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Saturday, February 08, 2003
Social Informatics (apolitical explorations)
Posted by Lis Riba at 9:25 PM
 Part of the reason for advanced schooling is to learn lessons you can apply in everyday life. That's especially true with the Computers in Society class I took last semester. Two recent articles have inspired me to further analysis. The first is this piece on Google from the Boston Globe Magazine. The second article comes from Wired magazine, about alt.suicide.holiday. I'm an avid searcher; that's partly why I got into Library and Information Science. I love Google and I'm an avid Googler. American Libraries Magazine had a recent article titled Librarianship after Google, which noted "Isn't it remarkable how quickly Google got adopted and became seemingly indispensable to many librarians? It seems like only yesterday that we all had a different favorite search engine every few months." It is worrisome that one company has so much power, even one whose corporate code of conduct is simply Don't be evil. I remember the general dread when DejaNews closed up shop, and the worry over what would become of the Usenet archive. As it turned out, Google bought it, and undertook great expense to improve access to the existing archive, continue archiving new posts, and even acquire older posts to make it the most complete archive available. They've done an amazing job, but no matter how much we like Google, the Usenet archive is still in private hands, and if anything should happen to Google... Well, the archive is just as fragile as it was under Deja's management, and is just as valuable a resource. I would like to see the Library of Congress get a copy of the archive for permanent keeping. The question of monopoly also raises its head in the recent SearchKing lawsuit, where Google purposely reduced another company's PageRank. Yes, SearchKing was trying to abuse the PageRank system, but Google's popularity is partly based upon a positive reputation. If it continues to manipulate search results to disfavor competitors, they could become just as untrustworthy as other sites which sell top results to advertisers. [More on Google's business challenges in this BusinessWeek article.] But these concerns are tangential to those expressed in the article, which focuses more on the issue of Googling about other people. A key quote in the middle of the article: "It's the collapse of inconvenience," says Siva Vaidhyanathan, assistant professor of culture and communication at New York University. "It turns out inconvenience was a really important part of our lives, and we didn't realize it." I'll confess that one thing blocking me from a career in politics is my concern about what one can find by Googling me. I've been on Usenet since I was 18 years old (I know, that's trivial now, but that was 1988). All the usual bullshitting college conversations one has with friends, I had online, and many of them are still accessible. I'm sure I expressed lots of outrageous and idiotic opinions that I don't hold now or don't hold as strongly (for two dramatic examples, my opinions on gun control and censorship of pornography are just about the opposite of the ones I held when I was a freshman) and it would be trivially easy for someone to pull those forth and either try to pin them on me now or accuse me of flip-flopping. I believe too strongly in the historical importance of archives to actually ask Google to pull my posts from their archives. [Besides, I know how easy it is to just find other people's responses which quote my words, so it'd only add an extra step of distortion to the process.] I idly wonder when we'll get the first suicide tied to such a Google investigation of somebody's past. Speaking of the convenience factor, I do worry that Google is so convenient that we look to it in place of other, better tools. For example, many newspapers recently have discovered their letter columns have been astroturfed by form letters written by the RNC, but attributed to local letter-writers. The Globe ombudsman writes "The Internet may be part of the problem, but it can also be part of the solution; I'd suggest adding regular online searches of key phrases in any suspect letter, to quickly identify already-published duplicates." Right idea, wrong tool. They want to be searching Lexis-Nexis, a paid service with dedicated news archives, where one can search newspaper letter columns. I should add that the Boston Globe both archives into LN and has a I would suspect Slashdot of such ignorance of news tools, but am disappointed to find similar unfamiliarity among professional journalists, editors and ombudsmen. The article also asks another question: Because we know Google will be able to meet whatever our informational need may be at whatever moment we need it, it has, in many ways, made us all a little lighter. "Rather than having to carry the factual baggage around in your head, you have this electronic prosthesis," says Sven Birkerts, a noted author who has written about the intersection of technology and society. "You can get it anytime, and the doors don't lock." Honestly, I suspect so, though I don't yet know how. James Burke has talked about how before the printing press (and still in pre-literate societies) people had the ability to memorize what we'd now consider incredible amounts of information. But once people could look information up in a book, the need for such storage was diminished. People stopped teaching or practicing the skills and they've been mostly lost the ability. [See Engines of our Ingenuity, episodes 892 & 1226.] I've also read studies that people who use wearable computers or have ubiquitous handheld computers have undergone memory loss because they've delegated certain facts to their digital memory, rather than remembering these themselves. I've had similar questions since I saw some memory aids for the elderly at the Conference for Universal Usability. I've also read articles and research about how daily behavior changes once one gets an always-on broadband connection to the Internet. Seems to map to my experiences. After Ian and I had grown accustomed to having an always-on cable modem, we were dramatically affected when it went offline for a couple weeks last year. And a Seattle journalist wrote an article about surviving a week unplugged. The story of what happened to cyborg Steve Mann when airport security forcibly disconnected him ( NYT story here, Slashdot commentary here) may serve as a useful example of what may come. In some respects, I wonder if anyone has studied how math knowedge has changed since calculators became prevalent in the classroom. Although we were allowed calculators in our most advanced math classes, they were still relatively primitive compared to some of the programmable ones commonplace nowadays. And we were still required to use the tables in the back of books for logs and trigonometric functions. I still remember by heart that log 2 base 10 is .30103, and am thus able to derive the logs of powers of 2 pretty much in my head. Do kids today still do that? I don't know, but I do wonder what we're losing in terms of in-your-head calculation ability. Google just carries this a few steps further. As a child, I had oodles of fun just browsing through dictionaries. While the ability to find ready reference directly is highly useful, a lot of good learning comes from browsing. I know that I read many more articles when I buy a newspaper than when I read one online, because I miss the serendipidous discoveries. And, some may deride the idea of memorizing facts that can be more easily looked up, what about other lessons that are more easily found than derived? Are they now worthless? I recall a unit in science class on the weather. For a week or so, we were to avoid hearing the weather forecasts and instead try to make our own predictions based upon current conditions. I remember calling the weather-phone to get the current temperature and pressure, then quickly hanging up before the recording got to tomorrow. Do they still teach that? With "weather every ten minutes" on the radio, I wonder if it's still possible to nurture that temporary sense of ignorance in the name of learning. Suicide 101: Lessons Before Dying I've always felt that one of the strengths of the Internet is its ability to host communities of interest. +People who are isolated geographically can find other like-minded individuals to communicate with, thus reducing loneliness and improving information-flow and self-esteem. For hobbies, alternative sexualities, ailments, or activism -- the Internet seems ideal for forming support groups. Not all of these are for the best. Some communities tend to become echo chambers for destructive opinions. [I've previously posted my opinions of childfree advocacy.] However, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I've read articles on pro-anorexia groups which seem to call that into question. LJDrama (a generally funny site, mocking some of the excesses seen on LiveJournals) links to one such group. However, pro-suicide seems even more... questionable. What redeeming value can there be in such "support" groups? And, yet, I don't condone censorship. I didn't when Final Exit came out with its potential for misuse, and I don't want to go down that slippery slope now. Once in college, when I was feeling down on myself, I said to a friend "I hate myself." He didn't yell at me, but said in no uncertain terms how horribly wrong that was and that I should never say such things. So I didn't. I didn't stop thinking that, but I no longer expressed those sentiments to others, which may have prevented me from getting further help. My husband has worked for the Samaritans, which "provides unconditional and non-judgemental support to those who are alone, depressed or in crisis." In plain language, it's a suicide hotline. And yet, their training emphasizes that they're not supposed to try to talk callers out of suicide, but merely to "befriend" them and just be there for the callers. There's concern that suicidal people might not seek out help if they knew they were going to be judged by those they were contacting. So, maybe there is a place for these kinds of support groups, places to "talk openly about suicide in a culture that regards suicide as a taboo." Since I started writing this post, Wired has posted the rest of the series: No One Asked Why He Wanted to Die and A Teen Dies: Who Is Responsible? In the second part, the parent of a suicide victim acknowledges "If it wasn't this group, it would be another group. Sooner or later, people with this tendency are going to find each other. I think there is a real positive in that you can find someone who understands where you come from." This gives the assumption that such groups will always exist, even if they're forced underground. The final article partly involves a wrongful death lawsuit filed against a poster of ASH. I worry that this kind of action could penalize suicide hotlines like Samaritans, where sometimes phone workers do keep someone company during their final moments without calling the authorities. But, while friends and phone line workers may be comforting, does that comfort really merit whole communities to support and even promote such self-destructive beliefs? And what does it mean for society at large if we condone such groups? In the name of diversity, people have become far more accepting. Creeds like "an it harm none, do what ye will" or "safe, sane and consensual" imply an almost 'anything goes' attitude. Some point to these nonjudgmental stances as signs of moral decline, calling it an abdication of authority and absense of leadership. Isn't part of adulthood about providing guidance, especially to the young and in need? I have no answers to any of these questions, but they are questions worth pondering. Posted by Lis Riba at 8:01 PM
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has created a Vote To Impeach website, on which he's drafted articles of impeachment for the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft. As little as I like the current administration or its policies, these charges somehow don't seem to rise up to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. However, two posts this afternoon on Interesting Times really disturb me. I'm going to excerpt liberally:
I'm chilled by the implications. I'm not entirely certain it rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeaners, but it's much much closer than getting a blowjob. Especially when you combine these actions with the administrations many attempts to subvert Constitutional balance of power and the Bill of Rights. I really don't want to go overboard about this, but the more news I've been blogging the last several weeks, the more worried I've gotten. Anyone care to reassure me that this isn't as bad as it sounds?
More on the Domestic Security Enhancement Act
Posted by Lis Riba at 3:15 PM
I finally managed to download the full text of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act (what's being euphemistically called Patriot Act II) from PBS. And I found a few more provisions that haven't been widely reported on yet:
And, of course, one of the most dramatic changes is Section 501: Expatriation of Terrorists: [A]n American could be expatriated if, with the intent to relinquish nationality, he becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United States has designated as a "terrorist organization" ... This provision also would make explicit that the intent to relinquish nationality need not be manifested in words, but can be inferred from conduct. ... Specifically, this proposal would make service in a hostile army or terrorist group prima facie evidence of an intent to renounce citizenship. And how does the U.S. government decide what is a terrorist organization? That's the big question, isn't it? The State Department's Section-by-section analysis of the (original) USA PATRIOT Act defines domestic terrorism as those criminal acts dangerous to human life, committed primarily within the United States, that appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, or to influence a governmental policy by intimidation or coercion" which would include Operation Rescue and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or any protestors who engage in civil disobedience or minor violence. With section 410 of this new bill eliminating the statute of limitations, I guess anyone who protested the Vietnam War in the Sixties better beware! Section 411 of the original USA PATRIOT Act also "recasts the definition of engaging in terrorist activities to include solicitation on behalf of such organizations, or recruiting on their behalf, or providing them with material support," meaning that anyone who's ever donated to such organizations, even if clearly earmarked for humanitarian purposes, is also a terrorist by the current definitions. Scary, isn't it? By the way, the ACLU has a nifty How Free Are We? Quiz. It needs a cutesy graphic like some of the LiveJournal quizzes, but:
How well do you do?
Orange you feeling safer already?
Posted by Lis Riba at 12:45 PM
That's right, in case anyone was unconvinced about the need for war against Of course, the big news in the blogosphere is the Patriot Act II. I've started reading more details courtesy of the Center for Public Integrity. It is positively diabolical! It's almost impressive how Ashcroft has managed to sneak in so many unrelated Bush administration interests in the name of security. Take this for example: Section 202, "Distribution of 'Worst Case Scenario' Information" This sounds like it has much more to protect polluters and damage the environment than preventing terrorists. But there's much, much more:
If you're as outraged as I am over these actions, DailyKos has some suggestions for Fighting back. I just want to remind everyone that the Congressional toll free switchboard at 1-800-839-5276. I called my Congressman yesterday about the DeFazio-Paul bill to repeal the Iraq Use of Force Resolution, and the staffer I spoke to was incredibly polite. I'll also add one more suggestion for easy action. Tell others about these stories. I shouldn't dis the national media too much, because I would enjoy working as a news librarian, but many people are not that well informed about what's really going on. Jeanne D'Arc reports on how Oprah's audience reacted to something I considered old news: The latter part of the show consisted of an interview with Tom Friedman, and the interesting thing there was not Oprah's fawning, but seeing what happens to Friedman's suggestion that war with Iraq will have to be followed by a twenty year occupation when it hits the real world. People who follow news religiously ? and for the most part, that's not Oprah's audience ? have heard the call to imperialism so many times we've become numb to the idea. But when the camera turned to the audience after Friedman's suggestion, you could see the shock on their faces. Mouths open. Shaking their heads. Friedman looked increasingly ridiculous saying that this twenty-year occupation is what Americans have to be prepared for, while (mostly) women looked at him as if he were out of his mind. One man in the audience, in fact, rose to tell him exactly that. Watching the show was worthwhile if only to see Friedman get taken down. So, spread the word. Talk to people about the stories I'm describing here. Make sure they know no Iraqis were directly involved in Sept. 11th. Ask if they heard that the British intelligence report was plagiarized from a decade-old student paper. Tell them about Shock and Awe. Ask them what they think will happen when/if we win a military battle against Iraq... Make them think about the consequences of our actions. To conclude, I'll just remind you: It has now been 509 days since President Bush said all we want is Osama brought to justice, dead or alive, and 308 days since American citizen Jose Padilla was placed in a military prison for an indefinite period of time without charge, trial or due process of law. Where are they now? Friday, February 07, 2003
(Aw) Crumbs
Posted by Lis Riba at 4:55 PM
Maybe it was all the reminiscing over the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Blizzard of 1978, but it's snowing something fierce out there. Unfortunately, I'm not having that good a Friday afternoon. Don't want to say much about it, but this Wired story should provide a few clues regarding my current mood slump. Good wishes and support would be most welcome right about now. By the way, continuing from my previous post, if government officials are looking for information in the papers of grad students, then I've got a few they can use! I hope they pay particular attention to my report on USA PATRIOT Act A few other tidbits from the afternoon's blogs:
By the way, the BBC has posted its winners in the caption Powell's photo contest. They're cute, but I still like best the one from Atrios, that went "This is the vial of crack we've been smoking at the White House." I also discovered that the BBC has a weekly pun competition. Ooh. Did I ever mention I won audience favorite at a Boskone Punday contest several years back? Huge elimination round on politicians, and I managed a couple of doozies. [My favorite was when the contestant before me said, "Architects have been hired to redesign the UN building. They're adding flying Boutroses." And I replied completely off-the-cuff with a Gomer Pyle "Well Gha-a-ali!" that brought the house down.] Anyway, due to the snow, the pot-luck dinner we were supposed to go to tonight has been cancelled. Ian made two chocolate pies, so that means there's one for each of us. But that means we're suddenly without plans for tonight. Ah well...
Morning
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:21 AM
In the past several days, I've mentioned several issues worth calling your Congresscritters about: filibustering Miguel Estrada's judicial confirmation, supporting the DeFazio-Paul bill to repeal the Iraq Use of Force Resolution, just to name two. Well, it's now easier than ever to do so. I just discovered the Congressional toll free switchboard at 1-800-839-5276. Call Congress and tell them how you want to be represented! Interesting Times makes a good point. Isn't Shock and Awe just a modern synonym for blitzkrieg? From the OED:
Blitzkrieg: [G., f. blitz lightning + krieg war.] (See BLITZ n.)
Blitz: An attack or offensive launched suddenly with great violence with the object of reducing the defences immediately; spec. an air-raid or a series of them conducted in this way, esp. the series of air-raids made on London in 1940. Ian wishes to add that KGB is an abbreviation for Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, which means Committee of State Security. Sound like a Department of Homeland Security, anyone? You know, I realize that conservativism is supposed to be about resistance to change and reusing the best ideas of the past, but don't you think the Bush administration should do better than Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union? Oliver Willis has a great quote from Clinton on being the only superpower: "You don't do everything in life you can just because you can. Nobody does." Atrios has two gems this morning. He links to an interview with Josh Marshall More importantly, he reports on another Republican attempt to block Democratic get out the vote efforts. This wasn't the first Republican dirty trick I've heard about in recent elections designed to discourage voter turnout. Remember those flyers in the poor neighborhoods of Baltimore? Or the less publicized phone calls in Florida, "reminding [voters] to get their absentee ballots in by Nov. 10" several days after the actual deadline? Attempts to prevent American citizens from voting disgust me. If there isn't already, there oughta be a law. After all, blocking one opponent from voting has a similar effect to casting one illegal supporting ballot -- only with broader and worse ramifications for the future since many disaffected voters stop voting altogether. TalkLeft writes about an interview with the jurors of the medical marijuana case. One juror said the real culprit was "The system, the federal government, the DEA." Meanwhile, Texas is refusing to comply with the World Court, which recently ordered the U.S. to stay a few executions of foreign citizens. As Lawrence Goldman, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said, "It would be ironic for the United States to ignore the order of a World Tribunal at the same time we threaten war on another nation on the ground that it flaunts the directives of a world body." Although it's all over the blogosphere, Ian asked me to mention this story since he hasn't heard it in the press he follows. At the UN, Colin Powell recommended a British intelligence report on Iraq, calling it a "fine paper" with "exquisite detail." The paper is actually plagiarized from a graduate student's paper and two other works of journalism -- unattributed of course. Avedon notes: "Even [the student's] typos and grammatical errors found their way into the Downing Street dossier." Road to Surfdom notes several disturbing facts about this, which are too long to quote here but really must be read. So what was that I said yesterday about lies, damn lies... Oh, I almost forgot: It has now been 508 days since President Bush said all we want is Osama brought to justice, dead or alive, and 307 days since American citizen Jose Padilla was placed in a military prison for an indefinite period of time without charge, trial or due process of law. Where are they now? Thursday, February 06, 2003
Do you not know that I am a woman? when I think, I must speak!
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:30 PM
Shakespeare wrote those lines about 400 years ago for his comedy As You Like It. I know I said my last post would be it for the day. At least, that's what I intended. Yet how can I stay silent when the blogs are filled with atrocities that the mainstream news isn't covering? I must speak, because how else will people find out about these: Oliver Willis reports that during the Gulf War, Cheney frequently said "we have no way of knowing precisely how many casualties occurred ... and may never know," a government demographer and doctoral student calculated much higher Iraqi casualties than any of the official reports. She was then fired, and the department rewrote her report, eliminating her research and making it seem as if casualty figures were impossible to derive. Needless to say, this probably means the likelihood of accurate casualty counts in upcoming conflicts will be slim. Link that to this Interesting Times story, which reports that "The Pentagon is considering cremating the remains of soldiers who may die in an Iraqi chemical or biological attack in the Persian Gulf" and points out the PR advantage in having no more "bad visuals of flag-draped coffins coming off airplanes." Of course, cremating all the war dead also means no way for anyone to conduct independent autopsies or possibly even calculate accurate counts. Even more horrifying is Oliver Willis' second story, that Rumsfeld has called the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention a "straitjacket" and wants to use so-called nonlethal chemical agents such as the ones Russians used to end their recent hostage crisis, accidentally killing a hundred people in the process. As Oliver Willis says: I'm afraid of what these people are doing to the legacy of the United States, and what we stand for. We have over two hundred years of history coming up to this point, and I really can't believe one group of people can truly derail us from our glorious path. Ruminate This reports that " a bi-partisan bill was introduced in Congress ... to repeal the Iraq Use of Force Resolution passed by Congress in October." However, apparently, their press conference wasn't covered by any of the major media outlets. Searching the Lexis-Nexis News Group File for the bill's sponsors turns up 6 articles, half of which are merely formulaic lists of the day's events in Washington. A Google News search on the bill's sponsors performed at 10:15 PM shows only six relevant links:
These aren't big fish -- they're small fry. The largest of these media outlets, the Washington Times gives it three sentences in the final paragraph of a much longer story. Where are CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the other major markets? They decided not to run it!? As Ruminate This says: Major bipartisan legislation opposing a war nobody wants, and what do we hear? The sound of media silence. It's really sad when the latest dismal figures from "Bush's War on the Economy" has to be considered the lighter news.
On blogging -- a narcissistic self-evaluation
Posted by Lis Riba at 4:10 PM
Well, it's now been two weeks since I created my RSS feed and syndicated my journal. Since Blogger Pro has a 30 day trial period, during which I can back out free of charge, I thought it worth asking myself what's changed and whether it's been worth it. Since this gets rather long, I've moved the bulk of the post behind this link. I invite you to read it and share your opinions regarding this journal. By the way, if you have access to Searcher Magazine (which I really should subscribe to one of these days), the February issue has an excellent article on "RSS News Blogging" which "provides an overview of the software, tools, editors, aggregators, and search engines." Very well done, though unfortunately it's not available online. Finally: Unless something else really big happens this evening, that's probably all I'll post for today. I think I've written more than enough.
Calling George Santayana!
Posted by Lis Riba at 3:45 PM
Another peek behind the curtain on the Osama->Saddam switcheroo: Road to Surfdom discovered this Washington Post story from October: Bush has not made an unprompted mention of bin Laden's name since March 8. That day, at a GOP gathering in Florida, the president spoke of "this bin Laden fellow," and vowed: "We're going to find him." The last time Bush spoke the hated name in any public forum was a July 8 press conference, in which he was specifically asked if he would find bin Laden. The article also notes one of the motives for this switcheroo: polls. "Last year, nearly two-thirds of Americans said the war on terrorism could not be called a success without bin Laden's death or capture. That number fell to 44 percent in the March Washington Post/ABC News poll, and the question has since been dropped." I wonder how much light needs to be shed to expose this story.
In other news
Posted by Lis Riba at 2:40 PM
I actually wrote most of these comments before my lengthy screed on Osama and Iraq, but realized that topic was important enough that it needed to stand alone and shouldn't be buried amid other news, no matter how equally worthwhile those stories are. Patently false As you may have heard, SBC acquired patents "that on the surface would seem to cover menus, frames, and any sort of link in a computerized document or data representation where one end is static and the other end changes based on context" and has been trying to enforce them. This has been widely covered in the tech press, so I haven't written too much about it here. Many people have been trying to find prior art, and this week Robert X. Cringely provides a boatload. There certainly do seem to be problems with the American patent system, particularly where it comes to patents on processes. To forestall such problems in the future (and hopefully to get the Patent Office some more money for investigators) I propose that the Patent Office ought to be able to fine the owners of successful patents if it's discovered that they have not done sufficient research on prior art before submitting. If someone gets a patent, and it's later discovered they misled the Patent Office by hiding prior art, they should not only lose the patent but be further penalized for the time and trouble they've put others through. Patent applications are supposed to do this anyway, so let's just put some teeth behind this requirement. Action alert Democratic Senators are still trying to decide whether they'll filibuster Bush's judicial nominee Miguel Estrada. Maybe they don't yet know this, but Joshua Micah Marshall has uncovered that he lied to the Senate in his hearings last fall. Let's call our Senators and tell them about this! We shouldn't promote people who lie during their nomination hearings! On the lighter side: Atrios reports that the BBC is holding a contest to caption that picture of Powell holding the vial. Sequential Tart, a very witty monthly webzine about comics, has a fascinating article this month about Wonder Woman's virginity. A fascinating look at the history of the character and to fans' reaction to the character. If you're feeling down, take a look at this site, forwarded to us by my sister-in-law (my husband's sister, not my brother's wife)
Improper-ganda
Posted by Lis Riba at 1:20 PM
It seems that we may have to update the old adage. There are lies, damn lies, and statements from the Bush administration. Interesting Times notes that Powell yesterday was trying to make two related cases before the Security Council: (1) that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction (how I hate that vague nebulous term) and (2) linking Iraq with Al Qaeda. Convincing evidence on (1) should be sufficient, so why does the Bush administration keep pressing the much weaker argument for (2)? Today's Salon points out how easily the Bush administration has taken advantage of Americans' ignorance: A recent poll showed 50% of Americans believed that at least one of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi. Only 17% knew the truth that none of them were (the other third said they didn't know). Salon reports that 65% believed that Iraq & al-Qaeda are close allies, a notion that is as yet unproven, and denounced both by Saddam and by "those with a scholarly knowledge of al-Qaida." I looked up the full poll results, and apparently "[t]wo-thirds of the respondents said they thought they had a good grasp of the issues." So, how much of Americans' support for war with Iraq is based upon incorrect information, and what does that mean? Salon asks: The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have received more news coverage than any other single event in history. How could it possibly be that in less than 18 months this event has become a victim of gross historical revisionism? The rest of the Salon article traces the history of this propaganda. Last month, I and many other bloggers linked to this primer on propaganda from a woman who lived in Castro's Cuba. Her archives seem to be down right now, but you can still read Google's cached copy. In her latest posts, she too points out how, magician-like, the administration has used sleight of hand to distract us from Osama. On September 17, 2001, President Bush said:
One of the things believed to have brought down Carter's presidency was that every night the news gave a countdown of how long the hostages had been held in Iran. Maybe we should do a similar countdown about bin Laden. Spread the meme: It has now been 507 days since President Bush said all we want is Osama brought to justice, dead or alive. Where is he? Whoops. After I wrote that, I just noticed that Warblogging.com is already maintaining such a count, as well as counting "the number of days since American citizen Jose Padilla was placed in a military prison for an indefinite period of time without charge, trial or due process of law" which happens to stand currently at 306. Still, this is a meme that deserves to be spread. At least Oliver Willis is maintaining an Afghan War Watch, since the mainstream media has been delinquent in reporting on events on that front. Back to Interesting Times: If [the Bush administration] will lie, obfuscate, and deceive on this matter then how are we to trust them on anything else?
Pithy titles are hard
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:40 AM
Hee hee hee! More blurry satellite photos! Beware! Meanwhile, Terry Jones wants to apply Bush's logic to his neighborhood disputes. [Thanks, Oliver Willis!] Less amusingly, Interesting Times reports that North Korea has announced that, like the U.S., they too are entitled to launch a pre-emptive strike against their enemies -- meaning us: "The United States says that after Iraq, we are next", said the deputy director Ri Pyong-gap, "but we have our own countermeasures. Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the US." Eric Alterman points out something worrisome from the H-Diplo list (midway thru the post). Retired Generals Zinni, Wesley Clark, Schwarzkopf, and retired Admiral Eugene Carroll all "have years of experience reading intelligence estimates [and] are collectively unimpressed by the Bush administration?s arguments about the peril posed by weapons of mass destruction." What's more, "as high-ranking military officials, these men are by nature reluctant to criticize authority in public in a time of crisis. For them to speak out, they must be deeply disturbed at the course of Washington?s policy." Today's Christian Science has an excellent article on the Bush administration's excessive insistence upon secrecy. Talk Left links to another New York Times article about Ashcroft's continuing pattern of overruling local prosecutors and ordering the death penalty. A Justice Department spokeswoman says, "What we are trying to avoid is one standard in Georgia and another in Vermont." So much for the GOP's so-called belief in states' rights, although we already knew that was a sham from medical marijuana and assisted suicide cases. In fact, Ashcroft is being specifically and intentionally disrespectful to states' rights here, as Kevin McNally, of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, says: "They are attempting to bring the federal death penalty to areas of the country like the Northeast that are less hospitable to the death penalty than the traditional death penalty states. This is not an accident or a statistical fluke. This is a deliberate decision to require not a few but many death penalty trials in the Northeast and in New York in particular." If you're feeling disempowered by the whole Iraq business, with our government seemingly ignoring the will of the American people, then respond with Clams for Peace! That's right, protest by mailing clams to the White House. REMEMBER: If you send no clams, you are all for children being shot in the knee caps and being left for dead!!!
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Lotsa nooz
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:55 PM
You know the world has changed, when the conservative Boston Herald prints an article about tonight's Star Trek Enterprise which says "But this shadow play is truly disgusting due to the long-standing refusal by producer Rick Berman (co-writer of the episode) to put a regular gay character into any 'Trek' product, despite fan petitions." Warblogging.com has confirmed what an Australian paper first reported: the United States has already selected who will lead Iraq after Saddam Hussein. [Weren't we supposed to be about bringing democracy to the region?] And what a doozy of a pick. He left Iraq when he was eleven years old and has spent most of his life (he's now 58) in the U.S. and Britain. He was convicted of bank fraud in Jordan in 1992, and tried to launch an uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan in the mid '90s, which proved a complete failure (it's called 'sort of an Iraqi Bay of Pigs'). So he's unpopular, unqualified, and more American/British than Iraqi. No wonder Bush loves this guy. Republican Congressman Howard Coble, chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, said he agreed with FDR's rationale for imprisoning Japanese-Americans during World War II. Of course, the big news of the day involves Colin Powell's testimony before the UN. Be very afraid of the ominously-labelled blurry photos! I didn't get to actually see/hear the testimony live, but Neal Pollack thoughtfully kept a running blog of his reactions to the speech: 10:51 AM Tim Dunlap asks the pertinent question: "Why does [Powell] say that 'We don?t know precisely what Iraq was moving,' when he's just told us that they had a crane to move missiles, and, if we have a photo of the equipment at the site, why don't we have a photo of them moving the missiles with the crane or any of the other stuff?" Whoops! Looks like another of Powell's claims has just been proven false. "If the case is so damn solid, why do they have to lie so much?" And my husband noticed something very significant in the Pakistani foreign minister's comments. As usual, there's too much good stuff on Interesting Times to mention it all: Three separate posts ask the question: if we knew for certain there was an Al Queda base somewhere, why haven't we already attacked it? A disturbing comment from a Freeper. And yesterday, I quoted a post of his asking why liberals don't soundbite. The discussion that has sprung up in his comments section is well worth reading. Speaking of liberals and Democrats, Oliver Willis wonders whether Democrats could use GWB's bloated budget to drive a wedge between the GOP and Libertarians. I mean, Democrats and Libertarians do have a lot in common and could work well together. Josh Marshall appears to have caught nominee Miguel Estrada in a lie, and uncovered the source of Bush's promised AIDS money to Africa. [Guess what, for once in this year's budget, Bush isn't offering more spending; instead he's just cutting other health initiatives in Africa. Diabolically clever, that.] Speaking of the budget, P.L.A. looks at how much (or little) has been proposed for the 9/11 investigation, as compared with other government investigations. And notice that there's already a committee investigating Columbia, while the 9/11 commission hasn't even been formed yet. Avedon Carol links to NYC authorities' I usually try to end each post with something funny or uplifting, but I'm feeling rather uncreative at the moment. If you haven't discovered Obscure Store yet, go take a look. It's a source for all kinds of offbeat-but-true news stories. [And, if you're a fan of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, I've noticed some overlap between stories on this site and those on the show, so this might be one of NPR's sources.]
Medical marijuana madness, and memories of McWilliams
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:35 AM
And still more from the jurors of that medical marijuana trial, this time coming from Talk Left: Five jurors and an alternate in the Ed Rosenthal marijuana trial held a press conference today. They demanded the Judge grant Ed a new trial. And as expected, they apologized to Ed -- one at a time. The group said that two other juror members agreed with them. Okay, I take back some of the insults I heaped upon the jurors in previous posts. It looks like there were some mitigating factors, and it wasn't just a case of the jury blindly obeying judge's instructions rather than understanding jury nullification. In fact, it looks like "blindness" really is the word, because the judge had barred the lawyers from mentioning the medical nature of the marijuana before the jurors, so they didn't know about it until after they came to their verdict. This reminds me unpleasantly of what happened to Peter McWilliams. Besides being an accomplished author and thought-provoking political activist (even if you're not a Libertarian, I recommend reading his book Ain't nobody's business if you do : the absurdity of consensual crimes in a free society -- the full text is available for free online), Peter McWilliams had AIDS. Quoting from The Media Awareness Project, " Like many people stricken with AIDS or cancer, he had great difficulty keeping down the drugs that controlled or mitigated those afflictions. He began to smoke marijuana to control the drug-induced nausea. It saved his life: by early 1998, both his cancer and his AIDS were under control." Federal authorities arrested him, but he was eventually released on (exhorbitant) bail with the condition that he use no marijuana until the trial. He complied, though his viral load soared, and "relished the chance to defend himself in court: medical marijuana was legal under state law and he believed a spirited defense could both exonerate him and help establish a legal fight to grow marijuana for medical purposes." Then, "the judge in the case ruled that Peter could not present to the jury any information about his illness, the fact that the government's own research concludes that marijuana is virtually the only way to treat the illness, or that using marijuana for medical purposes was legal in California. Unable to defend himself against the government's charges, Peter concluded that he had no choice but to plea bargain. He agreed to plead guilty, in hopes that any incarceration could be served under house arrest, since sending him to prison, where he would not be able to follow his lifesaving regimen, would be tantamount to sentencing him to death." Unfortunately, his 'freedom' wasn't sufficient to save his life. Without the medical marijuana, he choked to death in his own vomit. William F. Buckley Jr. wrote a public eulogy for him. Fortunately, the mainstream press is beginning to take notice of this latest medical marijuana Added slightly later: Talk Left also links to the Marijuana Policy Project's Action Page which has a pre-written (but customizable) letter you can fax to your Congresscritters on their dime. Worth a look.
And more news is bad news...
Posted by Lis Riba at 9:45 AM
Avedon Carol has a good response to Howard Kurtz's observation that if Gore made all those new proposals in the State of the Union, there'd be hell to pay among the GOP stalwarts for such 'fiscal irresponsibility.' Avedon writes, "they'd be saying those things because they'd know Gore would actually mean it." Good point. Meanwhile, Scott Rosenberg explains why ballooning deficits are so critically bad at this point in history: For the past 20 years or so, observers who've taken the long view have pointed out that we are sitting on two demographic time bombs. When the baby-boom generation retires, we will face a federal budget crisis like we've never seen before. Bush's father ("Bush 41") and Bill Clinton both put the government on a course to begin to deal with that problem by raising taxes, and sure enough by the end of Clinton's term we had a growing budget surplus. The Social Security problem hadn't been solved, but it looked like the government would have some of the tools it needs to handle it. Health care costs are the other time bomb; Clinton's good-faith effort to deal with that crashed and burned, and Bush seems unwilling to open the necessary discussion on how to fix the broken system we're left with. I've been afraid for a while over what will happen to our country when the Baby Boomers retire. Thinking it through (which I just discovered thru a series of links) makes the point more... pointedly: I think it's safe to say that W doesn't have any fiscal principles at all, does he? He's creating a fiscal crisis at a time when we can least afford it. BTW, what happens when we need to start paying out Social Security benefits to the baby boomers? His current budgets continue the raid on the Social Security surplus. W has picked the lock on the Social Security lockbox and he's essentially distributing the funds to his rich buddies in the form of tax breaks. Now I understand why didn't want to talk about the "lockbox" during the campaign. He was contemplating stealing from this program even then, wasn't he? Thinking it through makes a number of good points, and may go on my permanent bookmark list. Here's a chilling tidbit few have picked up upon, from the State of the Union address: "To date we have arrested, or otherwise dealt with, many key commanders of al-Qaida. ... All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way, they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies." Aieee! Can you read between the lines here for what Bush is talking about so euphemistically? I think I want to misappropriate another phrase from his State of the Union: "Your enemy is not surrounding your country, your enemy is ruling your country." Remember that Brookings scholar arrested recently by the INS? He's telling his own story in today's Washington Post. A couple excerpts: For more than a century, people from all over the world have come to the United States to escape repression and enjoy its freedoms. Perhaps for the first time in American history, we are witnessing the spectacle of families migrating from the United States in search of safety. I'd like to close on a good note, so here's Powers of Ten which explores our world and universe through successive orders of magnitude. It's quite impressive.
Morning fluff
Posted by Lis Riba at 8:00 AM
Wow, I've been verbose lately. And I'm still working on that social informatics essay I'm intending to post here. So, how about a little fluff for this morning. For starters, here's another online quiz I took recently. I had a lot of trouble with the first question, and actually tried to see if the quiz could place me with that one left blank. I ended up trying several different answers to that question, but they all gave me the same result:
Also, a lot of my friends seem to adore Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology site. I don't recall when I discovered him, but generally speaking his weekly horoscopes are entertaining and usually on target for either Ian or myself. Here's his prediction for me for this week: CANCER: Not bad. Not bad at all. Finally, I guess I can't stay away from the hard stuff. News, I mean. Naturally, after I spent all that time graphing the budgetary data, Interesting Times posts a link to a much better graph, courtesy of Reuters. Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Another day, another billion dollars
Posted by Lis Riba at 11:00 PM
Back on the political front, the front page of today's Wall Street Journal showed a graph of the recent budget surpluses and the massive deficits expected thanks to the President's latest budget. As I was trying to find the figures on the government websites, I came across this laugh in the White House press release on the new budget: The best way to counter deficits is through stronger economic growth and spending discipline in Washington. No, the best way to counter deficits is by spending less than you take in. This means pulling back on both the tax cuts and spending. At any rate, since the WSJ is not freely available online, I went straght to the source: the OMB's own Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2004, and created my own charts from the data. They take up too much space for this page, but follow this link for a graph of the budget deficits and surpluses since 1980. And keep in mind, these figures do not include any spending on war with Iraq. If you have trouble with numbers, let me just quote this explanation from DailyKos: "To recap, in two short years we went from a projected $5.6 trillion surplus over the next 10 years, to $1.08 trillion in deficits over the next five years alone. The Bush Administration refuses to do 10-year outlooks, as they would have to take into consideration the balance of last year's tax cuts (phased in over 10 years). Those numbers, I presume, probably look hideous." Although I didn't read the whole document, just looked at the tables, Tim Noah of Slate discovered the following nugget buried amid the prose: An economic slowdown began in 2001 and was exacerbated by the terrorists' attacks of September 11, 2001. The deterioration in the performance of the economy together with income tax relief provided to help offset the economic slowdown and additional spending in response to the terrorist attacks produced a drop in the surplus to $127.1 billion (1.3% of GDP) and a return to deficits ($157.8 billion, 1.5% of GDP) in 2002 So, whose fault is this?? My brilliant husband reminds us that the term voodoo economics was coined by our President's father. Or, as Oliver Willis writes: When a Republican president submits a $2.23 trillion budget plan and creates a brand new department, I think its safe to say that the GOP is now the party of "big government" But, there is more to the world than budgets:
Is the "liberals are partial to complexity" meme just another myth pushed by the right, and willingly accepted by the left, to keep the left from even considering a serious attack on the Limbaughs of the world? And, several blogs provide more detail on stories I've mentioned here previously:
Finally, I want to close by pointing everyone to this beautiful and touching tribute cartoon to the Columbia astronauts. Clay Bennett has an amazing talent.
Love and libraries
Posted by Lis Riba at 6:35 PM
I love my husband. I was reminded of this yet again last night, about halfway through my Subject Analysis class. We were discussing the concepts of specificity and exhaustivity, and I started to feel exhausted myself. I recognized the symptoms from an old Far Side cartoon. My brain was full. Not a good sign, especially halfway through the second class of the semester. During the break, I called Ian because I needed a friendly voice. And he reminded me that I felt exactly the same way when I took my first class with this professor, and not only did I ace that class, but I also helped ship one of our best products at the same time. I've always joked that no class I've taken in grad school has been as difficult as my first course with this professor (which was also my first course in the program), but it was useful to recall exactly what I meant by that. I have a poor emotional memory -- I can generally remember what happened, but not necessarily the feelings I had at the time. After class, I talked with some of my classmates on the trainride home, and they all seemed to be feeling as overwhelmed as I am. So, I may be terrified by the workload, but it's helpful to know that we're all in the same boat. Posters around the main building also kept my spirits high. They announced a party for seniors on Thursday with the inspiring countdown: 100 days until graduation. There's a cheery thought to keep me going. Part of the reason this journal has become more political (and blog-like) recently is that there hasn't been much going on in my personal life worth writing about. I'd really bore people if I wrote about housework and the mundanity of day-to-day life -- you probably get enough of that in your own life. The most interesting things to me lately are school and work. And as fascinating as I find my classes, they're awfully technical and would probably put most others to sleep. Besides, I wouldn't want to hurt Simmons or my professors by giving away their (probably proprietary) course materials for free. I don't want to talk too much about my job hunt either. This is an open website, viewable by all (including potential hiring managers) and regularly spidered by Google. I don't want to risk my chances by saying something indiscreet about a prospective employer. And my corporate intelligence class taught me a thing or two about protecting trade secrets. Sometimes, just the fact that a company is hiring may give competitors insight into their future plans. ["Hmm. They're looking for people with skills in X. I guess that means they're working on a new version of Project Y."] Noneteless, I just interviewed for a position I've got really high hopes for. My favorite scene in Desk Set is where Katherine Hepburn impresses Spencer Tracy with her research skills: "Oh, I did a little research on you. I also adore mystery fiction, particularly the scenes where detectives reveal how all the little clues fit together to reveal something which is utterly unexpected but clearly the only logical conclusion. You know: "I knew you came from Afghanistan. From long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind that I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps. There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran, 'Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.' The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished." The idea of possibly doing that professionally -- working behind the scenes to make those leaps, even if it's only a tiny portion of the job -- thrills me to no end. Librarianship is so the right field for me. I love uncovering information -- subject doesn't actually matter -- and helping others, whether by providing them with information , teaching them how to find things themselves, or just making it easier for them to do so on their own (like my semester project in Subject Analysis). I love books; I love searching online... When I thought about applying to Simmons, Simmons required 36 credits for a degree -- I looked through the course catalog to see if I could find 36 credits that would interest me. I found 36 classes I'd love to take. And even now, though I'm nearing matriculation, I still want to take more classes in the field. I'm doubtful about a doctorate, but fortunately Simmons has a pretty generous auditing policy for alumni which I may take advantage of. Ah, but I'm burbling. Or babbling. Suffice it to say, my fingers are crossed, but I'm feeling pretty good about my place in the universe right now. Monday, February 03, 2003
One last update before class
Posted by Lis Riba at 4:00 PM
I had to take my car in for inspections today and wound up reading the Herald while waiting. Two stories outraged me. One was a story in their teen pages about celebrities with fuller figures. Unfortunately, one of the examples they used was Pink. Maybe their teen section is reprints of older articles, but I've had this discussion before. Pink is not a full-figured woman -- she's skinnier than I am, and by all accounts I'm petite! The other story (I can't find it online right now) wanted to be a paeon to the Soap Box Derby, but the author felt she needed to spice it up by making gratuitous derogatory slams against strawman feminists as her introduction and conclusion. I wish I could find the article, because it was almost hysterically bad. Something about how eeevil feminists can't stand to see such father-son bonding and will certainly seek to destroy the traditions. [To speak positively of the Herald, I really liked the story they printed on How the Blizzard of 78 saved my calculus grade and college career.] Anyway, must leave for class. A couple bloggy bits before I go: America is long known for promoting balanced opinions. This is good and bad. On the one hand, the notion that there are two sides to every story can be abused to give credence to false information. This is how many Holocaust deniers try to gain attention -- by trying to paint their views as just another side of something that shouldn't be in dispute. On the other hand, since the Reagan administration threw out the Fairness Doctrine, Molly Ivins writes that in Eugene, Oregon, "There are 80 hours per week, more than 4,000 hours per year, programmed for Republican and conservative talk shows, without a single second programmed for a Democratic or liberal perspective." I've seen this quote in several blogs, and feel it's worth shouting from the rooftops. By Maureen Dowd: "The Bush administration has made fuzzy evidence against Saddam Hussein sound scarier than it is, and scary evidence against Kim Jong Il sound fuzzier than it is." A reproduction of Picasso's Guernica, normally on display at the United Nations headquarters in New York, has been covered up at the request of the United States. Why? Because "it would not be an appropriate background if the ambassador of the United States at the U.N. John Negroponte, or Powell, talk about war surrounded with women, children and animals shouting with horror and showing the suffering of the bombings." I think it's an entirely appropriate background, and if people have to think twice about what they do or say because of Picasso's artwork, then Guernica did it's job! I agree with Atrios's "Oy." I've been working on a longer post analyzing a couple issues relating to social informatics, but that probably won't be printable for a couple days. Instead I'll just close with this piece which made me laugh aloud: An Essex schoolboy is currently under police investigation after he sent an "extremely abusive email" to staff at search outfit Ask Jeeves. Ta for now!
Two news tidbits
Posted by Lis Riba at 1:15 PM
Thank you President Bush for the gift that keeps on giving. The White House's most optimistic numbers promise a massively huge federal deficit and don't even include the potential costs for war with Iraq. I've said in the past (mostly in Soapbox) that I'm really scared about what will happen to this country when the Baby Boomers retire. DailyKos also comments upon a recent conviction in a medical marijuana trial. The jury foreman said "We had no legal wiggle room," and hopes the verdicts are overturned on appeal. I'd just like to remind all Americans that the reason we have a jury system rather than merely rely upon judges and mandatory sentences is because our Founding Fathers beieved in jury nullification. I think most history classes still include the libel trial of Peter Zenger, where jurors found him not guilty despite the judge's instructions. I'd like to forward this jury foreman the following quotes: "It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." I haven't fully vetted this site yet, but a quick Google search turned up The Fully Informed Jury Association, which seems to have some good articles and links on the subject. Definitely worth reading before you're next called in for jury duty.
Bits and bobs from the morning's news
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:25 AM
My friend Jen had a very good point. If I want to be a pundit, I should start researching it, just like one would/should do with any other career path. So, hopefully over the next few months, I'm going to start investigating the origins of some of the big-name pundits who I admire and/or wish to emulate, and see where and how they got their starts. Maybe, if people express an interest, I'll post some of my findings here. From today's Washington Post, a disturbing piece of government ignorance, especially if we're planning to go to war in the region soon:
Yeesh. And it's not as if any of those numbers could be typos for the others. That's really bad. Makes me wonder what other information about the region our government has wrong. Though the news of Shock and Awe has been somewhat buried due to this weekend's tragedy, Dan Kennedy notes the way the Pentagon is trying to spin the story to create a more favorable impression. Quoted from Librarian.net: Noted without comment
Now, that's leadership. Max Sawicky makes a good point on the politicization of tragedy:
Still, I thought the way Instapundit tried to blame Congress within three hours of the tragedy to be quite tasteless. DailyKos's attempts to blame Bush don't hold much water with me either. I much prefer the way Oliver Willis put it:
Finally, if you're a Google fan, the Boston Globe magazine had a good article on the company and how it's changing society. TOP | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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