord Bath’s Longleat estate, Shaun Ellis creeps up on the eight-strong pack in

the wildlife sanctuary and imitates the noise of a lone wolf. Colleague Jan Williams plays

tapes of wolf pack noises.

The idea is to kid the pack into believing there are larger packs prowling around and make

them more competitive breeders.”

The Kinder Side of a Scorpion Sting. The venom inactivates cells’ immune functions and could become the basis for a new generation of immunosuppressive therapy to treat autoimmune disease and prevent transplant rejection, etc. And mosquitoes genetically engineered to produce scorpion venom (which has been found to be lethal to the malaria organism) could be released into the wild to supplant wild populations and prevent the spread of malaria. They tell us (of course) the bites of these modified mosquitoes won’t be worse…

Research Predicts Summer Doom for Northern Icecap. The receding north polar icecap could begin to completely melt each summer within some of our lifetimes. New York Times

The former Cat Stevens denied entry into Israel. The ex-musician who became a devout Sufi Muslim is on a list of undesireables since he supposedly gave large sums of money to Hamas when he last visited Israel in the late ’80’s. He was turned around after landing and attempting to debark in Israel Wednesday night at 2:30 a.m. Nando Times

At least five copies of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire bought by the

Salt Lake City Public Library end in a cliffhanger – the last 28 pages are missing. In news more pleasing to Potter fans, Lego plans Harry Potter toys. Arriving in late 2001, tied to the release of the first film from the books. Nando Times

Hubble sees star’s death throes

The Hubble Space Telescope has seen a

massive star, nearing the end of its life,

tearing apart the shell of surrounding material

it blew off 250,000 years previously. BBC

Automatic Media press release: Feed, Suck and alt.culture to band together as Automatic Media; Lycos takes 25% stake.

“It’s increasingly clear that Web publishing is moving away from the

single-title model towards content networks. Automatic

Media is backed by a powerful and unique combination of players

with complimentary strengths: Lycos’s huge worldwide reach,

Advance’s wealth of resources and experience in offline and online

media, and the creative vision of some of the true innovators of Web

content.”

Dancer’s mother sues ballet:

One day shy of the third anniversary of her daughter’s fatal collapse, the mother of Boston Ballet dancer Heidi

Guenther has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the ballet and its artistic director, charging that their pressure on

Guenther to lose weight had contributed to the 22-year-old’s death. National Post

What happened to America’s music? Europe’s got it. Recent European jazz albums suggest that the innovation in jazz is

coming from the Old World and not from America. “Almost without anybody noticing, European jazz,

regarded for years by the Americans with the same kind of tolerant smile they reserve for Japanese

baseball, seems poised to step to the forefront.” The Times (London)

Aux barricades! Row over French “hard-core ‘Thelma and Louise’ “: A film described as

“an unbroken series of extremely

crude sex scenes and of images of particular violence that may deeply

disturb certain spectators” was pulled from distribution by French government intervention after objections from family-value champions, despite its having a restrictive rating. French cinematic and cultural leaders have rallied to its defense.

Sony officially launched its Palm-based PDA – – or “personal

entertainment organiser”, as the company calls it — yesterday. With 8 MB RAM, an optional color screen, a bundled web browser and a slot for Sony memory sticks that will accept such peripherals as GPS and Bluetooth receivers. The Register

Celebrity Bigots. ‘So John Rocker played at Shea, and the fans booed him. By baiting the “hate hurler” (as Rocker was

dubbed by one tab), they got to feel superior, basking in their sympathy for the huddled masses on

the No. 7 line. But the morning after Rocker’s drubbing, many of these same defenders of diversity

tuned in to Don Imus, who never met an immigrant he didn’t mock. Another hate hurler? Nah, it’s just

the I-Man funning.’ Imus, Dr. Laura, Eminem…celebrity hate rules, and audiences by and large are soft on it. The Village Voice

New Mechanism Of Drug Resistance Found In Cancer Cells: Researchers showed that

“…solid and metastatic tumors

produce high levels of growth factors that protect the

tumors from the effects of anticancer drugs.

The inability of cancer drugs to destroy metastatic tumors – tumors that

have spread from the primary site – is the leading reason why cancer

therapy fails.

Clinical trials using the drug suramin to block the growth factors are

expected to begin late this summer in certain lung cancer patients.”

The Fifth Flavor/Elusive taste dimension can mean the difference between balance and blah. Chefs and scientists have recently realized that, in addition to sweet, sour, salty and bitter, there is an elusive fifth flavor, umami, whose taste receptors have recently been found. Umami is changing the way some of them approach food preparation. The quality of umami is apparently correlated with the amino acid L-glutamate; so the Asian cuisines are apparently really onto something when they add MSG (monosodium glutamate) to food.

Aging, curing and fermenting
enhance umami. So does ripeness. A
dry-aged steak has more umami than fresh
hamburger, to no one’s surprise. A ripe
nectarine has more measurable free
glutamates than an unripe one. And
two-year-old Parmigiano-Reggiano is
practically off the charts.

Other common foods high in umami include
anchovies, the fish sauce used in Southeast
Asian cooking (nam pla in Thai, nuoc mam
in Vietnamese) and other fermented fish
products, fresh tomatoes, grapefruit (it has
more free glutamates than other citrus),
soy sauce, dried seaweed, cooked
potatoes, green tea, Gruyere cheese and
fresh clams

[via Looka!, which just celebrated its year’s anniversary]

You are being followed by Netscape/AOL every time you use the SmartDownload add-on or Netscape Navigator’s Search function. The information on what you download or search for is sent to Netscape to help build a profile on you.

Netscape is being cheeky. Whether it’s breaking privacy laws –

hmmm. It might be, but we see it more a question of whether you

can prove beyond reasonable doubt that Netscape is selling this

information. It certainly isn’t doing itself any favours by being a bit

insidious and not asking or telling people what it is doing. This

whole case (and this article) are as a result of that. But then you can

never teach a big company such ‘soft’ tactics. Never forget that big

companies couldn’t give a monkey’s about your rights unless it costs

them money.

The resulting bad publicity from all this will most likely cause some

chances in the next Navigator version. Partly because of uproar but,

sadly, mostly because Microsoft will use the furore to sell Explorer. It

will also get those wanting to stick with Netscape to upgrade faster.

All publicity can be good publicity if you handle it right.

The Register [via RobotWisdom]

Is Machrihanish the new Area 51?

Kazakh Steppes Cleared of Camels Before Space Shot

In Filming History: Question, Disbelieve, Defy. Oliver Stone continues to wave the banner of conspiracy theory.

Allow then, in our million-dollar-a-minute TV culture, a

little space and time for the contrarian in you, and

allow that paranoia in moderation, like red wine, is

healthy precisely because conspiracy does not sleep.

Our failure of perception is the reason we rarely see it.

Why? “Treason doth never prosper,” an English poet

once wrote. “What’s the reason? For if it prosper, none

dare call it treason.”

More sloppy security at federal laboratory, this time in Richland, Wash., leads to suspension of classified work at the facility. What, I wonder, is so crucial to national security at this site that focuses not on nuclear weapons design like Los Alamos, but environmental science?

Something I was reading mentioned that J.K. Rowling was being passed over this year for two of the most prestigious children’s book awards, the Carnegie and the Whitbread, so I decided to search for the current winners. Imagine my surprise when I hit upon this page linking to major children’s book awards. There are dozens of them! I’m going to be hardpressed to be impressed again, browsing for books for my children, when one of them catches my eye because of that goldleaf this-or-that-medal embossed on the cover.

First-person account of first documented case of cryogenic ingestion; soon to be a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine, reportedly.