| Wednesday,
May 31, 2006
Harry Erwin's Letter from England
A little belated, but we spent four days in the Lake
District (see <
http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/blog/index.php>).
London Times story on Iraqi massacre. <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2201470,00.html>
European Court of Justice protects EU privacy. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1786343,00.html>
Cohabitation rights for unmarried couples. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5032196.stm>
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,,1786469,00.html>
Hunting with dogs on National Trust lands in England
to be permitted. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5032250.stm>
Perhaps there's light at the end of the tunnel. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5032724.stm>
But maybe not. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5029086.stm>
Al Gore deliberately misquoted by the Guardian. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1786322,00.html>
NHS stories. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5029960.stm>--good
news. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5029660.stm>--typical news.
Three links from Bruce Schneier's blog
<http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2006/05/17/#id-card-3>
<http://www.truecrypt.org/> <http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/19/78413_21OPsecadvise_1.html>
-- "The data (or the marks when teaching) are
sacrosanct--they tell us what actually happened." Harry Erwin, PhD
http://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/~cs0her
-- Harry Erwin, PhD, Program Leader, MSc Information
Systems Security, University of Sunderland.
<http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw> Weblog at: <http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/blog/index.php>
==========
Felony battery.
http://www.local6.com/news/9296454/detail.html
- Roland Dobbins
Local nonsense best dealt with locally. Surely
there is common sense in that district? But of course we must act
globally...
=============
Subject: Copyright Law,
was enacted on this day, May 31, 1790
www.reference.com/thisday
Copyright
President George Washington signed the first U.S.
copyright law in 1790, which gave protection for 14 years to books written
by U.S. citizens. Copyright developed out of the same system as royal patent
grants, though the purpose of such grants was not to protect authors' or
publishers' rights but to give the government revenue and control over the
contents of publication. In a major revision of copyright law in 1976, the
U.S. Congress specified that copyright subsists in original works of
authorship fixed in any tangible medium of _expression. The general term of
copyright protection is now the life of the author plus 70 years. For
anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire, the term of
copyright protection is 95 years from first publication or 120 years from
the date of creation of the work, whichever is shorter.
Sue
=========
Humans as Prey The
Chronicle of Higher Education, 6.4.21
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i33/33b01001.htm
By DONNA HART
There's little doubt that humans,
particularly those in Western cultures, think of themselves as the
dominant form of life on earth. And we seldom question whether that view
holds true for our species' distant past -- or even for the present,
outside of urban areas. We swagger like the toughest kids on the block
as we spread our technology over the landscape and irrevocably change it
for other species.
Current reality does appear to perch humans
atop a planetary food chain. The vision of our utter superiority may
even hold true for the last 500 years, but that's just the proverbial
blink of an eye when compared to the seven million years that our
hominid ancestors wandered the planet.
"Where did we come from?" and "What were
the first humans like?" are questions that have been asked since Darwin
first proposed his theory of evolution. One commonly accepted answer is
that our early ancestors were killers of other species and of their own
kind, prone to violence and even cannibalism. In fact a club-swinging
"Man the Hunter" is the stereotype of early humans that permeates
literature, film, and even much scientific writing.
Man the Hunter purports to be based on
science. Even the great paleontologist Louis S.B. Leakey endorsed it
when he emphatically declared that we were not "cat food." Another
legendary figure in the annals of paleontology, Raymond A. Dart,
launched the killer-ape-man scenario in the mid-20th century with the
help of the best public-relations juggernaut any scientist ever had: the
writer Robert Ardrey and his best-selling book, African Genesis.<snip>
<snip>The fact that humans and their
ancestors are and were tasty meals for a wide range of predators is
further supported by research on nonhuman primate species still in
existence. My study of predation found that 178 species of predatory
animals included primates in their diets. The predators ranged from tiny
but fierce birds to 500-pound crocodiles, with a little of almost
everything in between: tigers, lions, leopards, jaguars, jackals,
hyenas, genets, civets, mongooses, Komodo dragons, pythons, eagles,
hawks, owls, and even toucans.
Our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees
and gorillas, are prey to humans and other species. Who would have
thought that gorillas, weighing as much as 400 pounds, would end up as
cat food?<snip>
==========
Alix Spiegel: The
Dictionary of Disorder
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/050103fa_fact
[Thanks to Sarah for this, who point to an
audio of NPR interview in 2003:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1400925 ]
How one man revolutionized psychiatry.
Issue of 2005-01-03 Posted 2004-12-27
In the mid-nineteen-forties, Robert
Spitzer, a mathematically minded boy of fifteen, began weekly sessions
of Reichian psychotherapy. Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian psychoanalyst
and a student of Sigmund Freud who, among other things, had marketed a
device that he called the orgone accumulator--an iron appliance, the
size of a telephone booth, that he claimed could both enhance sexual
powers and cure cancer. Spitzer had asked his parents for permission to
try Reichian analysis, but his parents had refused--they thought it was
a sham--and so he decided to go to the sessions in secret. He paid five
dollars a week to a therapist on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a
young man willing to talk frankly about the single most compelling issue
Spitzer had yet encountered: women. Spitzer found this methodical
approach to the enigma of attraction both soothing and invigorating. The
real draw of the therapy, however, was that it greatly reduced Spitzer's
anxieties about his troubled family life: his mother was a "professional
patient" who cried continuously, and his father was cold and remote.
Spitzer, unfortunately, had inherited his mother's unruly inner life and
his father's repressed affect; though he often found himself overpowered
by emotion, he was somehow unable to express his feelings. The sessions
helped him, as he says, "become alive," and he always looked back on
them with fondness. It was this experience that confirmed what would
become his guiding principle: the best way to master the wilderness of
emotion was through systematic study and analysis.
Robert Spitzer isn't widely known outside
the field of mental health, but he is, without question, one of the most
influential psychiatrists of the twentieth century. It was Spitzer who
took the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders--the
official listing of all mental diseases recognized by the American
Psychiatric Association (A.P.A.)--and established it as a scientific
instrument of enormous power. Because insurance companies now require a
DSM diagnosis for reimbursement, the manual is mandatory for any
mental-health professional seeking compensation. It's also used by the
court system to help determine insanity, by social-services agencies,
schools, prisons, governments, and, occasionally, as a plot device on
"The Sopranos." This magnitude of cultural authority, however, is a
relatively recent phenomenon. Although the DSM was first published in
1952 and a second edition (DSM-II) came out in 1968, early versions of
the document were largely ignored.
I can testify to this: in the 1950's it
was possible to get a PhD in psychology without ever having heard of the
DSM, and in fact the notion of such a document was generally met with
derision in those days. Our Abnormal Psychology textbook was Henderson and
Gillespie, A Textbook of Psychiatry. The DSM has arguably been one of the
worst influences in the history of medicine; I am no particularly competent
to make that argument but I know many who have.
===========
From another
conference:
Subject: [Spiegel] Violence in Latin
America: The Mafia's Shadow Kingdom
The recent violence in Sao Paulo may just be the
tip of the iceberg: In many parts of Brazil and indeed across Latin
America, governments have capitulated to gangsters, and the rise of
organized crime could end the recent leftward shift across Latin
America.
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,417450,00.html
==
Obviously this is America's future if our
percentage of "permanently disadvantaged" residents gets too high.
Jim
==
Jim,
The problem is that Latin America's left wing
governments are heavily influenced by ACLU style liberalism. They tend
to view criminals as the "poor and downtrodden". Real communists don't
suffer from such delusions. They know what firing squads are for. More
deeply they know that the first and foremost goal of any government is a
monopoly on the use of force within the national territory.
Notably, the left-wing candidate in Peru's
presidential election, Ollanta Humala, has called for a reintroduction
of the death penalty. Smart guy. For a variety of reasons, the death
penalty is unlikely to be widely reintroduced in Latin America.
The current crime wave will likely end with death
squads carrying out extra-legal executions in Brazil and in many other
countries. The great folly of liberalism is to think that you can
abolish the need for the death penalty by abolishing the death penalty.
If a society needs it, it just resurrects itself in some other form.
In this respect and others, America is way ahead
of Europe. A diverse multicultural society is likely to be violent and
radically inegalitarian. Such a nation needs a harsh criminal justice
system (large prisons, executions) and a restricted social welfare
state. Europe has foolishly embraced America's diversity without
accepting the need for our jails, gallows, and relatively porous safety
net.
Stated differently, anyone who favors a genuinely
compassionate society must be willing to endorse and enforce the
toughest possible immigration laws.
Thank you
Peter
=============
My university doesn't seem to have a site license for
this journal. I'm kind of curious about what sort of population data they
found.
It's available for download here:
http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html
"Polymorphisms in the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) contribute to
individual differences in human sexual behavior: desire, arousal and sexual
function"
Abstract: Although there is some evidence
from twin studies that individual differences in sexual behavior are
heritable, little is known about the specific molecular genetic design
of human sexuality. Recently, a specific dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4)
agonist was shown in rats to induce penile erection through a central
mechanism. These findings prompted us to examine possible association
between the well-characterized DRD4 gene and core phenotypes of human
sexual behavior that included desire, arousal and function in a group of
148 nonclinical university students. We observed association between the
exon 3 repeat region, and the C-521T and C-616G promoter region SNPs,
with scores on scales that measure human sexual behavior. The single
most common DRD4 5-locus haplotype (19%) was significantly associated
with Desire, Function and Arousal scores. The current results are
consistent with animal studies that show a role for dopamine and
specifically the DRD4 receptor in sexual behavior and suggest that one
pathway by which individual variation in human desire, arousal and
function are mediated is based on allelic variants coding for
differences in DRD4 receptor gene expression and protein concentrations
in key brain areas.
Jason
==
Jason,
But note that they don't say *which* "populations"
contain which variants of the gene!
In societies where women are chattel, I would guess
that their sexual interest matters a lot less...
Jim
==========
Subject: Rep Jefferson is a common crook
Rep. William Jefferson is not only a crook, he is an
arrogant and STUPID crook... highlights I have read
1-Captured on tape taking a $100,000 bribe, during
which he jokes about the FBI watching 2-FBI finds $90,000 of the bribe in
his freezer, and during the search of his home the agent detailed to watch
Jefferson sees him place documents into a bag that had already been
inspected... when confronted, he lies about the documents (lie is easily
proved when the bag is reopened and contents inspected) 3-FBI issues a
supboena which Jefferson ignores for 8 months... leading to the search of
his office, during which a "filter team" of agents inspect the items to be
seized, to be sure nothing not in the supboena is taken in error
Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution - reads that
senators and representatives “shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and
Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at
the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from
the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be
questioned in any other Place.”
Bribery at the $100,000 level is a Felony, so I do not
see why Jefferson's office should not be searched just like any other crook
John Thomas Smith
I am sure you do not see why. Clearly it is
more important to get even more evidence on this wretch than to adhere to a
200 year old precedent. Indeed, this makes for a great opportunity to throw
out that hoary old notion. Good riddance, and a great case for it.
Nevertheless I predict that you will live
to regret your joy in this matter.
==
Subject: Legislative Immunity Explicit in Article I
Dr Pournelle,
Does not Article I, Sections 2 and 3 of the
Constitution make the principle of Legislative Immunity explicit? The last
line of Section 2 says; "The House of Representatives shall chuse their
Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment".
Section 3 says; "The Senate shall have the sole Power
to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on
Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the
Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the
Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend
further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy
any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party
convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial,
Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."
Article I makes it clear that it is Congress that has
jurisdiction over elected officials, whether it be the President or one of
its own members. Note in particular that it says a party convicted under
impeachment proceedings is then liable to idictment and trial, but only
after convicted in impeachment proceedings and removed from office (the sole
allowable punishment).
Does this not make it clear that The Executive and
Judicial Branches have no buisiness stepping in until Congress has concluded
its impeachment proceedings? Does this not make the principle of Legislative
Immunity explicit in our Constitution? Executive immunity as well? After
all, the executive branch (FBI) cannot execute a search without a warrant
issued by the courts and Article I does state that the Senate shall have the
"sole power to try all impeachments", which to me means that no court may
issue a warrant for such a search.
I am no Constitutional scholar but this whole thing
has prompted me to dust off a copy and re-read it. Am I missing something?
Thanks very much
Matt Kirchner
Kirkuk, Iraq
That was the principle I was taught. But that
was a long time ago, and the Constitution is a Living Document, and Mr.
Jefferson is obviously a cheap crook and a Felon, so we may dispense with
all this needless moomeraw and get on with searching his office and jailing
him.
Living Documents change to suit the times,
and the times they are a'changing.
============
Subject: 42nd Line, on full kits!
Note the reporter's emphasis that the *aircraft* don't
have to fly into a danger zone. Wonder if he asked the paratroopers? Yours
Aye,
RGMcF
‘WINGS’ TO
CARRY PARATROOPERS 200KM Last Update: Saturday, May 27, 2006. 10:37am (AEST)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1648903.htm
A new military parachute system which fits
wings on soldiers could enable them to travel to 200 kilometres after
jumping, Jane’s Defence Weekly reports. The system, which involves the
development of new modular carbon-fibre wings, will mean that aircraft
can drop parachutists from 9,150 metres into an area of operations
without flying into a danger zone.
Trials of the modular wing are being
developed by the German firm Elektroniksystem und Logistik and Draeger.
They are due to finish by the end of 2006, with the entire parachute and
wings combination expected to be available during 2007.<snip>
=============
Wisdom from Australia:
Subject: Illegal Aliens?
Illegal aliens? Shit! I didn't even know we'd made
contact with another planet, let alone know that the USA had made these
visits from another planet illegal.
You Yanks never cease to amaze me! You don't know your
left wing from your right wing - hence really ignorant statements like
"Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it
commits suicide." The stunning levels of stupidity contained in that phrase
will keep the rest of the world rolling about in a strange mix of laughter
and despair for months. Thanks for all the laughs. As long as Americans keep
saying things like that we'll all know that you're incapable of running the
world - and just as well.
~Dave
By the way, they're illegal immigrants, not aliens...
unless of course you just want to vilify them, put them down, shit on them
and are doing the good old Nazi right wing trick of dehumanising them so
that you can kill them without conscience...
Thank you for sharing that with us. I
understand you are too busy to explain your wisdom. I suppose we will have
to endure our ignorance.
==
Subject: Lee Harris needs an editor and English
lessons
"Roland Dobbins and Julie Woodman both recommend:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/Article.aspx?id=050506I <http://www.tcsdaily.com/Article.aspx?id=050506I>
on why socialism is not dead."
Well, I read it, and all I can say is that Lee Harris
- like so many Yanks - doesn't know the difference between socialism and
communism, and doesn't understand the English language - another Yank
failing.
You might want to pass the following on to him:
populist: doesn't mean someone who is popular or appeals to 'the People' -
it means "an advocate of democratic principals". Very flattering of Harris
to call Chavez and Morales populists... Castro is not a socialist, he is a
communist. (And I thought everyone knew that - apparently not). He
desperately needs an editor - perhaps then we would not see stupid phrases
like "its ultimate aim would be economic autarky for the region, free from
foreign control." Autarky means "economic independence as a national policy"
(gee, that sounds really evil...) so Harris is saying "It's ultimate aim
would be economic economic independence as a national policy for the region,
free from foreign control." See why he needs an editor? Economic economic
independence? National policy for a region? What? And precisely what is
wrong with economic independence? Strikes me as highly desirable!
~Dave
PS Haven't any of you Yanks heard of a mixed economy?
Oh that's right - you're all extremists (black/white, good/evil,
wrong/right, them/us etc) - no appreciation of the shades of grey, no
tolerance, no compassion. No common sense.
Again, thank you for sharing that with us.
Incidentally, it's usually "its" when used as posessive.
=========
Subject: Amd-ATI and the CIA
Jerry: From Forbes, a rumor about ATI and AMD merging.
Besides graphics, ATI also makes AMD chip-sets.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/31/amd-ati-technologies-0531markets10.html?partner=yahootix
<http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/31/amd-ati-technologies-0531markets10.html?partner=yahootix>
and a claim that the CIA under Hayden is about to
embark on massive (and illegal) monitoring of US citizens:
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8753.shtml
<http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8753.shtml>
The article talks about FBI and CIA people leaving,
because the program is so distasteful.
"I will never hand over America's security decisions
to foreign leaders and international bodies that do not have America's
interests at heart." George W. Bush
============
Surprise!!!
Many Experts Who Worked on Manual of Mental
Disorders Have Ties to Drug Industry, Study Finds The Chronicle: Daily
news: 04/21/2006
http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/04/2006042102n.htm
More than half of the experts who prepared
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, an
influential guide in the psychiatric field, have undisclosed financial
ties to the pharmaceutical industry, a study has found.
Of the 170 experts who contributed to the
most recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association's manual,
almost all of whom are academics, 56 percent had financial associations
with drug companies. Every member of the work groups that focused on
mood disorders and psychotic disorders, for which most antidepressant
and antipsychotic drugs are prescribed, have financial ties to the drug
industry, according to the study, which was published on Thursday in the
journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
approves drugs to treat only those mental illnesses that are defined in
the manual, commonly known as the DSM and often referred to as the
"bible of mental health."<snip>
Astonishing!
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