Saturday, April 17, 2004

Iraqi Justice 

Your tax dollars hard at work: I have no convictions about the veracity and no knowledge about the origins of this powerfully affecting mpeg video. I received a link to it from a friend, who had received it from someone else, with the message,

"It is Pentagon footage of US Apache helos taking out a group of Iraqis
planting a road side bomb. It is from a distance of approximately two
miles, in the dark of night, using infrared.
The Iraqis can neither see no hear their impending fate. Turn on the
speakers so you can hear the commander."

Anyone with familiarity or opinion about this should leave comments below, please. Exploring the homepage where it is contained is completely unrevealing.

4/17/2004 09:41:00 PM   •  

Creating a Bantustan in Gaza 

"South Africa will be very interested in the Israeli disengagement plan published yesterday. The political, military, and economic aspects of the plan for the Gaza Strip and the enclave in the northern West Bank are amazingly similar to the homelands, one of the last inventions of the white minority in South Africa to perpetuate its rule over the black majority." — Haaretz

4/17/2004 01:39:00 PM   •  

Blowin' in the wind 

"The crowd that gathered on Halloween night in 1964 to hear Bob Dylan play New York City's Philharmonic Hall had no idea what storms lay ahead". Review of 'The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 Concert at Philharmonic Hall'.

" 'I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world.' That line, from 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall,' one line from a song in which, said its composer, Bob Dylan, each line could stand as a separate song, describes what you hear on the newest release in Dylan's ongoing Bootleg Series." — Charles Taylor, Salon

4/17/2004 01:37:00 PM   •  

Emotional Choices 

What story you choose to believe about antidepressants reveals a deeper truth about who you are. —Reason

4/17/2004 01:32:00 PM   •  

Resolving to Resist 

"Local governments are refusing to comply with the Patriot Act" —Elaine Scarry, Professor of Values at Harvard University, Boston Review

4/17/2004 01:11:00 PM   •  

Reading Your Mind 

"The idea that human beings are endowed with a special faculty for reasoning about other minds fits into a much wider and older tradition of debate about the origin of all concepts, especially relatively complex ones. Most psychologists would grant that some basic perceptual primitives—for example, color, sound, and depth—are derived from the physical world by dedicated innate mechanisms in the mind. But where do more abstract concepts come from—concepts such as house, belief, or justice? How, for example, does a child originally learn that other people have beliefs?" —Rebecca Saxe, Boston Review

4/17/2004 01:07:00 PM   •  

Ordering Treatments à la Carte 

"A couple of decades ago, in fact, physicians prescribed tests and treatments for their patients without serious inquiry into what their patients wanted.

Sometimes doctors did not even inform patients of their diagnoses, for fear that the news would be too much for them to handle.

But times have changed, and many experts now contend that the best treatment differs from patient to patient based on the patient's values. For example, a man who cares little about the risk of impotence is better suited to surgical treatment of his prostate cancer than a man who highly values sexual function.

Trying to keep up with the times, I explained that it was not my decision to make. It depended on what he felt about the risks and benefits of his alternatives, I said. He became even more confused." —New York Times

4/17/2004 01:02:00 PM   •  

Annals of Depravity (cont'd.): 

Boy killed by father's dogs
"CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (AP) -- An 8-year-old boy was mauled to death by his father's four pit bulls, and prosecutors were considering charges against the father ranging from child neglect to murder." —CNN

4/17/2004 12:28:00 PM   •  

Thinking the Unthinkable 

Juan Cole:

"The credibility of the US in the Middle East as a broker is finished, kaput, nada, zero. And the problem is that there is no other credible broker.

You know, my colleague Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University got slammed by the Neocons for having predicted that the Arab street would come out during the Gulf War and threaten the region with instability. Actually, there were huge demonstrations, especially in North Africa. But his critics pointed out that there were no real changes as a result. The power of the urban crowd in the Middle East cannot be sneezed at (see: the Islamic Revolution in Iran, 1978-79). But it is true that most governments in the Middle East have muddled through even if they have been associated with unpopular US or Israeli policies.

Rashid was right, though, about the danger of doing things that cause anger to fester in large numbers of people. And, it occurs to me that the very inability of those huge crowds to change anything (or even to go to the streets in most countries of the region, given the controls put in place by the secret police) gave rise to the frustrations that eventuated in the wave of terrorism we are now seeing. That is, the Arab street has not so much admitted defeat as ramified, into radical social movements with a religious cast, and (on the part of a small number of the really angry and frustrated) into terrorist cells." —Informed Consent

I have been tracking the phenomenon by which the social censorship after 9-11 of any comments suggesting that the US was anything other than an innocent victim is finally showing its age. Vigilante arbiters of public opinion scoured the media for anyone hinting at what, for me was and is as plain as the noses on our faces — that the US with its cocky, arrogant swagger and disdain for world consensus has engendered the hatred that came back at us in spades on 9-11. And the Bush administration's prosecution of the WoT® has continued to fulfill the prophecy. Although Cole is careful here to place his comments only in the context of the current Iraqi Intifada and the Bush endorsement of Sharon's unilateral 'solution' to the Palestinian conflict ("Sharon and Bush just painted big red targets on us all"), it is clear he is joining the ranks of those uttering the forbidden thought.

4/17/2004 08:19:00 AM   •  

Friday, April 16, 2004

a9 

So, we're all preoccupied with how Google wants to store and index all your life's email for you; now Amazon wants to store and index your search history for you, for better or worse. A beta of the new A9.com search portal went live yesterday. Some of its more interesting features, if you use your amazon.com log-in and accept cookies:

• Each entry in the results page of your search includes a notation of the date and time you last clicked on that link.
• There's a tab to simultaneously show you the results of the same query performed on Amazon's book database.
• Most Google search syntax works.
• If you rerun a search you have previously done, the results page tells you which hits are new.

If you want to search in privacy, you can use generic.a9.com instead, which promises not to recognize a9 or amazon cookies. John Battelle discusses some of the implications of the 'history server ' concept here.

4/16/2004 12:33:00 AM   •  

How to tie an "Ian Knot" 

World's Fastest Shoelace Knot, claims Ian, at his shoelace site.

4/16/2004 12:13:00 AM   •  

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Clearing Up The Confusion 

"Science-fiction author Neal Stephenson's latest 800-page dispatch, The Confusion, arrived in stores this week. But Stephenson fans hoping for another brain-wracking, cryptographic puzzle to solve will find a surprise instead: A central scene in the book provides a long, detailed description of the mechanics of 17th-century bills of exchange. Pivotal themes in the book involve the emergence of a cashless market at Lyon, France, and Sir Isaac Newton's 30-year stint at England's national mint.

The Confusion, which consists of two 400-page novels interleaved (literally 'con-fused') with one another, is the second of three volumes in The Baroque Cycle, a nearly 3,000-page opus that fictionalizes the exploits of Newton and the Royal Society of scientists to which he belonged.

In an interview with Wired News, Stephenson, who rose to fame on cyberpunk-themed novels including Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, said his interest in money and markets dates back to 1994, a time when crypto hackers and Citicorp/Citibank CEO Walter Wriston were equally likely to expound on the concept of money as an information technology."

4/15/2004 05:35:00 PM   •  

Supreme Court to Hear Indefinite Detention Case 

Can the Rights of People Simply Disappear by Presidential Order? "What does it mean when the President of the United States can on his own designate a citizen in the U.S. as an 'enemy combatant,' and order the military to hold that person incommunicado, indefinitely, and without charges? The U.S. Supreme Court is now deciding whether the courts even have the right to question the President's action.

What does it mean when the U.S. military internationally can literally snatch people off the street, designate them as 'enemy combatants,' and assert that they are beyond the reach of either U.S. or international law? Many are transported to a facility under total U.S. control and funded by Congressional appropriations, where they are held incommunicado, indefinitely, without charges and some are threatened with trials before a military commission that falls short of basic standards of justice.

If the Supreme Court upholds these actions, it will condone the President's claim of virtually unlimited 'wartime powers' without a formal declaration of war by the Congress, and with no or extremely limited oversight by the courts or the Congress.

On April 20 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the President's alleged right to create a 'law free zone' at the Guantanamo detention center in Cuba. And on April 28, the Court will hear oral arguments on the President's asserted right to designate citizens as 'enemy combatants,' hold them at the U.S. Navy base in Charleston, SC, and deny them the ability to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

We believe that the President cannot be allowed to create a 'legal Black Hole' into which people are dropped with no recourse to the courts or to international law. Among us we hold many varied views on how and why this situation has arisen and what is ultimately needed to ensure justice. But we all agree that this dangerous new presidentially-designated category of 'enemy combatants' who have no legal rights is unjust, illegal, and immoral, and cannot be allowed to stand.

The silence over this perilous issue must be broken, and public opposition must be manifested. Join us in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on April 20 and April 28 to declare a resounding NO! Legally permitted, non-violent demonstrations will occur on both days from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm with a program of speakers beginning at 11:am." —Not In Our Names

4/15/2004 09:14:00 AM   •  

Godfather 'is top film character' 

"Mafia boss Vito Corleone, as played by Marlon Brando in The Godfather, has been named the greatest movie character of all time by US film critics.

Sixteen film experts voted for the most memorable characters in cinema for US magazine Premiere.

Fred C Dobbs from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre came second with Gone With the Wind's Scarlett O'Hara third." —BBC

4/15/2004 09:01:00 AM   •  

Onion Taken Seriously, Film at 11 

Rollicking anecdotes about the consequences of this dramatic species of credulity. —Wired

4/15/2004 08:58:00 AM   •  

Did Nabokov Suffer From Cryptomnesia? 

"An intriguing development on the Nabokov front, a crypto-scandal widely reported in Europe, but not much here: Lolita is causing trouble again. At least, that’s been the way it’s been portrayed in the European press, which has overheatedly raised the specter of "plagiarism": Did Vladimir Nabokov lift the controversial plot, indeed the very name of Lolita, from a 1916 German short story called "Lolita"?

But more interestingly, there are fascinating implications for understanding Pale Fire, which followed Lolita seven years later. And then there’s "cryptomnesia." —Ron Rosenbaum, New York Observer

4/15/2004 08:55:00 AM   •  

Future Cred 

The Science Fiction Museum frames the past and present of glitzy and gritty futures. 'Seattle sci-fi insiders call it “Siffumhoff”: Paul Allen’s new Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. When it opens in June, it will be more commonly known as SFM. Right now it’s under noisy construction in the Blue Potato section of EMP—the space formerly occupied by the Funk Blast ride at Experience Music Project. “All of these cases are just gonna be filled!” exults the jovially ursine Greg Bear, raising his voice above the shrieking saws and banging hammers inside the Potato. He is SFM’s board chairman, an adviser to Microsoft and the CIA, and a quintuple Nebula-winning author. “E.T. has just arrived. We’re gonna have the Alien Queen [from Aliens], all 18 feet of her, kinda hunkered down.” Since the case is 12 feet high, she’ll be crouched as if to pounce and devour visitors. Expect Harrison Ford’s Blade Runner spinner car, but not Anakin Skywalker’s podracer—it was too big. “Probably the centerpiece is Spacedock—you’re gonna have 25 spaceships from films and books . . . all lined up in glorious 3-D!” Viewers will be able to manipulate the digital models in virtual space, compare them for size, armaments, fuel capacity, top speed. “You’re in the viewport of the space station, and you’ll be watching Rama,” Arthur C. Clarke’s alien spacecraft, “90 kilometers long, the size of an asteroid!”' —Seattle Weekly: News

4/15/2004 08:53:00 AM   •  

One Nation, Underperforming 

Bill McKibben: "Modern environmentalism can fairly be described as an American invention. It got its rhetoric from John Muir, its fighting savvy from David Brower, its sense of the world from Rachel Carson, and its institutional framework from the Congress of the Nixon years, which bowed before the loud will of the American people in the years after Earth Day I. The rest of the industrialized world followed, its NGOs patterned on the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, its laws modeled on ours. We paved the road; we drove innovation.

So it is odd for American environmentalists to look up now and realize that we no longer play a leading role of any kind. If you spend much time at international conferences, you see that we are no more the center of gravity, the fount of new ideas. Long before President Bush ditched the Kyoto treaty, we were drifting toward the back of the pack." —TomPaine.com

4/15/2004 08:47:00 AM   •  

Hijackers fly into Pentagon? No chance, said top brass 

"'Unrealistic' war game pooh-poohed before 9/11" —Guardian.UK

4/15/2004 08:45:00 AM   •  

New musical based on saga of German cannibal 

Erika Shuch stretches to tell macabre tale: "'Sweeney Todd' redux this isn't; Shuch uses the metaphor of consumption to investigate all forms of desire. Jesse Howell and Jennifer Chien retread the 'eat me' exchange as a tentative sexual proposition: 'It's gonna hurt. ... It's not safe,' they warn. An ensemble dance to the old standard 'All of Me' takes on sinister shadings with the lines 'take my lips ... take my arms.' Love appears ultimately a matter of consensual pain and unsatisfied appetites as Howell roams the stage like a rabid dog, begging, 'Do you trust me?'" —SF Chronicle

4/15/2004 08:45:00 AM   •  

Assassinate Rumsfeld, suggests Democratic club ad 

Kerry campaign, county Democratic Party condemn ad: "The ad says of Rumsfeld, 'We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say, 'This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger.'

The ad was placed by the St. Petersburg Democratic Club in last week's issue of The Gabber, a weekly community newspaper based in Gulfport, next to St. Petersburg on Florida's Gulf Coast." —CNN

4/15/2004 08:43:00 AM   •  

Amid a Forest's Ashes, a Debate Over Logging Profits Is Burning 

"For 120 days in 2002, a colossal wildfire scarred a half-million acres of Southern Oregon and Northern California, leaving behind a charred landscape that has turned into fertile soil for a conflict over how to manage the public forests.

The Forest Service's plan for a large salvage logging operation on the site of wildfire, called the Biscuit fire, is reopening old wounds and threatens to undercut the shaky truce between environmentalists and the timber industry." —New York Times

4/15/2004 08:39:00 AM   •  

Warriors for hire in Iraq 

Who calls the shots in an outsourced war? —Salon

4/15/2004 08:23:00 AM   •  

The Epidemic 

Mark Daims reviews The Epidemic: The Rot of American Culture, Absentee and Permissive Parenting, and the Resultant Plague of Joyless, Selfish Children: "Robert Shaw, a child and family psychiatrist, feels that today's parents have been misled by parenting gurus into doubting their own instincts - instincts which he feels are their best guide. He is so alarmed by current parenting practices and the effects they will have on the coming generation that he describes his book as less of a parenting 'How to' book and more of a call to action. Children raised without discipline and moral leadership become selfish or worse. An 'endless parade of childrearing experts' confuse parents with contradictory and often counterproductive advise. This overabundance of advice can leave parents stressed and unsure about how to act. By not acting, the author cautions, parents also affect the child; as one paragraph heading states, 'We determine our children's future.' Parents are ultimately responsible for their children, parents instinctively know best and they have an often overlooked parenting expert always at hand. 'You have a live-in parenting expert who shows you every day the effects of what you are doing: your child. Anything that is not going well with your child is a sign that your parenting practices are not working.'" —Human Nature Reviews

4/15/2004 08:21:00 AM   •  

Big Bang glow hints at funnel-shaped Universe 

"If confirmed, our Universe is curved like a Pringle potato chip, shaped like a horn, and named after a Star Trek character" —New Scientist

4/15/2004 08:18:00 AM   •  

Young female chimps outlearn their brothers 

"Girl chimps are faster and smarter at getting to grips with tools used to eat termites, echoing learning differences in human children" —New Scientist

4/15/2004 08:17:00 AM   •  

Monitor detects awareness during surgery 

"A large trial proves it can help prevent the horror of patients feeling pain while being paralysed by anaesthetics." —New Scientist

4/15/2004 08:16:00 AM   •  

The life alone is only half lived? 

Heart attack survivors half as likely to suffer further attacks if they have love and friends: "A new study shows that if you had a heart attack and survived it, your chances of having another attack within a year are halved if you have close friends and/or relatives who love you (in comparison to patients who do not have close friends and loving relatives)." —Medical News Today

4/15/2004 08:09:00 AM   •  

WoT®'s up in Europe 

'Bin Laden' offers Europe truce:
"Arab networks air a tape in which the al-Qaeda leader allegedly offers Europe a truce if it 'stops attacking Muslims'." [Note that the BBC puts 'Bin Laden' in quotes, hedging their bet about whether he remains alive.]

U.K. and Italy Reject Purported Bin Laden Tape's Truce Offer —Bloomberg

Italian hostage is killed in Iraq:
"Italy is shocked by the killing of an Italian security contractor in Iraq - the first confirmed hostage death." —BBC

4/15/2004 08:02:00 AM   •  

Move Could Help Bush Among Jewish Voters 

"President Bush's embrace yesterday of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to unilaterally disengage from the Palestinians carries potential political benefits for Bush —Washington Post but also potential risk for his foreign policy." —New York Times

4/15/2004 07:57:00 AM   •  

Trust, Don't Verify 

William Saletan on Bush's incredible definition of credibility:

One thing is for certain, though, about me, and the world has learned this: When I say something, I mean it. And the credibility of the United States is incredibly important for keeping world peace and freedom.

"That's the summation President Bush delivered as he wrapped up his press conference Tuesday night. It's the message he emphasized throughout: Our commitment. Our pledge. Our word. My conviction. Given the stakes in Iraq and the war against terrorism, it would be petty to poke fun at Bush for calling credibility 'incredibly important.' His routine misuse of the word 'incredible,' while illiterate, is harmless. His misunderstanding of the word 'credible,' however, isn't harmless. It's catastrophic.

To Bush, credibility means that you keep saying today what you said yesterday, and that you do today what you promised yesterday." —Slate

And: Bush Makes Three Mistakes While Trying to Cite One: "While struggling unsuccessfully this week to think of a single mistake he has made since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President Bush committed three factual errors about weapons finds in Libya, the White House said on Wednesday." —Yahoo! News

Also: Standing Firm: "So far, Bush has the upper hand in this argument. Even as he and John Kerry muddle toward an awkward role for the United Nations in Iraq, Bush is doing so while maintaining the appearance of certitude about his course. Meanwhile Kerry hasn't figured out how to define a clear alternative. Unlike his bold (but all too brief) call to honor the democratic process in Haiti, Kerry is trying to have it every which way but sideways on Iraq. Unfortunately, that sliver of Americans in the confused middle on this election are more likely to be swayed by certitude than caution. And you can't beat something with nothing." Micah L. Sifry is a senior analyst with Public Campaign. He is the author of Spoiling For A Fight: Third-Party Politics In America, (Routledge, 2002) and the web log www.iraqwarreader.com, and recently co-edited The Iraq War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions (Touchstone, 2003) —TomPaine.com

4/15/2004 07:00:00 AM   •  

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Pass the Wellstone Mental Health Parity Bill 

End Insurance Discrimination: "Although bipartisan support for the Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act (S. 486) is strong and growing, Senate leaders have reneged on their commitment and are blocking the bill from a vote on the floor of the Senate. We must speak louder, and with greater determination, than the insurance industry! Tell our representatives to honor the promises made last year.

The Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act would close loopholes in federal law by requiring group health plans to stop using arbitrary limits on mental health parity benefits different from those used with medical and surgical benefits. With 69 co-sponsors, this legislation is sure to pass if brought to a vote.

It's up to us to keep the pressure on those key senators that have the power to allow a vote. Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and Senate Majority Leader Dr. Bill Frist (R-TN) need to hear from us, and they need to hear from their fellow senators." —ActForChange

4/14/2004 03:08:00 PM   •  

Charting the Tarantino Universe 

In some ways, Kill Bill is the apotheosis of cross-fertilization between Eastern and Western popular cinema culture. New York Times reviewer Dave Kehr dissects his references and influences, some obscure and others (like his homages to Sergio Leone and John Ford) obvious. The deeper you look, the more impressed you are with Tarantino as an iconographer (much as Lucas' Star Wars series did for a previous generation) but there is something smirking, sarcastic and arch about his references. As a longtime devotee of the samurai and spaghetti western genres (moreso than kung fu films), I would rather see the originals. Those generes have gotten stale, true, but if Tarantino is their heir, I am uncomfortable with the direction in which he is taking it. Off to rent some Sonny Chiba films...

4/14/2004 09:16:00 AM   •  

HelpingPatients.org 

'The drug industry lobbying group PhRMA published a new Web site aimed at helping poor people get discounted or free drugs offered by the drug companies.

The drug companies have been under fire in the U.S. Congress and the media for fighting efforts to import low-cost prescription drugs from other countries, notably Canada.

The Internet site, at http://www.helpingpatients.org, promises "one-stop-shopping" for various patient assistance programs, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said.'

4/14/2004 01:42:00 AM   •  

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Confessions of a Car Salesman 

"What really goes on in the back rooms of car dealerships across America?

What does the car salesman do when he leaves you sitting in a sales office and goes to talk with his boss?

What are the tricks salespeople use to increase their profit and how can consumers protect themselves from overpaying? " —Edmunds

4/13/2004 09:29:00 AM   •  

Film Rights Optioned to Clarke Bestseller 

"The bestseller at the center of a national debate on America's security, 'Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror,' may soon be hitting the silver screen.

Sony Pictures has optioned the film rights to former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke's book, which questions the country's readiness to address potential terrorist threats before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to the Hollywood Reporter." —Yahoo! News

4/13/2004 09:27:00 AM   •  

Homeland Security Dept. 

Air Marshal Leaves Gun in Airport Restroom: "A federal air marshal accidentally left her gun in a restroom beyond the security checkpoints at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, officials say.

The weapon was discovered by a passenger who alerted an airline employee." —Yahoo! News

4/13/2004 09:26:00 AM   •  

Choose Your Own Savior 

Jesus As You Like Him: "When Mel Gibson responded to critics of his blockbuster The Passion of the Christ by saying they had a 'problem with the four Gospels,' not with his film, he was staking a claim to authenticity: My Jesus is the real one, not yours.

But it's not just Mel. Everyone claims their Jesus is the 'real' one, the only authentic Christ unperverted by secular society or religious institutions. The best-selling fiction book The Da Vinci Code, which posits among other things that Jesus fathered a child by Mary Magdalene, styles itself as a fact-based account of the 'real' Jesus, who has been covered up by a Vatican conspiracy. Academics who seek evidence for the Jesus of history attempt to peel away layers of the Gospel narratives until the genuine Jewish prophet is revealed. Nowadays, even nonbelievers assert a superior understanding of who the actual Jesus really was and what he stood for.

Why can everyone from atheists to Zoroastrians lay claim to knowledge of the real Jesus? Because there are so many of him. The New Testament itself presents multiple Jesuses, not just among the four competing Gospel accounts but within each Gospel as well: Baby Jesus, Teacher Jesus, Miracle Worker Jesus, to name only three." —Chris Suellentrop, Slate

4/13/2004 09:24:00 AM   •  

“We need an interpretation of the cross from another perspective, which is 100 per cent against violence" 

Anti-Semitism at Easter linked to conflicting biblical messages about violence: 'Drawing on modern psychological concepts like post-traumatic stress disorder, a Queen’s University researcher concludes that today’s religious strife may have a direct link to the violence of the Easter story and the crucifixion.

The traditional Christian interpretation of the violent death of Jesus on the cross contains an unresolved conflict that has inflamed anti-Semitism in the past, and may be contributing to religious hostility today, says Queen’s Religious Studies Professor William Morrow, a specialist in biblical literature with research interests in violence and religion.

Dr. Morrow analyzes ancient biblical texts in light of contemporary concepts about the effects of violence, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and vicarious trauma.

“There are distinct risks when the violence of the Easter story is emphasized, as it is in Mel Gibson’s new film, The Passion of the Christ,” says Dr. Morrow. “It is naïve to think that a focus on the brutality of the crucifixion will have no negative effects on a culture that is still basically shaped by the Christian myth.” In fact, some recent expressions of anti-Semitism in North America can be associated with Gibson’s film, he notes.'

4/13/2004 09:22:00 AM   •  

Does The Sopranos accurately reflect the New Jersey mob? 

In past seasons, I enjoyed the group of psychoanalysts who commented on each week's episode. Now it's "Mob Experts on The Sopranos", a group of crime reporters. On the latest episode:

"Can The Sopranos get any darker without turning the lights out completely? This Peter Bogdanovich-directed episode was as unremittingly depressing as anything on television (and mainstream film, for that matter). Six Feet Under seems like Three's Company by comparison. David Chase is giving us nothing to grab hold of: For some reason, I found Carmela's father's silence in the face of his daughter's despair to be one of the bleakest moments of all." —Slate

Is anybody watching this? What do you think?

4/13/2004 09:21:00 AM   •  

Photo recognition software gives location 

"Using your cellphone's camera to snap the nearest building allows remote servers to determine your precise position". —New Scientist

4/13/2004 09:09:00 AM   •  

Book's Critique of Psychology Ignites a Torrent of Criticism 

More on the debate over Lauren Slater's veracity and literary ethics, about which I have previously written. —New York Times

4/13/2004 09:07:00 AM   •  

When Islam Breaks Down 

Theodore Dalrymple: "Anyone who lives in a city like mine and interests himself in the fate of the world cannot help wondering whether, deeper than this immediate cultural desperation, there is anything intrinsic to Islam — beyond the devout Muslim's instinctive understanding that secularization, once it starts, is like an unstoppable chain reaction — that renders it unable to adapt itself comfortably to the modern world. Is there an essential element that condemns the Dar al-Islam to permanent backwardness with regard to the Dar al-Harb, a backwardness that is felt as a deep humiliation, and is exemplified, though not proved, by the fact that the whole of the Arab world, minus its oil, matters less to the rest of the world economically than the Nokia telephone company of Finland?" —City Journal

4/13/2004 09:02:00 AM   •  

Rise of the Machines 

"The press had lots of fun with the recent robot debacle in the Mojave Desert. Competing for $1 million in prize money, 15 vehicles headed off on a 142-mile course through some of the most forbidding terrain in the country. None managed to navigate even eight miles. The robots hit fences, caught fire, rolled over, or sat and did nothing.

However, the purpose of the event was not NASCAR for nerds, but a coldly calculated plan to construct a generation of killer machines.

Sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Mar. 13 “race” was part of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) plan to make one third of the military’s combat vehicles driverless by 2015. The push to replace soldiers with machines is impelled by an over-extended military searching for ways to limit U.S. casualties, a powerful circle of arms manufactures, and an empire-minded group of politicians addicted to campaign contributions by defense corporations.

This “rise of the machines” is at the heart of the Bush administration’s recent military budget. Sandwiched into outlays for aircraft, artillery, and conventional weapons, are monies for unmanned combat aircraft, robot tanks, submarines, and a supersonic bomber capable of delivering six tons of bombs and missiles to anyplace on the globe in two hours." —Foreign Policy in Focus

4/13/2004 08:58:00 AM   •  

Massacre in Fallujah 

Over 600 Dead, 1,000 Injured, 60,000 Refugees: "The U.S. siege of Fallujah continues and reports are emerging of a massacre of Iraqi civilians at the hands of U.S. troops. We go to Iraq to get a report from Free Speech Radio News' Aaron Glantz who interviews Iraqis fleeing Fallujah as well as a producer with Al-Jazeera television who says he and fellow journalists were targeted by U.S. snipers in the town." —Democracy Now!

4/13/2004 08:52:00 AM   •  

Hopkinton mobilizes answer to marathon call of nature 

"It's that time of year again, when the eyes of the world will focus on Boston -- on the sweat, the tears, the glory. The Marathon. But there is one aspect of the race that officials don't want the world to see this year: the unpleasant practice of runners relieving themselves on front lawns, backyards, garages, and trees along the route." —Boston Globe

4/13/2004 08:50:00 AM   •  

Following a Bright Light to a Calmer Tomorrow 

"To some people, near-death experiences reported by millions of Americans in recent years, are windows to a world beyond. To others, they are simply comforting delusions.

Scientists have tended to fall into the latter group. But in several small studies, researchers are finding that the elaborate accounts of mysterious tunnels, flooded with bright golden light, may be a healthy coping mechanism that protects against traumatic stress.

People who have such experiences, one study shows, are far better at handling stress than researchers had expected. And scientists have uncovered neurological and biological differences that may lie at the core of the coping mechanisms." —New York Times

4/13/2004 08:39:00 AM   •  

A Glimmer of Hope for Fading Minds 

"Alzheimer's disease can seem unrelentingly grim. There is no cure, no known way to prevent the illness, and the benefits of current treatments are modest at best.

But in laboratories around the country, scientists are uncovering clues that may eventually ?4 perhaps even in the next two decades ?4 allow them to prevent, slow or even reverse the ruthless progression of the illness.

'Things are more hopeful than perhaps people think,' Dr. Karen Duff of the Nathan Kline Institute of New York University said. 'We are on the cusp of having something really useful.'

That hope comes on the heels of disappointment. Aricept and other drugs to slow the disease's progress have not lived up to the public's high expectations." —New York Times

4/13/2004 08:38:00 AM   •  

Osama's Wet Dream 

"Operation Resolute Sword. That’s what the U.S. military in Iraq is calling its effort to crush rebellious Shi’ite forces. Osama bin Laden could not have chosen a more inflammatory name.

Who comes up with these things? Why not just stage a photo-op with President Bush in Richard the Lionheart regalia?

One would have thought – or at least hoped – the Pentagon would have learned its lesson after Muslims objected to Washington’s original name for the war on terror, Operation Infinite Justice, on the grounds that only God has the power to mete that out.

Or that the outrage over the president’s off-the-cuff reference to a “Crusade against terror” in the days after 9/11 would have made the administration hyper-sensitive.

But now some military scribe has coined a name right out of the Crusades – which, after all, is precisely what opponents claim the U.S. is waging in the Middle East. The invasion of the Christian armies to “liberate” the Holy Lands may have taken place a millennium ago, but it continues to live in the psyche of many Arabs.

“Wonderful sights were to be seen,” wrote Crusader Raymund of Aguiles, describing the slaughter of 40,000 Muslims as the Soldiers of Christ breached the walls of Jerusalem in 1099. “Some of our men cut off the heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them longer by casting them into the flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city.”

If you doubt the continuing impact of that event, just note al-Qaeda’s official name: The World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders.

The Pentagon is steadfast in its claim that it continues to win the military battle in Iraq. While that may be debatable, there is no doubt it is losing the PR war – in Iraq and across the Muslim world." —Guerrilla News Network

Also: When puppets pull the strings: "Ahmed Chalabi, the neocons' choice to run Iraq, appears to have been responsible for the disastrous decision to move against Muqtada al-Sadr." —Salon

4/13/2004 07:59:00 AM   •  

Cosmic Collision 

"Our galaxy is speeding through space toward a cosmic showdown. Join us on an exploration of one of nature's most powerful and devastating phenomena — galaxy collision. Watch this detailed documentary for the full story." —The Hubble Site

4/13/2004 06:50:00 AM   •  

Monday, April 12, 2004

U.S. Targeted Fiery Cleric In Risky Move 

"Several American and Iraqi officials now regard Bremer's move to close (a tabloid newspaper run by firebrand Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr) as a profound miscalculation based on poor intelligence and inaccurate assumptions. Foremost among the errors, the officials said, was the lack of a military strategy to deal with Sadr if he chose to fight back, as he did.

'We punched a big black bear in the eye and got him angry as hell but had no immediate plan to disable him, so of course he struck back in a very vicious way,' said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who has been serving as a senior adviser to the U.S.-led occupation authority in Baghdad." The Washington Post analyzes the Iraqi Intifada, and points the finger.

4/12/2004 11:49:00 PM   •  

There Goes the Neighborhood 

"Why home prices are about to plummet--and take the recovery with them." —Washington Monthly

4/12/2004 11:45:00 PM   •  

A Grand Unified Theory of Filesharing 

Ed Felten at Freedom to Tinker says his theory can explain the impact of filesharing on CD sales despite the seemingly disparate findings of well-publicized studies. The crux of his hypothesis is that the users of filesharing are of two types. 'Free-riders' are freeloaders, generally younger and morally unconflicted about downloading music as an alternative to buying CDs. 'Samplers' are generally older and, as Felten puts it, "highly engaged with cultural products of all sorts." They are more ambivalent and morally conflicted about filesharing and use it to, well, sample. Felten can neatly wrap up the conclusions of studies showing that filesharing has a positive, a neutral, and a negative effect on CD sales inside his theory, but then he takes it too far and draws the unwarranted conclusion that "the net effect of filesharing on CD sales is roughly zero, because of a balance between the negative impact of the Free-riders and the positive impact of the Samplers." Just because a theory with two groups with roughly opposite effects on CD sales accounts for so much does not mean that their effects counterbalance each other. How many fewer CDs would the 'samplers' have bought if they had not been filesharing? How many more would the 'free-riders' have bought? How many 'samplers' are there relative to the number of 'free-riders'? Can an individual exhibit both freeloading and sampling behaviors? There is an interesting discussion thread in response to the article as well.

4/12/2004 11:21:00 PM   •  

Speaking of Music Piracy .... 

"Unburdened by manufacturing and distribution costs, online music was supposed to usher in a new era of inexpensive, easy-to-access music for consumers. In many cases, buying music online is still cheaper than shopping for CDs at retail outlets. But just a year after iTunes debuted with its 99-cent songs and mostly $9.99 albums, that affordable and straightforward pricing structure is already under pressure. All five major music companies are discussing ways to boost the price of single-song downloads on hot releases -- to anywhere from $1.25 to as much as $2.49." —Wired News

4/12/2004 11:20:00 PM   •  

Practical Ecocriticism 

Book Review: "What does human nature have to do with ecocriticism? This is the question at the heart of Glen Love’s book, Practical Ecocriticism. For those who aren’t familiar with this wing of academia, ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the environment. Its practitioners explore human attitudes toward the environment as expressed in nature writing (e.g., Thoreau, Leopold, Abbey, Snyder, Dillard, Lopez), literature about the American West, and literary works in general. An academic outgrowth of the environmental movement of the 1960s, this approach differs from mainstream humanism by downplaying the uniqueness and achievements of our species and highlighting our connectedness to the natural world around us. Amazingly, however, ecocriticism is conducted with little or no understanding of biology, cognition, evolution, or behavioral ecology.

Practical Ecocriticism is an attempt to rectify this situation. Aimed at humanities teachers, scholars and students, the book begins with the premise that, “human behavior is not an empty vessel whose only input will be that provided by culture, but is strongly influenced by genetic orientations that underlie and modify, or are modified by, cultural influences”. Love advocates a criticism that is based on “ecological, naturalist, scientifically grounded arguments that recognize human connection with nature and the rest of organic life and acknowledge the biological sciences as not just another cultural construction”. In so saying, Love aligns himself with the Darwinian literary critics (e.g., Carroll, Cooke, Easterlin, Scalise Sugiyama, Storey), who have been making this argument for over a decade now with what an optimist might call mixed results." —Human Nature Review

4/12/2004 08:58:00 PM   •  

Iraq War Takes Uneven Toll at Home 

"Troops from Rural America Dying at Disproportionate Rate" NPR — All Things Considered

4/12/2004 08:53:00 PM   •  

Brains like feeling fat:  

Mapping mental responses to texture could lead to designer foods. "Filling our mouths with fat lights up pleasure centres in the brain, scientists have found, which may help us understand why we cannot get enough of certain foods." —Nature

4/12/2004 07:54:00 PM   •  

A Left-Brain/Right-Brain Conundrum Revisited 

"A prominent British psychiatrist recently revived old arguments about the origins of language and the evolution of humans. Tim Crow at Warneford Hospital in Oxford says that reports on ape brain asymmetry are distorted by observer bias. Those criticized point to 'plenty of evidence' that general functions and skills have gravitated to one side of the brain or the other in animals from chicks to chimps.

Crow argues that researchers are finding evidence of language precursors in apes because they want to believe in a graduated theory of evolution, rather than the leap proposed by Thomas Huxley, Stephen J. Gould, and others. Crow points to studies that have reanalyzed data and found no support for initial conclusions of asymmetry. He also asserts his support for the model proposed by neuropsychologist Marian Annett in 2002, in which she suggests that a single gene gave rise to language in the brain's left hemisphere, and brought a shift towards right-handedness.

In 1877, Paul Broca argued that brain asymmetry distinguishes humans from other animals and gives humans the capacity for language. Then scientists started finding evidence of asymmetry in other vertebrates. 'Many of the lateralized functions of the human are the same as those in animals,' says Lesley Rogers of the University of New England in Australia, who with Richard Andrew coauthored the 2002 book Comparative Vertebrate Lateralization. 'Language has a left-hemisphere location in most humans. It might rely on the evolution of some nuance of laterality, but the point is, it was superimposed on other lateralities that were already there.'

Rogers and Andrew offer examples, such as the left-footedness of parrots, the right-hand preference of toads, and the reliance of chicks on the right hemisphere for spatial cognition. Songbirds show strong lateralization for song production. But when it comes to the great apes, Rogers admits, the evidence for handedness is more controversial. Chimps at the Gombe National Park in Tanzania, for instance, showed no evidence of right- or left-hand preference at a population level according to a 1996 study.

Even in humans, says Richard Palmer at the University of Alberta, Canada, nobody really knows why handedness exists or whether it has a genetic basis. 'The amount that we know with confidence about human handedness is so pitiful it's almost shocking,' he says. Indeed, no one has ever demonstrated a causal link between handedness and language." —The Scientist

4/12/2004 07:53:00 PM   •  

How can you tell? 

"She is deaf and mute. Her family speaks only Trique, an obscure pre-Columbian language that is foreign even to other Mexicans. She communicates with her family in gestures no one else understands.

Illiterate and silent, Juliana lives in isolation made even more profound by her circumstances - traveling with her sister and father in an anonymous stream of undocumented immigrant farmworkers who tend fields across the West.

On a cold day last November, the tiny 24-year-old climbed a rusty chain link fence into a neighbor's filthy dog pen in Livingston, Calif. Alone, she gave birth to a baby girl.

Then she stuffed several wads of paper tissue in the infant's mouth.

California authorities arrested her on a charge of felony child endangerment.

'I would look at her sitting there in court and wonder what was going through her mind,' said prosecutor Larry Morse II. 'We can only suppose as to know she understands.'

Imagine living in a world without words. Then imagine getting pregnant, perhaps as a result of rape, giving birth alone, being arrested - and not having the words to explain, or to understand what is happening." —Monterey Herald

4/12/2004 08:23:00 AM   •  

Sunday, April 11, 2004

"12 slugs in a cop's body before you can say NRA" 

"Tell the President and Congress to renew the Assault Weapons Ban. The NRA wants to put illegal military style rapid-fire assault weapons, including AK-47s and Uzis, back on our streets. Tell President Bush no way is this going to happen. The Assault Weapons Ban must be renewed. In this day and age, why would anyone want to put these killing machines back on our streets?" —StopTheNRA.com

And see all the prominent individuals and organizations on the NRA's 19-page blacklist of those it considers "anti-gun." You can join the blacklist.

4/11/2004 09:36:00 AM   •