| Tuesday,
September 25, 2007 What price Magna Carta?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/
nyregion/25magna.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
-- Roland Dobbins
=========
I got this a few
minutes ago:
OSAMA THE GUN--freebie novel portion (not attached)
Norman Spinrad web site:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/normanspinrad
email:normanspinrad@hotmail.com
Dear Folks: You are getting this because one way or
another I think it might be of interest to you, and I'm not spamming you
with the actual file of OSAMA THE GUN the freeware portion, which you can
look at and download if you like at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/326098/OSAMA-THE-GUNnovel-portion-
What this is all about is explained below in the
introduction that is part of the file itself.
WARNING! This is NOT the complete text of the novel
OSAMA THE GUN !
This is the first third of the novel
This portion of OSAMA THE GUN is Freeware
Frankly I am making this portion available as freeware
as widely as possible because publishers have been rejecting OSAMA THE GUN
the completed novel for reasons I dare to suggest are largely political, and
for reasons that will I believe be obvious to anyone who reads even this
portion, they are the same reasons this novel needs to be published and
read.
If you want to know more about what this is all about
and why the author of over 20 novels is doing a thing like this, go to my
YouTube channel "MeTube" and have a look at the videos OSAMA THE GUN parts
1-5.
The URL is: <http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=normanspinrad>
While you are there, you can learn who I am if you
don’t know already via the video "Allow Me to Introduce Myself."
As far as I’m concerned, this matter transcends the
literary in the era in which we all find ourselves, and the reasons why
publishers are frightened of publishing OSAMA THE GUN are the very reasons
it should be read, and widely, in the west, and in the Islamic world.
I say no more here. If this doesn’t interest you in
reading this portion in itself, or a leastg looking at the videos before you
decide, pardon the intrusion. This is, after all, freeware, it’s cost you
nothing, toss it.
But for those of you who do end up reading it and want
to read the rest of the novel, I’m enlisting your aid.
Redistribute this freeware file.
Email me at:
normanspinrad@hotmail.com
And just say you want to read the novel. I’ll put all
those emails in a file and keep a running count.
If you want to castigate me for what I’m doing, email
me and I’ll keep those in a file and count them too.
Once again the url:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/326098/OSAMA-THE-GUNnovel-portion-
=========
Eggheads: How bird brains are shaking up
science
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/
ideas/articles/2007/09/16/eggheads [Linked by Arts & Letters
Daily.] 7.9.16 By Jonah Lehrer
THE NEW CALEDONIAN crow is surprisingly
smart about its food. Its favorite insects live in tiny crevices that
are too narrow for its beak. So the crow takes a barbed leaf and, using
its beak and claws, fashions a primitive hook. It then lowers the hook
down into the cracks, almost like a man fishing, and draws up a rich
meal. Some scientists even suggest that crows are more sophisticated
tool builders than chimps, since they can transmit their knowledge on to
successive generations and improve the tools over time. These birds have
a culture.
The world lost its most famous bird brain
this month: Alex, an African gray parrot who lived in a Brandeis
laboratory and possessed a vocabulary of nearly 150 words. Yet as
remarkable as Alex was - he could identify colors and shapes - he was
not alone. The songs of starlings display a sophisticated grammar once
thought the sole domain of human thinking. A nutcracker can remember the
precise location of hundreds of different food storage spots. And crows
in Japan have learned how to get people to crack walnuts for them: They
drop them near busy intersections, then retrieve the smashed nuts when
the traffic light turns red.
These feats are part of a growing
recognition of the genius of birds. Scientists are now studying various
birds to explore everything from spatial memory to the grammatical
structure of human language. This research is helping to reveal the
secrets of the human brain. But it is also overturning the conventional
evolutionary story of intelligence, in which all paths lead to the
creation of the human cortex. The tree of life, scientists are
discovering, has numerous branches of brilliance. <snip>
========
Mike Males: This Is Your (Father's) Brain
on Drugs (w. letters)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/
opinion/17males.html?pagewanted=print
Santa Cruz, Calif.
A SPATE of news reports have breathlessly
announced that science can explain why adults have such trouble dealing
with teenagers: adolescents possess immature, undeveloped brains that
drive them to risky, obnoxious, parent-vexing behaviors. The latest
example is a study out of Temple University that found that the temporal
gap between puberty, which impels adolescents toward thrill seeking, and
the slow maturation of the cognitive-control system, which regulates
these impulses, makes adolescence a time of heightened vulnerability for
risky behavior.
We know the rest of the script:
Commentators brand teenagers as stupid, crazy, reckless, immature,
irrational and even alien, then advocate tough curbs on youthful
freedoms. Jay Giedd, who heads the brain imaging project at the National
Institutes of Health, argues that the voting and drinking ages should be
raised to 25. Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical
School, asks whether we should allow teenagers to be lifeguards or to
enlist in the military. And state legislators around the country have
proposed raising driving ages.
But the handful of experts and officials
making these claims are themselves guilty of reckless overstatement.
More responsible brain researchers like Daniel Siegel of the University
of California at Los Angeles and Kurt Fischer at Harvards Mind, Brain
and Education Program caution that scientists are just beginning to
identify how systems in the brain work.
People naturally want to use brain science
to inform policy and practice, but our limited knowledge of the brain
places extreme limits on that effort, Dr. Siegel told me. There can be
no brain-based education or brain-based parenting at this early point in
the history of neuroscience.
Why, then, do many pundits and policy
makers rush to denigrate adolescents as brainless? One troubling
possibility: youths are being maligned to draw attention from the
reality that its actually middle-aged adults the parents whose behavior
has worsened.<snip>
==
Scientists say distinct differences in the brain
activity of paedophiles have been found using scanning technology.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7006628.stm
=======
Susan Shepherd on
Star Simpson:
Regarding the Fox News article on "hoax bomb" at
airport ...
Greetings, Dr. Pournelle.
I would like to clarify the Fox News story about Star
Simpson, the MIT sophomore who wore an LED nametag to an airport and was
arrested after walking outside with it on.
I have spoken with some of Star's friends and
classmates, in addition to reading a number of articles on the subject. I
don't expect this letter to be published; it wouldn't do much good anyhow,
as most people have already heard the media's version of what happened and
don't care to have that view changed. But I hope you can spare a few minutes
to read this, so that you, at least, will have a clearer idea of what
happened.
Last week was Career Week at MIT. As usually happens
during such events, the students turned out in high numbers to speak with
company representatives and examine the "free" items that are handed out to
students who visit certain booths. Star Simpson, an Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science major who enjoys playing around with electronics, wore
a bulky handmade nametag to the event. It consisted of a breadboard, LEDs in
the shape of a star (for her name), some wires, and a nine-volt battery. She
taped it to her sweatshirt to keep it in place, possibly hoping that the
company representatives would better be able to remember a student with a
flashing nametag.
She also, as is custom, acquired a number of neat
little items from the vendors there. I've seen some of what was available -
bleach pens for clothing, large foam 'pills' that you could squeeze as a
method of stress relief, small containers of Play-Doh. She picked up a
canister of Play-Doh and placed it in her pocket.
Some time after this - I don't know how long, sorry -
she went to the Logan Airport to meet a friend of hers. I can easily see her
losing track of time and being too rushed to put her sweatshirt away before
leaving. Or perhaps she forgot the breadboard entirely - just as someone
with a bandaged wrist will soon ignore its presence. Or perhaps she thought
no one would care - she is from MIT, after all, and the culture here does
not regard breadboards as weapons of mass destruction. Or perhaps she
thought that it wouldn't matter, since she knew that she would not be going
through the security checkpoint.
Perhaps it was all of these, or none of these, that
resulted in her arriving at the airport waiting area with a breadboard and
some harmless electronics taped to her sweatshirt. At least one airport
worker asked her about it; according to that article, she responded that it
was a piece of art. She was regarded as 'suspicious' for asking what gate
her friend's plane would be arriving at.
(Somewhere in here, she may have become bored with
waiting and started mashing Play-Doh in one hand. I have never seen any
indication that she had it near the wires at all. I can only guess about
what happened with the Play-Doh; she apparently had it on her, but most news
articles didn't mention it. Perhaps it was found when the police searched
her, but not before? I just don't know.)
At some point, the police were called, and they
stopped her. She complied with the police and was arrested. It was
established in short order that she had no intention of frightening people.
The wiring for the LED nametag was slightly more complicated than the wiring
in an LED flashlight. (Within 24 hours, at least two MIT students had
constructed their own light-up necklaces, although I won't print here the
word that they spelled in Morse code.) In short, it became clear that the
object was not a bomb and had never been intended to be mistaken for one.
The media, however, quickly inflated the sense of
danger. The phrases "hoax bomb" and "fake bomb" were used frequently in news
coverage; explanations were given short shrift, and anything Star said was
said to be "alleged." "Allegedly" waiting for a friend, an "alleged" MIT
student, an "alleged" art piece for an "alleged" career fair. She was
portrayed as criminally stupid and attention-seeking, or a malicious youth
who ought to be put away.
And the public reaction followed the media's lead.
I've seen comments online that ranged from "She should be expelled" to "That
girl should have been shot." MIT students have been derided as fools - one
local paper printed the headline, "More Idiotic Tricks." Fully 20% of
respondents to one online poll said that MIT was at least partly to blame.
That Star Simpson intended no harm is apparently inconsequential.
I'm sure most people have accidently brought something
to a place they shouldn't have. Nail clippers to an elementary school. A
penknife to a county fair. Matches or scissors onto a plane. Permanent
markers to a high school. I fail to see any excuse for the public outcry
this time - yes, she was careless, and I think the police acted
appropriately given what they knew at the time. But to call her stupid or
malicious is pushing it, surely?
Again, I don't know that it is my place to speak out
for her. I'm no reporter, no photographer. But it does sadden me to see such
an inaccurate depiction of events on the site of someone who I hold in such
high esteem.
Thoughtfully, Susan Shepherd
Former CA high school student
Current MIT freshman, probably Course 7 (Biology)
Regular readers will recall that Susan has
been here before, at first anonymously from a California high school.
I can understand how Star Simpson managed
to be so egregiously in error; I know Cal Tech students more than capable of
doing the same thing. It was a silly thing to do, and I do wonder how anyone
can be THAT absent-minded, particularly at Logan Airport; but it's well to
see her side of the story.
I would think that a big electronic
circuit board and a bunch of Play-Doh is somewhat different from having a
pocket knife or a Workman tool in your brief case (I lost my Workman
knockoff on my trip to DC because I forgot it was in the Number Nine carry
on bag). I had forgotten the Workman, but I think I would not have forgotten
a big circuit board taped to my chest.
Of course most of these "security
measures" are security theater, and add nothing to actual security. Once the
cockpit doors have been secured, it's not going to be possible to take over
airplanes and use them as cruise missiles; and there are few readers here
who do not know how to destroy an airplane if they don't mind being killed
while doing it. If the goal is killing airplane passengers, say those
standing in security lines at, say, Washington National on a Friday
afternoon, a lot of alternatives occur to me, and I am sure to you. I might
even survive some of them.
None of my scenarios for attacking
passengers in airports involve flashing lights on open circuit boards. My
electronic cameras have plenty of circuitry and I can enclose one heck of a
lot of electronics in a small plastic box with a battery. I am sure Star
Simpson could design much better.
She doesn't deserve high credit for this
particular stunt, but it doesn't need a great deal more attention either.
Thanks for setting the record straight. Now don't you go do something silly
like that.
And see below
=========
September 24, 2007 Germs Taken to Space Come Back
Deadlier By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:31 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It sounds like the plot for a
scary B-movie: Germs go into space on a rocket and come back stronger
and deadlier than ever. Except, it really happened.
The germ: Salmonella, best known as a culprit of
food poisoning. The trip: Space Shuttle STS-115, September 2006. The
reason: Scientists wanted to see how space travel affects germs, so they
took some along -- carefully wrapped -- for the ride. The result: Mice
fed the space germs were three times more likely to get sick and died
quicker than others fed identical germs that had remained behind on
Earth.
''Wherever humans go, microbes go, you can't
sterilize humans. Wherever we go, under the oceans or orbiting the
earth, the microbes go with us, and it's important that we understand
... how they're going to change,'' explained Cheryl Nickerson, an
associate professor at the Center for Infectious Diseases and
Vaccinology at Arizona State University.
Nickerson added, in a telephone interview, that
learning more about changes in germs has the potential to lead to novel
new countermeasures for infectious disease.
She reports the results of the salmonella study in
Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers placed identical strains of
salmonella in containers and sent one into space aboard the shuttle,
while the second was kept on Earth, under similar temperature conditions
to the one in space.<snip>
========
Study Finds Almost 9% of American Children Meet DSM-IV
Criteria for ADHD
Jerry
Study Finds Almost 9% of American Children Meet DSM-IV
Criteria for ADHD
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/563092 (I don't know how
available this is to click to it.)
I am not surprised. One of your correspondents a few
months ago talked of how his adopted son responds to being in the woods.
That got me thinking.
I work as a jail shrink. About 80-90% of the inmates I
see have or have had ADHD, so I have seen a lot of it. Very prominent in
their complaints is "racing thoughts" at night - basically ADHD
thought-shifting - which delays sleep (they have been taught to it "racing
thoughts" by psychiatrists, influenced by drug-company-sponsored free
continuing medical education which recharacterizes many symptoms as
"bipolar", but that is another diatribe).
I do a lot of counseling on coping with ADHD-related
issues, in lieu of providing these adults with treatment for it (try to
imagine giving people stimulant medications in the context of an institution
full of drug addicts). Your correspondent helped me with my task.
People with ADHD are highly distractible. That means
they are constantly aware of small stimuli occurring. Imagine being in the
woods as a primitive hunter. These stimuli - which would be extraneous for a
civilized person - might give clues to the presence of potential prey, or
actual predators.
People with ADHD usually can become totally engrossed
in something they find interesting. It is difficult to get their attention
in such circumstances. Imagine a big cat as it creeps up on his prey. It's
just like that.
In essence, I see ADHD as a set of adaptations for
successful hunting - and avoiding being hunted.
The thinking at night that ADHD people do is a way to
sort through the day's events. When people are not anxious about getting to
sleep and searching for chemical means to get that sleep, lying awake at
night is actually useful. And before we had artificial lighting, people had
long nights - long enough to stay awake a long time and still get a good
night's sleep.
As I see it, ADHD is one end of a bell curve, I do not
think of it as a disease, a separate entity. The more we lower the threshold
for detection, the more we make schools unforgiving for people who need to
wiggle, the more single mothers we have who cannot accompany their children
to the park to run around (Lord knows it is too dangerous in many places to
allow children outside without adult overwatch), the larger the number of
kids diagnosed with ADHD. They are simply climbing up that big slope toward
the mean.
I am not at all surprised at the 8.7% figure they
found for children diagnosable with ADHD. I have been privately estimating
10%.
I think that figure says more about our society and
the institutions to which we condemn our children than it does about the
kids themselves.
Ed Hume
I am quite certain that I would have been
drugged as ADD while at Capleville School in 4 - 8 grades, if the modern
thinking prevailed. As it was, Ms. Morton really didn't like me after I got
on the Whiz Kids radio show, although fortunately the librarian used to feed
me books to read, and most teachers would just put up with my reading
outside stuff -- novels, mostly, like Jack London and Meader and Henty --
in class (with two grades to a room there was considerable reading time).
I am sure glad there were no drug
companies pushing Ritalin back in them there days.
========
Sea Green
Dear Jerry,
>>Interesting brief article in the Economist on
using ocean fertilization to fight climate change with a twist, the
algae is harvested to produce biofuel. Gee, this sounds similar to some
ideas in one of your books from 30 years ago ....<<
The Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy
Laboratory supported a similarly innovative algae to biodiesel fuel program
for 17 years. That one focused on using the heat in power plant cooling
water ponds for fast algae culture. The program even assembled over 3,000
species of algae for study and development. Hazel O'Leary killed that off in
the mid-1990s, along with everything else (waste biomass to methanol,
ablative fast pyrolysis) that threatened to produce meaningful amounts of
fuels from existing inedible plant sources.
Best Wishes,
Mark
TOP
CURRENT
VIEW Tuesday |
