In Other New...

H.G. Wells Goes to the Movies at Soul of Star Trek.

Declaration of Independents

The American Research Group poll shows that 60% of registered voters disapprove of the Bushmauling of the economy, about the same percentage as all Americans.

To understand what this means you need to factor in that 77% of Republicans loyally approve of Bushonomics. And of course a nice round 85% of Democrats say he sucks. So to get to a 60% diapproval, you need:

INDEPENDENTS 15% approve; 79% disapprove.

And of everyone who approves of Big Bushyness, only 41% believe the economy next year will be better.

So suddenly it looks like Loss of Faith Based Economics.

The National Economy

The Italian Job

The New York Times reports that a judge in Italy has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA operatives for kidnapping a terrorist suspect and delivering him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.

Something like a hundred suspects have been cynically delivered to third party torturers.

This is the first time that this shameful thugish practice has met with public, official opposition anywhere. It isn't even that the person kidnapped was undeniably innocent--in fact the kidnapping disrupted European investigations into terrorist networks that have caused far more trouble there than here.

"The international community must struggle against terrorism and international terrorist groups in accordance with international laws and the rights of the defendants," the official said. "Otherwise, we are giving victory to the terrorists."

Italian Judge Orders Arrest of 13 CIA Operatives for Kidnapping - New York Times

The China Syndrome

They've got most of the money, the manufacturing jobs, the biggest malls, and some of the biggest corporations---and now they're more popular.

Thanks in part to the war in Iraq that Robert Kennedy Jr. calls "humiliating," the U.S. is way less popular in the world than China.

In most countries surveyed, Americans are seen as "inventive" and "hardworking", but they are also seen by many in both Western and predominately Muslim countries as "violent" and "greedy" - a judgement with which many Americans agree.

And proud of it, too, the even sadder part.

BBC NEWS Americas China 'is more popular' than US

In Other New...

The Return of Cold War Cinema at Soul of Star Trek

Catch-22 Explained, Courtesy of Your Friendly Neighborhood Patriot Act

Are you a student having trouble understanding what the concept called "Catch-22" means? It's at the core of the novel '>Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, which is today considered a classic and is widely assigned, in areas where it is not yet banned.

Your ever-helpful government is here with a demonstration of Catch-22 in action, and it's no farther away than your local library, in areas that still have them!

The Patriot Act contains a provision, called Section 215, that permits Your Government to gather information on your reading from libraries. For example, Your Government could find out if you happen to have withdrawn a copy of Catch-22.

Critics of Your Government in Action say this is unwarranted intrusion that violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, and smacks of the Orwellian mind control society of '>Nineteen-Eighty Four.

Your Government says this is nonsense, that in fact in has never used Section 215 to gather information from libraries, for example, on people who read Nineteen Eighty-Four or the '>U.S. Constitution. Though libraries report more than 200 requests for such information from the U.S. government, they cannot say if these requests were made with the authority of Section 215.

Section 215 prohibits libraries from telling anyone that such a request under 215 has been made. Therefore, there is no information to challenge Your Government's assertion that it has never used Section 215. Nor can there ever be.

Catch-22.

This educational experience has been brought to you by Your Government in Action.

If you are reading this in a library, you may feel secure knowing that if Your Government investigates people who read this column, you will never know about it. Of course, if you wind up in a cell at Guantanamo, you might begin to wonder.

Fishing in the Card Catalogs - New York Times

Fear and Decadence in Washington

There's a book waiting to be written about the marriage of fear and decadence in today's Washington: how a wartime mentality is fostered and linked with an unprecedented decadence that makes the age of Teapot Dome a tech rehearsal. One sure sign is the establishment press using the ridicule of an overstuffed decadent superiority in support of power, which maintains itself by keeping the wealthy and fashionable few satisfied and busy, while it keeps the rest of society under control with fear and nationalist fervor, this time linked with the false pieties of a religious cult so convinced of its sole possession of the truth that it excuses any ruthlessness or mendacity that supports it.

The latest example of press decadence is the Washington Post report of the Conyers Downing Street Minutes hearings, skewered by Rep. Conyers himself in a letter reproduced in full in a report by the Nation's John Nichols:

Conyers vs. The Post - Yahoo! News

The New York Times and Washington Post were something of establishment mouthpieces until some of their reporters in the field in Vietnam in the mid 60s began to report facts that countered the Washington and Pentagon lies. These papers then distinguished themselves by printing the Pentagon Papers, which in part revealed how well they had served the government's interests. Watergate reporting was also a high point for the Post a few years later.

But the fact that Deep Throat is revealed to be an ailing 91 year old suggests how long ago that was. Apparently the Post reporters have returned to mirroring and mimicking those in power, perhaps grateful for their large incomes and looking forward to even better accomodations in the club. Unfortunately, others will pay for their decay.

In Other New...

There's real time blogging as events warrant on the California earthquakes situation at This North Coast Place.

Showdown with the International Menace

Next month's G8 Summit will issue a statement and plan of action on the climate crisis, but a draft report has been leaked that shows that "one country" has so far successfully watered down the findings, specifically by calling into question the existence of global heating. Guess who the leading candidate for that country is?

That the U.S. persists in this idiocy prompted Greenpeace exec director Stephen Tindale to call Bush "an international menace." The UK Chancellor Gordon Brown seems to believe that the final document will restore the findings, presumably as a result of evidence presented at the conference.

Evidence? Find a Biblical source for the climate crisis, and we'll talk.

But there does seem to be opportunity in the time before the conference for world leaders and world environmental and political organizations, perhaps with support from humanitarian organizations (who will have to deal with the worst effects in poor countries) and global businesses who can't afford to be too stupid about the immediate future, to put pressure on the Bushheads to keep them from blocking long overdue efforts to face the complex problems ahead --and in fact, already manifesting---due to the climate crisis.

BBC NEWS UK UK Politics G8 climate plans 'watered down'

Another Brick in the Wall

There were so many outrages committed by the Reagan administration that one of the most devastating slipped by without much more than a weary finger or two pointing it out. But ending the Fairness Doctrine governing equal time for conflicting political views opened a door that Rupert Murdoch and other GOP partisan moneybags and extremist reactionaries were very ready to bolt through. It led to Fox News, right wing talk radio, and just about the end of legitimate news on TV and radio. Which has just about ended the dream of an informed citizenry electing their leaders, and the media as the dogged check on mendacious power.

Now the Bushies, rolling out one outrage after another, have numbed us to apparently minor changes including one which could be the coup de grace of democracy, and at the very least the last hope for the young of America to ever get a straight answer, a real fact or even another view. And that little matter is the complete de-funding of PBS that's just passed the House subcommittee on appropriations.

Sure, everybody says the subcommittee always does something like this, the committee restores at least some of the cuts, then the Senate restores some more, and PBS and NPR, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, get most of their money. Always a little less, of course. The federal contribution to our "public" media is about 15% of their costs.

But all that has to happen is for people and their congressional reps to fall asleep and these guys will finally do it. Sure, they say it's about tight budgets, and everybody thinks that's very funny. And they say, why do we need this, we've got all these choices on cable TV. Sure, if you think 3453 channels of the same crap constitutes choice, especially when those 45321 channels are owned by the same few corporations, and they're all competing to see who can perfect the most effective blend of mesmerizing trivality and political manipulation for the GOPer cause.

The U.S. airwaves without Frontline and NPR would complete the 1984 media takeover. They've already installed a right wing ideologue in charge of the Corp for Public Broadcasting, and they got rid of Bill Moyers. Now they want to end it all. A little matter of investigations into some improper payments to GOPer lobbyists may slow them down a bit, but this is really one to DO FOR THE CHILDREN. Not to save Sesame Street for them, as worthy a goal as that might be. But to save Frontline for them. They are really going to need it.

This is one of those issues that writing your congressional rep can really count. These votes take the public temperature on a subject that doesn't have a lot of loud-mouthed lobbyists fighting for it, and certainly isn't going to get much TV time. So do it.

Tom Teepen: Nation should defend, not defund, CPB

In Other New...

Review of two new books on Darwinian evolution, Evolution in Four Dimensions and Before Darwin at books in heat.

H.G. Wells and Gene Roddenberry at Soul of Star Trek.

Earthquake News

For readers who know we're residents of the North Coast of CA and heard about the earthquake, everything is fine here. There was a ripple and some rock and roll for long enough to indicate a big event somewhere, but no real damage and everything is quiet. There was a tsunami warning for about an hour, but thanks to all the information that got refreshed hereabouts after the Indonesian quake (very similiar to this one in the type and location), we felt pretty secure. We're high enough not to be in direct danger from tsunami from even a really big one, though we'd probably be cut off from the world for awhile---highways would be liquified at the bridges, and otherwise flooded.

Anyway, no tsunami of appreciable size hit the coast--Crescent City to the north performed a quick evacuation of the low-lying downtown, so they feel better about how they'll respond when they really have to.

According to reports coming into the CA earthquake center, the 7.0 quake about 90 miles to sea was felt along the entire coast of California, as far south as San Diego. Maybe 30 to 50 reports were filed from the Bay area, and hundreds from the towns here around Humboldt Bay.

I expect our geologist acquaintances have the adrenelin going about now, as they study what happened and where. It could be an isolated event, but somehow we don't think so. We'll see, though, won't we? Front row seat.

from Dr. Strangelove to Rev. Enron

Blinded By Non-Science

By Phineas Dash

Maybe it’s age, but I am becoming more detached from the daily news. What follows might even be pontificating, but as the oracular Dash brother, I guess that’s my job. So here are some thoughts prompted by a request for some words on a progressive view of science…

Evaluating science and using the findings of science are collective responsibilities in a progressive democracy. We need to be informed and skeptical, without surrendering to unexamined fears and projections of our own anxieties and desires.

We must be skeptical because many "scientific" findings, and the research (which may be valid or not) that leads to them are increasingly financed by special interests, with a financial stake in the outcome. We find particularly egregious examples in drug testing which is often inadequate and inaccurate, done by the very companies who profit by the sale of the drugs. These days they sometimes spend more money on advertising than research and testing. We find it as well in biotechnology, in which huge companies can suppress information and use science to destroy individual freedom as well as the environment (by forcing the use of genetically altered seeds, for example).

Science is used as an instrument of dominance when it is marshaled to harm those least able to defend themselves. It is no coincidence that most toxic waste sites and other harmful processes are located where the poor live, in particular on Indian reservations.

Even public financing of science, without scrutiny, is not a solution, for it has been corrupted as well. Americans became rightly suspicious of science and technology when nuclear weapons "experts" both lied about dangers and created closed systems they claimed were rational, but from outside the system appeared insane: therefore, Doctor Strangelove.

These days, besides weapons research, other science and technology-based enterprises are subsidized that are in themselves harmful, but also benefit large corporations rather than the public---corporations that often escape their tax responsibilities.

When science is used in these ways, a chain reaction of corruption begins that threatens the credibility of science everywhere. Huge commercial interests are now willing and able to bypass traditional safeguards such as peer review, or simply bribe their way to acceptance. The money they spend on advertising discourages scrutiny from the media depending on advertising income. Already the dumbing down of information media means sloppy science reporting, not only in terms of the science itself, but such crucial information as methodology and who paid for the research.

When science is used as an instrument of self-interest and profit---especially when it becomes a tool of public relations--- it is but a short step to the abuses we've seen by the Bush administration, in distorting and ignoring scientific findings, particularly on the climate crisis, that doesn't support their political agenda.

Like just about everything else, science has become part of this overheated inside-out public frenzy, where unexamined unconscious reactions get projected onto everyone and everything in sight, usually in the form of political bombast. Roger Pielke, director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at U. of Colorado, affirms that "science is becoming yet another playing field for power politics," which isn't so new, but what may be is, "complete with the trappings of media spin and win-at-all-costs attitude. Sadly, much of what science can offer policymakers, and hence society, is being lost."

That's simply so science can play a role, rather than become (as it once seemed it would become) the indisputable authority. That was never going to be a good thing.

Even in areas not so directly affected by corporate and political interests, science must be viewed and evaluated intelligently. Scientists are human beings, and for all of their rhetoric of objectivity, the reliance on scientific principles does not guarantee that accurate findings and especially new and better explanations will always be judged on their merits and accepted immediately. In his book, "The Big Bang," Simon Singh exposes the dirty little secret least familiar to nonscientists: the degree to which science is hostage to human failings of ego, status and reward. Singh cites the observation of renowned physicist Max Planck that new ideas seldom win over adherents of old ones -- usually a generation must pass while the new idea's "opponents gradually die out ..." He also quotes English geneticist J.B.S. Haldane's "four stages of acceptance" of a scientific idea: "i) this is worthless nonsense, ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view, iii) this is true, but quite unimportant, iv) I always said so."

Scientists also often are biased to the simplest (or "elegant") explanation, which they've found in the past is often the best one. But it is not always so, especially as science gets into deeper and more fundamental questions. It may turn out that fundamental answers are complex. This appears to be so, for example, in the evolution of living beings. A growing number of scientists (most recently, Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb in their book, EVOLUTION IN FOUR DIMENSIONS (MIT Press, 2005) are questioning the exclusive reliance on genes as the engines of inheritance and evolution. From molecular biology and more unbiased animal study, new findings support the idea that other factors are at work, including behavioral and symbolic transmissions of traits.

But apart from ego and careerism, science that touches upon political and religious controversies can get caught in the crossfires. Part of the resistance to new theories of natural selection is from scientists who feel they must circle the wagons against reactionary views (from downright denial of evolution to so-called "intelligent design" schools) and maintain a unified front focus on simple ideas, that may have become dogmas.

Not all the trends are bad, however. There is increasing diversity among those engaged in science. Women, for example, have made usually unacknowledged contributions throughout the history of western science, but more are becoming prominent in their fields today. They may bring a more collaborative attitude and a greater openness to complexity, although deterministically ascribing traits on the basis of gender would be, as they say, unscientific.

More Shoes Dropping

Says USA Today:

The debate's over: Globe is warming - Yahoo! News

so you know it must be true. Actually this is a solid article for what's going on in the conventional wisdom, with nuggets like:

GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt recently announced that his company, which reports $135 billion in annual revenue, will spend $1.5 billion a year to research conservation, pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases. Joining him for the announcement were executives from such mainline corporations as American Electric Power, Boeing and Cinergy.

Exxon isn't on the list, of course, but other global "energy" (i.e. "we don't want to be caught being only oil") companies have gone ahead, as if they knew this all the time, but still they are far more realistic than our faith-based and paid-for government.

The Return of King Butts

So you thought the age of King Butts was over? Especially after that $246 billion deal the states made with the tobacco companies in 1998, ostensibly to fund anti-smoking campaigns. But the states took the money and ran the other way. Few bothered spending significant sums on anti-smoking programs, except California, which (before the Terminator) devised and implemented innovative programs that had measurable effect in reducing teen smoking.

The last weapon the federal government had was a pending law suit filed during the Clinton administration charging the big Butts with promoting teen smoking, and seeking damages. But with their infinite capacity for craven cowardice, the Bushers reduced the damages they were seeking from $130 billion to $10 billion.

Why? The operative figure seems to be $54 million, which is what the Big Butt companies have spread around in campaign contributions since 1990. Even the judge in the case smells a rat, as do several members of Congress. But for now King Butts is back, big time! Any industry that can kill some 400,000 people a year can't possibly be more important to the Bushies as renewing the Patriot Act, which is supposed to protect us from terrorists, at least the unincorporated kind.

Last-minute retreat leaves anti-smoking plan in ashes - Yahoo! News

the birds have figured out what to do with them, but have we?

Bird Brains

Humans know they have all the brains. So they can't quite believe the evidence that very small birds with almost no brains learn from each other, or can remember exactly where they've stored thousands of seeds over vast landscapes, and can find these stores even when landmarks are obscured by snow. And of course humans have no real clue as to how or why migrating birds migrate the way they do.

So of course these humans, perhaps smart enough to work for oil companies, were terribly worried that a proposed new technology for energy production, huge "farms" of hundreds of wind turbines positioned at sea, would disrupt migration paths and even kill thousands of birds who fly unwittingly into the blades.

So they studied the situation. And it seems that when birds come upon these massive turbines, they, unh, fly around them. Sometimes they fly between them. Less than 1% of the birds get within a distance where they might be in danger.

Which leaves us wondering, where can our humans get some of those bird brains?


BBC NEWS Science/Nature Wind farms pose low risk to birds

sinking slowly with the west 

The Naked Emperor of Lethal Lies


"A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents. "

Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming - New York Times

UPDATE: Three days after the aide in question resigned from the White House, he began working for Exxon. I wish we were making this up.