More War on Drugs idiocy, this time British.
CIA honors official Terry Ward whose firing Congress compelled for failing to report rights violations in Guatemala and allegedly condoning torture by his informants. Protests outside the award ceremony are led by human rights activist Jennifer Harbury, whose Guatemalan husband was tortured and executed by the Guatemalan military in 1992; her hunger strike outside the White House in 1995 led to disclosures that the murder of her husband had been ordered by a CIA operative. The ensuing public uproar led Congress to demand Ward’s firing.
More Bodies Found From Uganda Cult; Murder Is Suspected [New York Times]
More on the Fools Festival, April 1, 2000; and more on
the holy fool.
British police said Friday they were hunting a thief who had stolen a secret service computer containing
confidential information on Northern Ireland.
Repetitive
transcranial magnetic stimulation (RTMS) to the part of the brain that processes auditory and linguistic information can ease auditory hallucinations in patients suffering from schizophrenia.
Testosterone replacement may help post-andropausal men, a British scientist says.
Floating away: another urban planning nightmare from Tokyo.
Boston may see a replay of the December WTO outburst in Seattle this weekend.
‘Big Mama’ Presumed Dead “She’s a goner,” police Lt. John Skipper told APBnews.com. “Sadly, I am certain she’s dead.”
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be God?
Stopping mother’s oral microbes may be the key to dental health of the child. “At the University of Alabama, Dr. Page Caufield
and his team are following the children of 500
women who carry very harmful strains of
Streptococcus mutans, the bacteria that cause
cavities. Half the women had their teeth treated
with an antiseptic and varnished during their
children’s “window of infectivity,” when about
80 percent of babies pick up S. mutans from their
mothers. This is at about two years of age, when
the babies’ back teeth grow in. If these 250
children grow up free of the S. mutans strains
that have plagued their mothers’ teeth, dentists
will have a powerful new tool.”
“Me in me best Whistle and Titfer and me new Daisy’s, and her in her best bib and tucker with her new Tile. It’s a long Frog but we’d do it O.K. on Shank’s Pony. That’s if our Plates last out. Probably see a couple of me Chinas there with the Arrows and a Pig or two.” Cockney Rhyming Slang Dictionary
Lots of fun to visit The Museum of Advertising Icons
After lobbying for years, Palestinians have been given their own top-level internet domain. ” The addition of the .ps domain to the list of 244 so-called
country code designations signals the first time the Internet’s
new international coordinating authority, the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has granted a
new domain since it was selected in late 1998 to administer
the network’s domain name system.” [New York Times]
Massachusetts goes to the Supreme Court to fight for the right to leverage Burma into human rights via trading pressure.
[New York Times]: Out of the Mouths of Babes, Wirelessly
“While toys often pose as children’s versions of adult tools,
many of these new kinds of communications “toys” for
children possess advanced features not yet found in the
general consumer market.”
New Line returns to sci-fi Planet
“New Line Cinema has purchased the remake rights to Forbidden Planet, the 1956 MGM sci-fi classic loosely based on William
Shakespeare’s The Tempest.”
Antidepressant may reduce clot risk in heart patients.
“By reducing the tendency of platelets to stick together, sertraline, an
antidepressant marketed as Zoloft, may reduce the risk of dangerous clots in heart patients, researchers
report.”
Strict Vegetarians May Risk Blindness, Study Says. ‘“Vitamin supplementation is essential in persons who adhere to a strict vegetarian diet, especially because vitamin deficiencies may
cause severe, irreversible optic neuropathy,” says the report by a team led by Dr. Dan Milea of the Groupe Hospitalier Pitie-Salpetriere
in Paris,’
Don’t wear your body piercings through the metal detector if you don’t want to be caught smuggling.
I was thinking Slate had taken a page from The National Enquirer, but William Saletan’s Who Killed JonBenet? is actually a meditation on what’s become of the presumption of innocence.
You’ve got to rejoice every time this Supreme Court upholds free speech: Students Cannot Censor the Use of Activity Fees, Justices Say [New York Times]
Is Giuliani falling apart? His tone on the police killing last week (again) of an unarmed African-American man “bewilders” Republicans. [New York Times]
[Slate]: More of forensic anthropologist Mary Manhein’s diary: in which she recalls digging up murder victims in rose gardens and pecan orchards.
List of Fixed Problems
in Service Release 1 for Microsoft Office 2000.
New York Times editorial supports putting an end to the Elian Gonzalez absurdity.
Teller, of Penn and Teller, writes of his discovery of the biennial Gardner Gathering, where
mathematicians, puzzle lovers, Carrollians, and magicians have gathered
from all over the world for a three-day conference to celebrate the fascinations they share.
Jorn Barger is posting a reformatted rendition of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from Ulysses. I return to this again and again; follow me there?
A fascinating argument in Lingua Franca that most eponyms are misattributions!
‘Given that “eponyms are only awarded after long time lags or at great distances, and then only by
active (and frequently not historically well informed) scientists with more interest in recognizing
general merit than an isolated achievement,” Stigler concludes, “it should not then come as a
surprise that most eponyms are inaccurately assigned, and it is even possible (as I have boldly
claimed) that all widely accepted eponyms are, strictly speaking, wrong.”‘
Mark Frauenfelder, in Digital Living Today, gives us Palm users all the necessary pointers on using the devices effectively as document- or book-readers.
Salon pans Clean Living, the new pseudo-anti-commercialism magazine from Time, Inc. ‘It’s like the old farmer’s adage about breakfast and the difference between
involvement and commitment, the kind of thing you’ll hear out in Nebraska.
“The hen was involved,” the farmer says, “but the pig was committed.”‘
OptOut — Internet Spyware Detection and Removal: Steve Gibson’s freeware solution to the Aureate/Radiate “spyware” hysteria. Here is a complete list of the software carrying the Aureate/Radiate baggage.
What? Gov’t at a standstill on an important issue?? Agreement on Internet Taxes Eludes Deeply Divided Commission “…with members trading heated
accusations and increasingly likely to go back to Congress
with no recommendation at all.” [New York Times]
[Slate]: Diary by Mary Manhein, A forensic anthropologist describes how she reconstructs a face from a skull.
bewitched: bewitching!
Curbing Use of Psychiatric Drugs for Children
“…the government will
inform parents and teachers about the risks of such drugs,
the Food and Drug Administration will develop new drug
labels, the National Institutes of Health will begin a huge
nationwide study of Ritalin use in children under the age of
6, and the White House will hold a conference this fall on
the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness in very young
children.” [New York Times]
Bill Joy, Killjoy? Robert Wright (author of the recent book Nonnzero) responds to Bill Joy’s doomday scenario. [Slate]
Police say sympathizers may be hiding ex-Black Panther accused of murder:
“The 56-year-old former black militant known as H. Rap Brown has eluded authorities since Thursday night. The FBI has joined the national
manhunt, issuing a federal fugitive warrant for his arrest.” [Nando Times]
Sunset at the South Pole means the end of a very long day.
Stalking Site: Slick or Sick? “His identity isn’t known, but he says he became infatuated with a young woman named Julie when she rented a movie in the Los Angeles video store where he works. He looked up her address on her video account, broke into her apartment, where she lives alone, and installed a voyeur cam in her bedroom that streams video directly to his website, ForTheLoveofJulie.com.” But it’s apparently not what it seems…
Vignettes
“Death Row IV lists all 3,392 death row inmates, including more
than 1,000 vignettes and photos. Here is a sampling of Death
Row’s vignettes.”
Web-surfing cellphones automatically transmit your phone number with every web page request, compromising your surfing anonymity.
[New York Times]: South Africa in a Furor Over Advice About AIDS
“President Thabo Mbeki’s
decision to seek advice from two Americans who argue
that H.I.V. does not cause AIDS has touched off an outcry at
home and abroad and raised fears that South Africa’s already
soaring infection rate will climb still further.”
Former CIA Director James Woolsey’s response to European Echelon accusations: ‘Get Real’; most European technology not worth stealing.
Could you confuse Dan Marino with Janet Reno???
In-Flight Breakfast Has Team in Panic: eating rolls with poppy seeds would have led to wholesale positive urine doping tests for the Brazilian Flamengo soccer team.
Criminal Probe in Alaska Airlines Flight 261 Crash: an inquiry into the falsification of maintenance records at Alaska Airlines’ Oakland CA facility predated the disaster by more than a year. If safety were more important than profit, it would seem that publicizing substantial suspicions that an airline is lying about factors relevant to the airworthiness of its aircraft would be crucial!
New paleontological finds in China suggest ancestral primate was Tom-Thumb-sized.
$99 Netpliance I-opener Internet appliances sold out nationwide after an electronics engineer in
Las Vegas figured out
how to tweak the $99
terminal for an additional $100 so that it
works like a fancy PC.
Furor over British proposal to detain non-criminals with personality disorders:
“UK government proposals to detain dangerous people who have a severe personality disorder but no
criminal conviction should be applied to individuals only when an assessment predicts that it is almost
certain that they will commit a very serious criminal offence, a report from a cross party committee
of MPs said this week.” [British Medical Journal]
Thoughtful About “Virtual Voting”:
“…it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Arizonans with
home Internet access enjoyed a tremendous voting advantage
in this primary. Yes, unwired Arizonans were encouraged to
vote at libraries and other community centers scattered around
the state. But essentially none did. Several librarians told me
that not a single person came to vote by Net during the
four-day remote-voting period. By the party’s own estimate,
90 percent of the Internet votes were cast by people voting
from home or work—and that population is disproportionately
white…” [Slate]
Thoughtful About “Virtual Voting”:
“…it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Arizonans with
home Internet access enjoyed a tremendous voting advantage
in this primary. Yes, unwired Arizonans were encouraged to
vote at libraries and other community centers scattered around
the state. But essentially none did. Several librarians told me
that not a single person came to vote by Net during the
four-day remote-voting period. By the party’s own estimate,
90 percent of the Internet votes were cast by people voting
from home or work—and that population is disproportionately
white…” [Slate]
Bill Joy: Why the future doesn’t need us.
“Our most powerful 21st-century technologies – robotics,
genetic engineering, and nanotech – are threatening to
make humans an endangered species.” [Wired]
[Salon:] Big Bouncer is watching you. “To get into the Alcazar Pleasure Village, a
nightclub in the Netherlands, you’ll have to make it past more
than just a velvet rope. A vigilant “cyber-bouncer” will scan
your fingerprint and face, refusing to let you in if you’re a
known troublemaker or waving you through if your file comes
up clean.”
Bill Joy: Why the future doesn’t need us.
“Our most powerful 21st-century technologies – robotics,
genetic engineering, and nanotech – are threatening to
make humans an endangered species.” [Wired]
[Salon:] Big Bouncer is watching you. “To get into the Alcazar Pleasure Village, a
nightclub in the Netherlands, you’ll have to make it past more
than just a velvet rope. A vigilant “cyber-bouncer” will scan
your fingerprint and face, refusing to let you in if you’re a
known troublemaker or waving you through if your file comes
up clean.”
One of the most spectacular business flameouts ever.
Research shows why sex is better than asexual reproduction.
One of the most spectacular business flameouts ever.
Research shows why sex is better than asexual reproduction.
“There seems to be no
critical culture in America today. A critical culture is one that struggles actively over how human beings should live and what our
life means. Most of us can remember living in the critical culture of the sixties-a few of us can even remember the critical culture
of the thirties-and we can feel the difference. When a critical culture breaks down or wears out or fades away, sources of joy dry
up. What makes this happen? Why has it happened now? Is the loss permanent? Or are there traces, fragments, intimations of a new
critical culture just around the corner? Where might it come from? How can it come together? Is there anything people like us can
do to help it come?” [Marshall Berman writes in Dissent]
Musical Ballots (washingtonpost.com): Would it make a differennce to your Presidential choice to know what kind of music each candidate listens to? [Washington Post]
Cultural revolution: women allowed onstage in Iran for the first time since 1979. [The Globe and Mail]
Mapping the Cab Driver’s Brain: The posterior hippocampus of London cabbies hypertrophies in proportion to their years of driving a cab. This area, thought to be involved in memory functioning, probably stores the detailed navigational information they learn on the job.
“There seems to be a definite relationship between the navigating they do as a taxi driver and the brain changes,” researcher Eleanor Maguire told the BBC.
Lilly Files for Approval of Once-Weekly Prozac. Faced with declining sales from competing SSRIs, and the looming expiration of its patent rights in 2003, this is one of several slightly different formulations of fluoxetine (Prozac), the first of the new generation of antidepressants, that Eli Lilly proposes to market.
[Thanks, Abby; no, really!] Tennessee Farm Is Laboratory of Human Flesh
Valdis Krebs has updated his fascinating Internet Industry Map – Strategic Alliances, Joint Ventures, Technology Development, Partnerships with network metrics and printability.
“There seems to be no
critical culture in America today. A critical culture is one that struggles actively over how human beings should live and what our
life means. Most of us can remember living in the critical culture of the sixties-a few of us can even remember the critical culture
of the thirties-and we can feel the difference. When a critical culture breaks down or wears out or fades away, sources of joy dry
up. What makes this happen? Why has it happened now? Is the loss permanent? Or are there traces, fragments, intimations of a new
critical culture just around the corner? Where might it come from? How can it come together? Is there anything people like us can
do to help it come?” [Marshall Berman writes in Dissent]
Musical Ballots (washingtonpost.com): Would it make a differennce to your Presidential choice to know what kind of music each candidate listens to? [Washington Post]
Cultural revolution: women allowed onstage in Iran for the first time since 1979. [The Globe and Mail]
Mapping the Cab Driver’s Brain: The posterior hippocampus of London cabbies hypertrophies in proportion to their years of driving a cab. This area, thought to be involved in memory functioning, probably stores the detailed navigational information they learn on the job.
“There seems to be a definite relationship between the navigating they do as a taxi driver and the brain changes,” researcher Eleanor Maguire told the BBC.
Lilly Files for Approval of Once-Weekly Prozac. Faced with declining sales from competing SSRIs, and the looming expiration of its patent rights in 2003, this is one of several slightly different formulations of fluoxetine (Prozac), the first of the new generation of antidepressants, that Eli Lilly proposes to market.
[Thanks, Abby; no, really!] Tennessee Farm Is Laboratory of Human Flesh
Valdis Krebs has updated his fascinating Internet Industry Map – Strategic Alliances, Joint Ventures, Technology Development, Partnerships with network metrics and printability.
Take 2: A Photo Archive of City Streets: The New York Public Library embarks on a project to create an archive of photographs of nearly every street in the five boroughs of New York City. (Does this remind anyone of Geoff Nicholson’s Bleeding London?)
Newest influence-mongering trend: get the President’s ear by contributing to his wife’s Senate campaign. Surprising?
More media consolidation.
Both Slate and The New York Times focus on what the Pope didn’t say in his apology for the sins of the Catholic Church.
New York Times: ‘Americans have become used to hearing nutty talk from
leaders of the National Rifle Association. But Sunday’s
outrageous assertion by the group’s executive vice president,
Wayne LaPierre, that President Clinton is “willing to accept a
certain level of killing to further his political agenda”
deserves special condemnation.
Mr. LaPierre made his sick suggestion that the president
relishes having gun tragedies to exploit in an interview on
ABC’s “This Week.” He was there to push the N.R.A.’s
demonstrably false line that the nation already has enough
gun laws on the books if only the administration would
enforce them.’
Europe is in love with Short Message Service. [New York Times]
Microsoft to Back a Browser Keyword System. Companies pay RealNames Corp. hefty fees to lock up ownership of keywords; you type a keyword into your browser and are magically taken to the site that owns the keyword! RealNames gets revenue from every referral to the corporate sites as well. Microsoft takes 20% of KeyNames, which has just filed for an IPO.
This site gushes about the goings-on at some of the hippest night spots on Sunset Boulevard.
“Who is Gladwell kidding?
Scientists have been harping on
so-called nonlinear effects for decades. Nonlinearity is the basis
of catastrophe theory, chaos, complexity, self-organized
criticality, punctuated equilibrium, and other scientific fads.
Everyone knows about the butterfly effect, which holds that a
butterfly flitting through Iowa can trigger a cascade of
meteorological events culminating in a monsoon in India.
Gladwell cites none of this work, and understandably so. His
utopian message is that by manipulating tipping points we can cut
down on crime, reduce teen-age smoking, and sell lots of
sneakers without massive efforts. But the lesson of nonlinear
research is that many phenomena are unpredictable, and
especially the complex social phenomena upon which Gladwell
focuses. Our culture is awash in potential tipping points. When we
try to tip events in one direction, they activate other tipping points
and careen down the wrong path. This is the law of unintended
consequences, about which you have written so eloquently, Ed.” [Slate]
Take 2: A Photo Archive of City Streets: The New York Public Library embarks on a project to create an archive of photographs of nearly every street in the five boroughs of New York City. (Does this remind anyone of Geoff Nicholson’s Bleeding London?)
Newest influence-mongering trend: get the President’s ear by contributing to his wife’s Senate campaign. Surprising?
More media consolidation.
Both Slate and The New York Times focus on what the Pope didn’t say in his apology for the sins of the Catholic Church.
New York Times: ‘Americans have become used to hearing nutty talk from
leaders of the National Rifle Association. But Sunday’s
outrageous assertion by the group’s executive vice president,
Wayne LaPierre, that President Clinton is “willing to accept a
certain level of killing to further his political agenda”
deserves special condemnation.
Mr. LaPierre made his sick suggestion that the president
relishes having gun tragedies to exploit in an interview on
ABC’s “This Week.” He was there to push the N.R.A.’s
demonstrably false line that the nation already has enough
gun laws on the books if only the administration would
enforce them.’
Europe is in love with Short Message Service. [New York Times]
Microsoft to Back a Browser Keyword System. Companies pay RealNames Corp. hefty fees to lock up ownership of keywords; you type a keyword into your browser and are magically taken to the site that owns the keyword! RealNames gets revenue from every referral to the corporate sites as well. Microsoft takes 20% of KeyNames, which has just filed for an IPO.
This site gushes about the goings-on at some of the hippest night spots on Sunset Boulevard.
“Who is Gladwell kidding?
Scientists have been harping on
so-called nonlinear effects for decades. Nonlinearity is the basis
of catastrophe theory, chaos, complexity, self-organized
criticality, punctuated equilibrium, and other scientific fads.
Everyone knows about the butterfly effect, which holds that a
butterfly flitting through Iowa can trigger a cascade of
meteorological events culminating in a monsoon in India.
Gladwell cites none of this work, and understandably so. His
utopian message is that by manipulating tipping points we can cut
down on crime, reduce teen-age smoking, and sell lots of
sneakers without massive efforts. But the lesson of nonlinear
research is that many phenomena are unpredictable, and
especially the complex social phenomena upon which Gladwell
focuses. Our culture is awash in potential tipping points. When we
try to tip events in one direction, they activate other tipping points
and careen down the wrong path. This is the law of unintended
consequences, about which you have written so eloquently, Ed.” [Slate]
