Time Cube

“I will give $1,000.00 to any person who can disprove 4 days in each

earth rotation. It’s

a pity that religious and academic word is a

crime against Nature and enslaves Children.

4-cornered Truth is ineffable by man or god.

Until Word is Cornered, all Math is Fiction.”

The Decline and Fall: “Baby Bank” for Unwanted Newborns

“HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) – Social workers in Hamburg have opened a controversial “baby bank”

where new mothers can leave their unwanted newborns.

The center, which is near the “Reeperbahn” red light district, was set up to reduce the number of

newborns abandoned on the streets of the city.

A woman can anonymously pass her child through a “letter box” and into a crib. An alarm alerts staff

that a new child has been left.”

God, the Devil and Bob: Okay, so we’re a little puzzled, but not at all unhappy, that God is the spitting image of Jerry Garcia. But the James Garner voice doesn’t quite work. Update: Not ready for primetime with Idaho, Mississippi and other NBC affiliates.

God, the Devil and Bob: Okay, so we’re a little puzzled, but not at all unhappy, that God is the spitting image of Jerry Garcia. But the James Garner voice doesn’t quite work. Update: Not ready for primetime with Idaho, Mississippi and other NBC affiliates.

Tragic Irony: Psychiatrist dies after alleged attack by her daughter: Dr Katherine Thomsen-Hall, a distinguished forensic psychiatrist at UMass Medical School (where I taught until 1994) was allegedly murdered by her 16-year-old daughter Valerie on Sunday night. The girl apparently is in treatment for bipolar disorder; friends of the family are quoted as reporting that there was little more than normal tension between mother and daughter, although the police had been called to their home once previously after an altercation. Dr Thomsen-Hall worked treating the often violent inmates of the Framingham Women’s Prison, Massachusetts’ only facility for the detention of female convicts. She had given up a thriving private practice and mental health advocacy work in Little Rock to attend a one-year forensic psychiatry fellowship at UMass in 1997, and then decided to remain on the faculty.

I was impressed by something that receives scant notice in the news story. A friend commented that Valerie had “appeared a little mellow. She told me she was on a new prescription that was supposed to keep her calm.” One of my ongoing concerns and teaching points in my work is that psychiatrists do not more readily recognize the disinhibiting properties of the benzodiazepine anti-anxiety sedative medications (e.g. clonazepam [Klonopin], diazepam [Valium], alprazolam [Xanax], lorazepam [Ativan]) prescribed with such impunity for agitation, anxiety, sleep, etc. I began to speculate that the new medication Valerie had started on “to calm her” was one of these and that, untested on her, it may have lowered her barriers against acting out her anger. Think of it as akin to becoming uncharacteristically violent when drunk, which happens in a small proportion of drinkers (we psychiatrists have a diagnosis for it: “pathological intoxication”); the effect on the CNS is very similar. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know in this case…

U&lc: Look at the Underside First: Crystal Inks. Bruce Sterling is writing for U&lc, the typography journal of the wonderful ITC font foundry. “U&lc” is “upper and lower case”, by the way.

Down at the bottom left of the page you’ll see this:

<>
I just joined the webloggers webring. You can navigate to other blogs in the ring as follows:

Do you more appreciate the digest function of this ‘blog (telling you what I’ve read so that you don’t have to) or the pointing function (suggesting what might be interesting for you to read)? In other words, should the posts generally be long or short?

Deliberations resume in trial of defendant in date rape drug death. Joshua Cole, 19, is accused of slipping gamma-hydroxybutyrate – GHB – into Samantha Reid’s glass during a party. She died on Jan. 17, 1999,

after being taken off of life support. The National Institute on Drug Abuse site on GHB and other club drugs is here.

Of course, the defendant could have used the argument from biological imperative. A Natural History of Rape : Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion by Randy Thornhill (University of New Mexico) and Craig T. Palmer (University of Colorado), takes an evolutionary perspective critical of the prevailing view that rape is a crime of violence and power. They suggest that sexual coercion evolved to increase the reproductive fitness of those men who would otherwise be poor competitors as mates, and that it was therefore selected for. The authors suggest that women dress conservatively and that school curriculums teach alternate ways to channel this natural urge. A review by two scientists, Jerry Coyne of Chicago and Andrew Berry of Harvard, in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Nature accuses the authors of scientific shabbiness. I agree.

New York woman charged after staking claim to thousands in bank error. The woman said she thought the mistaken $700,000 deposit, which occurred because her bank account number was one digit off from a United Nations account, was her winnings in a lottery. Her credit card records failed to substantiate her alleged lottery ticket purchases (Why didn’t she report having paid cash??)The deposits were made between February 1998 and October 1999 by the governments of France, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, Namibia, Uruguay,

St. Kitts and Dominica, according to court papers. By the time the error was discovered last fall and the assets in the account frozen, only $450,000 remained. If convicted, she faces a maximum 30-yr sentence and a $1 million fine. (Let’s hope some of the missing funds were transferred to her attorney’s account as a retainer…) [Nando Times]

Mardi Gras ended, leaving New Orleans ankle-deep in trash. Officials plan to weigh the detritus deposited by the estimated 1.5 million revellers to see if it set a record. Tied as it is to the lunar calendar, Mardi Gras fell later than usual this year, and balmy weather encouraged the crowds.

There’s this scurrilous piece of psychiatric humor I get emailed to me, or psychiatric mailing lists in which I participate, with regularity, likening web use to a mental illness and “diagnosing” it in DSM-IV terms. May not be so scurrilous. Caught in the web: UF/Cincinnati study shows internet addicts suffer from mental illness. Twenty interviewees self-selected because their web use was problematic — with problems including marital strife or loss, work or school failure, going without sleep, shirking family responsibility, isolation, and consequent social and legal consequences — were found to have a variety of diagnosable psychiatric problems. “Every study participant’s Internet use met established diagnostic criteria for the family of psychiatric

illnesses known as impulse control disorders, which include kleptomania, a recurrent failure to resist impulses to shoplift, and

trichotillomania, the recurrent pulling out of one’s hair…” Most qualified as well for diagnosis with various other psychiatric disorders including manic depressive disorder, other psychotic disorders, anxiety disorders, substance abuse problems, other impulse control disorders and eating disorders. Participants described spending over 30 hrs./wk. online in such puruits as chatrooms and MUDs. (When you think about it, as internet use becomes more pervasive, people with psychiatric illnesses will of course be a segment of those online. Why would we anticipate that their web use would be any less difficult for them than other spheres of their life? Indeed, the convenience and anonymity of use make it so attractive that pathological web use may become disproportionate.)

The BBC reports on Bacteria with a silver lining. “A strain of bacteria that can manufacture

tiny crystals of silver has been reported

by Swedish scientists. This skill may

eventually prove useful to engineers who

want to fabricate extremely small optical

and electronic devices.”

Tragic Irony: Psychiatrist dies after alleged attack by her daughter: Dr Katherine Thomsen-Hall, a distinguished forensic psychiatrist at UMass Medical School (where I taught until 1994) was allegedly murdered by her 16-year-old daughter Valerie on Sunday night. The girl apparently is in treatment for bipolar disorder; friends of the family are quoted as reporting that there was little more than normal tension between mother and daughter, although the police had been called to their home once previously after an altercation. Dr Thomsen-Hall worked treating the often violent inmates of the Framingham Women’s Prison, Massachusetts’ only facility for the detention of female convicts. She had given up a thriving private practice and mental health advocacy work in Little Rock to attend a one-year forensic psychiatry fellowship at UMass in 1997, and then decided to remain on the faculty.

I was impressed by something that receives scant notice in the news story. A friend commented that Valerie had “appeared a little mellow. She told me she was on a new prescription that was supposed to keep her calm.” One of my ongoing concerns and teaching points in my work is that psychiatrists do not more readily recognize the disinhibiting properties of the benzodiazepine anti-anxiety sedative medications (e.g. clonazepam [Klonopin], diazepam [Valium], alprazolam [Xanax], lorazepam [Ativan]) prescribed with such impunity for agitation, anxiety, sleep, etc. I began to speculate that the new medication Valerie had started on “to calm her” was one of these and that, untested on her, it may have lowered her barriers against acting out her anger. Think of it as akin to becoming uncharacteristically violent when drunk, which happens in a small proportion of drinkers (we psychiatrists have a diagnosis for it: “pathological intoxication”); the effect on the CNS is very similar. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know in this case…

Coincident with the item below about the corporatization of weblogging is this review in today’s Slate on The Rise of the Newsportal  by Chris Suellentrop. Discusses six of these, which are essentially political news blogs, right?

Jupiter’s terrible tides: “Powerful tidal forces from Jupiter have molded two of the solar system’s

most bizarre worlds, fiery Io and icy Europa. Images released this week

reveal new details of tidal action on the two moons.” [from the SpaceScience.com mailserver]

The Corporatization of weblogging?? “…will probably be fine

with many of the thousands of independent Webloggers

who pioneered the concept. Romenesko says as

Weblogging becomes more widespread among

corporations, there’s likely to be some resentment from

the pioneers who see it as an anti-corporate concept.

Cooper, meanwhile, thinks Weblogs make sense in the

corporate environment, and suggests that they would be a

useful feature of company intranets. A Weblog pioneer

herself, Cooper says that when she announced she would

be taking the Weblog concept to Star Tribune Online, the

reaction from the Weblog community was overwhelmingly

supportive.” [E&P]

U&lc: Look at the Underside First: Crystal Inks. Bruce Sterling is writing for U&lc, the typography journal of the wonderful ITC font foundry. “U&lc” is “upper and lower case”, by the way.

Down at the bottom left of the page you’ll see this:

<>
I just joined the webloggers webring. You can navigate to other blogs in the ring as follows:

Do you more appreciate the digest function of this ‘blog (telling you what I’ve read so that you don’t have to) or the pointing function (suggesting what might be interesting for you to read)? In other words, should the posts generally be long or short?

Deliberations resume in trial of defendant in date rape drug death. Joshua Cole, 19, is accused of slipping gamma-hydroxybutyrate – GHB – into Samantha Reid’s glass during a party. She died on Jan. 17, 1999,

after being taken off of life support. The National Institute on Drug Abuse site on GHB and other club drugs is here.

Of course, the defendant could have used the argument from biological imperative. A Natural History of Rape : Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion by Randy Thornhill (University of New Mexico) and Craig T. Palmer (University of Colorado), takes an evolutionary perspective critical of the prevailing view that rape is a crime of violence and power. They suggest that sexual coercion evolved to increase the reproductive fitness of those men who would otherwise be poor competitors as mates, and that it was therefore selected for. The authors suggest that women dress conservatively and that school curriculums teach alternate ways to channel this natural urge. A review by two scientists, Jerry Coyne of Chicago and Andrew Berry of Harvard, in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Nature accuses the authors of scientific shabbiness. I agree.

New York woman charged after staking claim to thousands in bank error. The woman said she thought the mistaken $700,000 deposit, which occurred because her bank account number was one digit off from a United Nations account, was her winnings in a lottery. Her credit card records failed to substantiate her alleged lottery ticket purchases (Why didn’t she report having paid cash??)The deposits were made between February 1998 and October 1999 by the governments of France, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, Namibia, Uruguay,

St. Kitts and Dominica, according to court papers. By the time the error was discovered last fall and the assets in the account frozen, only $450,000 remained. If convicted, she faces a maximum 30-yr sentence and a $1 million fine. (Let’s hope some of the missing funds were transferred to her attorney’s account as a retainer…) [Nando Times]

There’s this scurrilous piece of psychiatric humor I get emailed to me, or psychiatric mailing lists in which I participate, with regularity, likening web use to a mental illness and “diagnosing” it in DSM-IV terms. May not be so scurrilous. Caught in the web: UF/Cincinnati study shows internet addicts suffer from mental illness. Twenty interviewees self-selected because their web use was problematic — with problems including marital strife or loss, work or school failure, going without sleep, shirking family responsibility, isolation, and consequent social and legal consequences — were found to have a variety of diagnosable psychiatric problems. “Every study participant’s Internet use met established diagnostic criteria for the family of psychiatric

illnesses known as impulse control disorders, which include kleptomania, a recurrent failure to resist impulses to shoplift, and

trichotillomania, the recurrent pulling out of one’s hair…” Most qualified as well for diagnosis with various other psychiatric disorders including manic depressive disorder, other psychotic disorders, anxiety disorders, substance abuse problems, other impulse control disorders and eating disorders. Participants described spending over 30 hrs./wk. online in such puruits as chatrooms and MUDs. (When you think about it, as internet use becomes more pervasive, people with psychiatric illnesses will of course be a segment of those online. Why would we anticipate that their web use would be any less difficult for them than other spheres of their life? Indeed, the convenience and anonymity of use make it so attractive that pathological web use may become disproportionate.)

The BBC reports on Bacteria with a silver lining. “A strain of bacteria that can manufacture

tiny crystals of silver has been reported

by Swedish scientists. This skill may

eventually prove useful to engineers who

want to fabricate extremely small optical

and electronic devices.”

Afraid to Go Outdoors As Crime Spirals

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Almost three-quarters of Colombians are frightened to go out at night and most avoid talking to strangers because

of a rising wave of violent crime, a poll published on Sunday suggested.

“It just spoils the fun of it,”

said a spokesperson for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of the Wall Street Journal‘s push to do a political-style poll of Academy members to forecast the Oscar winners. “The Academy Awards are important to the people who win, and they’re important to the

people who don’t win, but it’s not like electing a president, and part of the fun of it is waiting until they open the envelopes to see

who wins.”

Coincident with the item below about the corporatization of weblogging is this review in today’s Slate on The Rise of the Newsportal  by Chris Suellentrop. Discusses six of these, which are essentially political news blogs, right?

Annals of Depravity: 84-Year-Old Nailed into Room for more than a year. {APB}

Jupiter’s terrible tides: “Powerful tidal forces from Jupiter have molded two of the solar system’s

most bizarre worlds, fiery Io and icy Europa. Images released this week

reveal new details of tidal action on the two moons.” [from the SpaceScience.com mailserver]

The Corporatization of weblogging?? “…will probably be fine

with many of the thousands of independent Webloggers

who pioneered the concept. Romenesko says as

Weblogging becomes more widespread among

corporations, there’s likely to be some resentment from

the pioneers who see it as an anti-corporate concept.

Cooper, meanwhile, thinks Weblogs make sense in the

corporate environment, and suggests that they would be a

useful feature of company intranets. A Weblog pioneer

herself, Cooper says that when she announced she would

be taking the Weblog concept to Star Tribune Online, the

reaction from the Weblog community was overwhelmingly

supportive.” [E&P]

Afraid to Go Outdoors As Crime Spirals

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Almost three-quarters of Colombians are frightened to go out at night and most avoid talking to strangers because

of a rising wave of violent crime, a poll published on Sunday suggested.

“It just spoils the fun of it,”

said a spokesperson for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of the Wall Street Journal‘s push to do a political-style poll of Academy members to forecast the Oscar winners. “The Academy Awards are important to the people who win, and they’re important to the

people who don’t win, but it’s not like electing a president, and part of the fun of it is waiting until they open the envelopes to see

who wins.”

Annals of Depravity: 84-Year-Old Nailed into Room for more than a year. {APB}

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley outline a potentially elegant way to solve the problem of the broken hyperlink.

An archive of New Yorker articles by Malcolm Gladwell, author of the recent book The Tipping Point. Without even being aware until recently of who this author is, I realize scanning the list of articles in this collection that it has been his writing that has recently been the most compelling in my intermittnet relationship with the New Yorker. Among other topics, he writes about: fads, “spin”, public opinion and mass psychology, “who decides what’s cool”, the “six degrees of separation”, the Belgian Coca Cola hysteria, whether parenting matters… I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll want to read. Update: summary of critics’ opinions about The Tipping Point here, from Slate.

Comparative Mammalian Brain Collections,

images and information from one of the world’s largest collection of well-preserved, sectioned and stained brains of over 100 different species of mammals (including humans) representing 17 mammalian orders.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley outline a potentially elegant way to solve the problem of the broken hyperlink.

An archive of New Yorker articles by Malcolm Gladwell, author of the recent book The Tipping Point. Without even being aware until recently of who this author is, I realize scanning the list of articles in this collection that it has been his writing that has recently been the most compelling in my intermittnet relationship with the New Yorker. Among other topics, he writes about: fads, “spin”, public opinion and mass psychology, “who decides what’s cool”, the “six degrees of separation”, the Belgian Coca Cola hysteria, whether parenting matters… I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll want to read. Update: summary of critics’ opinions about The Tipping Point here, from Slate.

Comparative Mammalian Brain Collections,

images and information from one of the world’s largest collection of well-preserved, sectioned and stained brains of over 100 different species of mammals (including humans) representing 17 mammalian orders.

“The American Museum of Natural History

yesterday bluntly refused to give back a

10,000-year-old, 15-ton meteorite to the Oregon

Indian tribes who say their ancestors once treated the

behemoth as a sacred object.

In papers filed in Manhattan federal court to block

the Indians’ claim to the “Willamette Meteorite” —

one of the museum’s oldest treasures and a

centerpiece of its renovated planetarium — the

museum argued the extraterrestrial isn’t covered by

federal law that allows Indians to “repatriate” some

cultural items.” [New York Post]

Banned in Turkey:

The Turkish government confiscated all available copies of Jonathan Ames’ novel The Extra Man last week, and

will try both his translator, Fatih Ozguven, and his publisher in Istanbul, Iletisim, on charges that the book is

“corrupt and harmful to the morality of Turkish readers,” according to a fax Ames’ international rights agent

Rosalie Siegel received from Istanbul. The book had been out a few months, and had been submitted to

government censors for approval before publishing, as is required in Turkey. [New York Press]

Before he died, “Peanuts” creator Charles M. Schultz told his

family he didn’t want anyone else drawing his strip, and that

animated shows based on the characters should end as well. But

when Schultz began the strip in the 1950s cartoonists routinely

gave up their copyrights to distributors. United Media owns the

“Peanuts” copyright and it got 61 percent of its $84.9 million in

1998 revenues from the comics, TV shows and licensing deals.

Think they’ll let the franchise go dark? [SF Examiner]

This TV show has been criticized for offending human dignity; what else is new on television?

New Meaning of “Shop ’til You Drop”

Think vitamin therapy is innocent?[Reuters]

“The American Museum of Natural History

yesterday bluntly refused to give back a

10,000-year-old, 15-ton meteorite to the Oregon

Indian tribes who say their ancestors once treated the

behemoth as a sacred object.

In papers filed in Manhattan federal court to block

the Indians’ claim to the “Willamette Meteorite” —

one of the museum’s oldest treasures and a

centerpiece of its renovated planetarium — the

museum argued the extraterrestrial isn’t covered by

federal law that allows Indians to “repatriate” some

cultural items.” [New York Post]

Banned in Turkey:

The Turkish government confiscated all available copies of Jonathan Ames’ novel The Extra Man last week, and

will try both his translator, Fatih Ozguven, and his publisher in Istanbul, Iletisim, on charges that the book is

“corrupt and harmful to the morality of Turkish readers,” according to a fax Ames’ international rights agent

Rosalie Siegel received from Istanbul. The book had been out a few months, and had been submitted to

government censors for approval before publishing, as is required in Turkey. [New York Press]

Before he died, “Peanuts” creator Charles M. Schultz told his

family he didn’t want anyone else drawing his strip, and that

animated shows based on the characters should end as well. But

when Schultz began the strip in the 1950s cartoonists routinely

gave up their copyrights to distributors. United Media owns the

“Peanuts” copyright and it got 61 percent of its $84.9 million in

1998 revenues from the comics, TV shows and licensing deals.

Think they’ll let the franchise go dark? [SF Examiner]

This TV show has been criticized for offending human dignity; what else is new on television?

New Meaning of “Shop ’til You Drop”

Think vitamin therapy is innocent?[Reuters]

Arianna S. Huffington remixes the Slate 60 list of top philanthropists, ” Last June, I criticized “The Slate 60″ for treating every philanthropic dollar the same. I was appalled to find the Slate 60 citation that winemaker Robert G. Mondavi had dropped $20 million on the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in his hometown of Napa, Calif., only a click away from the news that Ron Burkle, Ted Fortsmann, and John Walton gave $30 million to the Children’s Scholarship Fund for low-income children. This overemphasis on raw dollars implies some sort of equivalence between these acts of generosity, when we know the Mondavi gift shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as the one from Burkle et al. One gift advances the giver’s personal interests, the other addresses a pressing social need. ”

Aurora Alert for northern US and Canada. “Residents of Canada and the northern United States should be on the alert for aurora borealis during the night of March 5 and morning of March 6. The best time to view aurorae is usually around local midnight. Tonight’s new moon will make even faint activity easy to see. Early on March 5, 2000, the interplanetary magnetic field measured by NASA’s ACE spacecraft developed a significant southward-directed component. This condition often means that solar wind plasma can penetrate Earth’s magnetosphere and trigger aurorae. …If this high level of activity continues, auroral displays could be visible as far south as the Great Lakes states and in New England.”

Arianna S. Huffington remixes the Slate 60 list of top philanthropists, ” Last June, I criticized “The Slate 60″ for treating every philanthropic dollar the same. I was appalled to find the Slate 60 citation that winemaker Robert G. Mondavi had dropped $20 million on the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in his hometown of Napa, Calif., only a click away from the news that Ron Burkle, Ted Fortsmann, and John Walton gave $30 million to the Children’s Scholarship Fund for low-income children. This overemphasis on raw dollars implies some sort of equivalence between these acts of generosity, when we know the Mondavi gift shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as the one from Burkle et al. One gift advances the giver’s personal interests, the other addresses a pressing social need. ”

Aurora Alert for northern US and Canada. “Residents of Canada and the northern United States should be on the alert for aurora borealis during the night of March 5 and morning of March 6. The best time to view aurorae is usually around local midnight. Tonight’s new moon will make even faint activity easy to see. Early on March 5, 2000, the interplanetary magnetic field measured by NASA’s ACE spacecraft developed a significant southward-directed component. This condition often means that solar wind plasma can penetrate Earth’s magnetosphere and trigger aurorae. …If this high level of activity continues, auroral displays could be visible as far south as the Great Lakes states and in New England.”

Where’s George? Interesting idea, not sure if it will work, but I tried it. You go to this site, enter the serial number of one or more bills of any denomination in your pocket, and write the URL of the site on the bill. If anyone who subsequently receives the bill notices the URL, logs on and enters their location, you’re notified by email and can track the meanderings of the currency. They report that they’re tracking over $2,000,000 in currency entered by over 175,000 registrants.

Doubleclick’s retreat from plans to tie personal data to now-anonymous web cookies is A Turning Point for E-Privacy, says Wired.

Get rid of that babyfat by age two or else:

“Children as young as ages 2 to 5 can experience elevated blood

pressure due to obesity, study results suggest. The elevated pressure may be a harbinger of obesity-related

health problems later in life, such as heart disease…”

Adult victims of domestic violence may suffer from a version of “shaken baby syndrome”, according to the discussion in a case report from British emergency medicine physicians. Rapid recognition is key in this potentially deadly and recurrent manifestation of abuse.

Friends of the late blues singer Screamin’ Jay Hawkins are searching for the 57 children he’s pretty sure he fathered but couldn’t keep track of.

England ugly and grey, say tourist guides. I’m going, nontheless.

ebpd – The ebay password daemon by Richard Fromm: “This script sniffs traffic on the network watching for ebay userids and passwords. This is only possible because (as of this writing), ebay does not encrypt passwords — they are sent in the clear. It is hoped that the writing and dissemination of this program causes this situation to change. (Repeated attempts at resolution of the situation through other means, prior to the posting of this script, failed.). This isn’t rocket science. I don’t pretend to have discovered anything fundamental or new here. It’s a simple little script that countless

other people could have written. The pitfalls of sending passwords in the clear have been recognized for many years. The only surprising

thing is that too many people still don’t take security seriously and continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.”

[via Phil Agre]

Report on the Privacy Policies and Practices of Health Web Sites from the Health Privacy Project at Georgetown University: “Although health Web sites now provide a wide range of clinical and diagnostic information; opportunities to purchase products and services; interactions among consumers, patients, and health care professionals; and the capability to build a personalized health record, they have not matured enough to guarantee the quality of the information, protect consumers from product fraud or inappropriate prescribing, or guarantee the privacy of individuals’ information. This last point is the subject of this report. Health care Web sites have access to an unprecedented amount of personal information about consumers. What are their policies about the privacy of that information? How easily can consumers find and understand them? Do they afford sufficient protection? And do the actual practices of the health sites reflect their stated policies?” [via Phil Agre]

Where’s George? Interesting idea, not sure if it will work, but I tried it. You go to this site, enter the serial number of one or more bills of any denomination in your pocket, and write the URL of the site on the bill. If anyone who subsequently receives the bill notices the URL, logs on and enters their location, you’re notified by email and can track the meanderings of the currency. They report that they’re tracking over $2,000,000 in currency entered by over 175,000 registrants.

Doubleclick’s retreat from plans to tie personal data to now-anonymous web cookies is A Turning Point for E-Privacy, says Wired.

Get rid of that babyfat by age two or else:

“Children as young as ages 2 to 5 can experience elevated blood

pressure due to obesity, study results suggest. The elevated pressure may be a harbinger of obesity-related

health problems later in life, such as heart disease…”

Adult victims of domestic violence may suffer from a version of “shaken baby syndrome”, according to the discussion in a case report from British emergency medicine physicians. Rapid recognition is key in this potentially deadly and recurrent manifestation of abuse.

Friends of the late blues singer Screamin’ Jay Hawkins are searching for the 57 children he’s pretty sure he fathered but couldn’t keep track of.

England ugly and grey, say tourist guides. I’m going, nontheless.

ebpd – The ebay password daemon by Richard Fromm: “This script sniffs traffic on the network watching for ebay userids and passwords. This is only possible because (as of this writing), ebay does not encrypt passwords — they are sent in the clear. It is hoped that the writing and dissemination of this program causes this situation to change. (Repeated attempts at resolution of the situation through other means, prior to the posting of this script, failed.). This isn’t rocket science. I don’t pretend to have discovered anything fundamental or new here. It’s a simple little script that countless

other people could have written. The pitfalls of sending passwords in the clear have been recognized for many years. The only surprising

thing is that too many people still don’t take security seriously and continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.”

[via Phil Agre]

Report on the Privacy Policies and Practices of Health Web Sites from the Health Privacy Project at Georgetown University: “Although health Web sites now provide a wide range of clinical and diagnostic information; opportunities to purchase products and services; interactions among consumers, patients, and health care professionals; and the capability to build a personalized health record, they have not matured enough to guarantee the quality of the information, protect consumers from product fraud or inappropriate prescribing, or guarantee the privacy of individuals’ information. This last point is the subject of this report. Health care Web sites have access to an unprecedented amount of personal information about consumers. What are their policies about the privacy of that information? How easily can consumers find and understand them? Do they afford sufficient protection? And do the actual practices of the health sites reflect their stated policies?” [via Phil Agre]

ZDNet: News: Intuit scrambles to plug Quicken leaks

“A design quirk in some e-commerce Web sites allows

sensitive information that consumers provide about their

personal habits, tastes or finances to be attached to Web

page location codes used by third parties such as

ad-placement companies. In the case of Intuit (Nasdaq:

INTU), both a mortgage calculator and a

credit-assessment feature on its Quicken site collect

information from customers regarding income, assets and

debt, and then send the data to DoubleClick Inc.

(Nasdaq: DCLK), a company that sells and places

advertising on Web sites. DoubleClick says it doesn’t

keep any of the data it receives.”

From BBC News: Satellite snaps a mighty sandstorm The satellite photo shows a giant sandstorm the size of Spain, off the west African coast. “Such storms, combined with rising warm air,

can lift dust 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) above

the desert and then out over the Atlantic. The

dust can reach right across the ocean to the

Caribbean where local weather forecasters

sometimes have to issue air pollution alerts.”

From Wired: A Ralph Nader Plan That ‘Sucks’

ZDNet: News: Intuit scrambles to plug Quicken leaks

“A design quirk in some e-commerce Web sites allows

sensitive information that consumers provide about their

personal habits, tastes or finances to be attached to Web

page location codes used by third parties such as

ad-placement companies. In the case of Intuit (Nasdaq:

INTU), both a mortgage calculator and a

credit-assessment feature on its Quicken site collect

information from customers regarding income, assets and

debt, and then send the data to DoubleClick Inc.

(Nasdaq: DCLK), a company that sells and places

advertising on Web sites. DoubleClick says it doesn’t

keep any of the data it receives.”

From BBC News: Satellite snaps a mighty sandstorm The satellite photo shows a giant sandstorm the size of Spain, off the west African coast. “Such storms, combined with rising warm air,

can lift dust 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) above

the desert and then out over the Atlantic. The

dust can reach right across the ocean to the

Caribbean where local weather forecasters

sometimes have to issue air pollution alerts.”

From Wired: A Ralph Nader Plan That ‘Sucks’

Join me here?

From CNN.com: A timeline of mass shootings in the U.S., prompted by the latest killing rampage by a Philadelphia man reportedly motivated by racial hatred.

From CNN.com: US – Death row inmate whose lawyer slept at trial to stay in jail. Calvin Burdine’s murder conviction had been thrown out because his lawyer had allegedly slept through long segments of his trial. The state of Texas missed a deadline to file an appeal and on Wednesday a federal judge ordered him released. The Texas AG called the missed deadline for a new trial a “regrettable mistake.” But he said the error does not justify “releasing a convicted murderer.” Two days later, an appeals court has agreed and is blocking his release. Texas Gov. George W. Bush says, “He’s a really violent person. I hope he gets retried soon.”

Consider Mr. Death, a fascinating documentary by Errol Morris and its subject Fred Leuchter Jr. Leuchter, an engineer from Malden, Mass., was a self-taught expert on methods of execution and a consultant to a variety of states with the death penalty. In 1988, he was commissioned by Ernst Zündel, a neo-Nazi being prosecuted in a highly-publicized trial in Canada for publishing literature claiming that the Holocaust had never occurred, to conduct a forensic investigation into the Nazi use of poison gas in the WWII death camps. He claimed to have “proven” that the Holocaust had never happened by failing to find traces of poisonous substances in brick and mortar samples he had obtained illegally from the walls of the Auschwitz gas chambers. “The Leuchter Report is out there in dozens of languages, and I would dare say in millions of copies. We will not go down in history as being a nation of genocidal maniacs. We will not. We can, with historical truth, detoxify a poisoned planet,” said Zündel.

And while we’re on the subject of Holocaust deniers, Salon updates us on British author and Hitler apologist David Irving’s libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt, the Emory University professor of history who has called Irving “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial.” Irving argues on his own behalf and the presiding judge has given him considerable leeway in presenting his case so as not to present the appearance of putting a person with no legal experience at a disadvantage. Irving thus gets massive exposure for his insidious arguments. To assist Lipstadt in her case, the Israeli government this week decided to release over 600 pages of Adolph Eichmann’s memoirs. Holocaust survivors attending the trial to bear witness are concerned about how much easier it will be for such Hitler apologists to plant seeds of doubt after the last survivors of the Final Solution are gone.

From Wired: “France Agog, Aghast Over Echelon”, the US- and UK-run surveillance network that can allegedly intercept email, faxes, and phone conversations. This article is full of links to extensive earlier coverage of the Echelon phenomenon, which is becoming a major acute irritant to chronically tense Anglo-French relations.

Kenyon College examines the rave scene: electronic dance music, its various sub-genres and styles. “As we dance into the next millennium, we must not forget our past. It is my hope that ravers, DJ’s, music critics, students, and anyone else interested in electronic dance music will be able to use this site to learn more about the sounds and subcultures that have provided the style and soundtrack to the end of the 20th century.”

Join me here?

From CNN.com: A timeline of mass shootings in the U.S., prompted by the latest killing rampage by a Philadelphia man reportedly motivated by racial hatred.

From CNN.com: US – Death row inmate whose lawyer slept at trial to stay in jail. Calvin Burdine’s murder conviction had been thrown out because his lawyer had allegedly slept through long segments of his trial. The state of Texas missed a deadline to file an appeal and on Wednesday a federal judge ordered him released. The Texas AG called the missed deadline for a new trial a “regrettable mistake.” But he said the error does not justify “releasing a convicted murderer.” Two days later, an appeals court has agreed and is blocking his release. Texas Gov. George W. Bush says, “He’s a really violent person. I hope he gets retried soon.”

Consider Mr. Death, a fascinating documentary by Errol Morris and its subject Fred Leuchter Jr. Leuchter, an engineer from Malden, Mass., was a self-taught expert on methods of execution and a consultant to a variety of states with the death penalty. In 1988, he was commissioned by Ernst Zündel, a neo-Nazi being prosecuted in a highly-publicized trial in Canada for publishing literature claiming that the Holocaust had never occurred, to conduct a forensic investigation into the Nazi use of poison gas in the WWII death camps. He claimed to have “proven” that the Holocaust had never happened by failing to find traces of poisonous substances in brick and mortar samples he had obtained illegally from the walls of the Auschwitz gas chambers. “The Leuchter Report is out there in dozens of languages, and I would dare say in millions of copies. We will not go down in history as being a nation of genocidal maniacs. We will not. We can, with historical truth, detoxify a poisoned planet,” said Zündel.

And while we’re on the subject of Holocaust deniers, Salon updates us on British author and Hitler apologist David Irving’s libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt, the Emory University professor of history who has called Irving “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial.” Irving argues on his own behalf and the presiding judge has given him considerable leeway in presenting his case so as not to present the appearance of putting a person with no legal experience at a disadvantage. Irving thus gets massive exposure for his insidious arguments. To assist Lipstadt in her case, the Israeli government this week decided to release over 600 pages of Adolph Eichmann’s memoirs. Holocaust survivors attending the trial to bear witness are concerned about how much easier it will be for such Hitler apologists to plant seeds of doubt after the last survivors of the Final Solution are gone.

From Wired: “France Agog, Aghast Over Echelon”, the US- and UK-run surveillance network that can allegedly intercept email, faxes, and phone conversations. This article is full of links to extensive earlier coverage of the Echelon phenomenon, which is becoming a major acute irritant to chronically tense Anglo-French relations.

Kenyon College examines the rave scene: electronic dance music, its various sub-genres and styles. “As we dance into the next millennium, we must not forget our past. It is my hope that ravers, DJ’s, music critics, students, and anyone else interested in electronic dance music will be able to use this site to learn more about the sounds and subcultures that have provided the style and soundtrack to the end of the 20th century.”

The major question is whether this is merely a tactical move: Austria’s Haider Resigns; Opponents Skeptical

‘Asked if he still hoped to be chancellor one day, he replied: “I do not exclude it.”

In Austria, Die Presse newspaper said Haider’s decision was a shrewd move to distance himself from

unpopular government decisions such as planned tax increases and to position himself for the next election,

due within four years.

The opposition Social Democrats dismissed the resignation as a sham. “It is quite clear that Haider is only

giving up his office but will continue to set the tone,” said new Social Democratic leader Alfred

Gusenbauer.

“He sees that this government is unpopular so he seeks the first opportunity to ditch responsibility,

formally, to distance himself from this government. Everything that has been said indicates he will continue

to keep the party on a short leash.”‘

The major question is whether this is merely a tactical move: Austria’s Haider Resigns; Opponents Skeptical

‘Asked if he still hoped to be chancellor one day, he replied: “I do not exclude it.”

In Austria, Die Presse newspaper said Haider’s decision was a shrewd move to distance himself from

unpopular government decisions such as planned tax increases and to position himself for the next election,

due within four years.

The opposition Social Democrats dismissed the resignation as a sham. “It is quite clear that Haider is only

giving up his office but will continue to set the tone,” said new Social Democratic leader Alfred

Gusenbauer.

“He sees that this government is unpopular so he seeks the first opportunity to ditch responsibility,

formally, to distance himself from this government. Everything that has been said indicates he will continue

to keep the party on a short leash.”‘

UPDATE! Tentative publication date for the fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament, is set. My son and I spent several months of bedtimes reading the first three aloud together. Haven’t you got someone with whom you might be doing that?

Newest issue of Phil Agre’s occasional notes and recommendations from the Red Rock Eater news service:

“In talking to all these people, I was endlessly struck by the chasm

between the telephone world and the computer world. Everyone in the

telephone world had superficial training and good manners; everyone

in the computer world had deep training and a bracing arrogance.

And with the sole exception of the one technical guy in the bowels

of Sprint, neither side exhibited the slightest comprehension of its

connection to the other. Hey, everyone: the telephone world and the

computer world are merging! This merger, it would seem, is not just

a technical matter.”

From Medley: “One of Queen Elizabeth’s cooks was fired for making remarks about poisoning

her and wondering where to buy cyanide.” And I read somewhere today that, when the police came to help the Queen remove her personal effects from the Palace during that fire several years ago, she found one of them standing before an open dresser drawer in her personal bedchamber about ready to knick some of her knickers until he was aware of her standing there watching him.

Boy Bands and Girl Vixens – All you need to know about the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.  by David Plotz [Slate]

Random Access Memory: “an experiment in collective recollection.”

From Atlantic Unbound: Welcome to the Word Police Academy “The Word Police are looking for a few good people. As a

certified Word Police officer, you will be entitled to issue

Grammar Citations when you see or hear crimes against

the language. To be inducted into the force, you must

pass a Word Police Academy exam.

The Word Police Force has many divisions and squads.

The current entrance exam is for the Pronoun Patrol.

Coming soon: the entrance exam for Who Wants to

Marry a Word Police Officer? Just kidding!” [I passed the exam, despite any grammatical errors your finding in this blog…]

Eugenics Archive: “materials from the

Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, which was

the center of American eugenics research from 1910-1940.

In the Archive you will see numerous reports, articles,

charts, and pedigrees that were considered scientific

“facts” in their day. It is important to remind yourself that

the vast majority of eugenics work has been completely

discredited. In the final analysis, the eugenic description of

human life reflected political and social prejudices, rather

than scientific facts.”