August 30, 2003: I have returned from a 6,500 mile bicycle camping trip to the Pacific Ocean in Washington and back. I am preparing my trip report, and I have already revised my page on Touring with a Solar Laptop to reflect changes.Here's to you Ken.
Once the feds vowed to smite future 'wardrobe malfunctions,' the customers started bolting the annual TV franchises where those malfunctions and their verbal counterparts are apt to occur. An award show sanitized of vulgarity and encased in the prophylactic of tape delay is an oxymoron. And so the Golden Globes lost 40 percent of its audience in January on NBC, the Grammys lost 28 percent of its audience this month on CBS. The viewers turned up instead at the competing 'Desperate Housewives' on ABC, where S-and-M is the latest item on the carnal menu.America has an odd genius at corruption, diversion and subversion. Perhaps more of our national anxiety attacks will be subverted.
...In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to earth when certain preconditions have been met.(4) The first of these was the establishment of a state of Israel. The next involves Israel’s occupation of the rest of its “Biblical lands” (most of the Middle East), and the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosques. The legions of the Antichrist will then be deployed against Israel, and their war will lead to a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will either burn or convert to Christianity, and the Messiah will return to earth...In this article Monbiot says the Rapture Index is 144, "just one point below the critical threshold, beyond which the sky will be filled with floating nudists". Today I see it's hit 153. It's risky for prophets to be so specific; wise prophets never make numeric statements.
As I was rounding on them today one told me, 'I was bad.'
...ChoicePoint, based outside Atlanta, was created in 1997 as a spin-off from Equifax, one of the leading credit-reporting agencies. Its original purpose was to analyze claims on behalf of the insurance industry.They're an unregulated industry and they're overdue for regulation. Interestingly even the CEO is quoted as welcoming more oversight. "Stop me before I kill again ...".
That mission evolved and expanded as ChoicePoint went on a buying spree, acquiring about 60 other firms with businesses ranging from data collection and background checks to DNA analysis and direct marketing.
ChoicePoint is now one of the leading data brokers in the country, acting as a sort of private intelligence service for both corporate and government clients (including the FBI).
The company had about $900 million in sales last year and is believed to have more government clients than its two main rivals, LexisNexis and Acxiom.
'Any interaction where you give up personal information can create an opportunity for them to obtain it and put it in their database,' said Chris Hoofnagle, who heads the San Francisco office of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
'You get arrested, you get married, you have a child -- ChoicePoint can get copies of the records and sell it,' he said. 'If you've ever had dealings with the government, they have information about you.'
From a consumer's point of view, one of the biggest problems about ChoicePoint is that there's no way to opt out or otherwise prohibit the company from circulating your personal info.
..Jones said the company's services range from $5 overviews of new employees to in-depth profiles of individuals costing clients thousands of dollars.
...To be sure, not everything ChoicePoint does is a potential threat to consumers. For example, the company offers its vast resources free of charge when children are missing or abducted...
...In the fall of 2002 Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen, suddenly found himself caught up in the cruel mockery of justice that the Bush administration has substituted for the rule of law in the post-Sept. 11 world. While attempting to change planes at Kennedy Airport on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by American authorities, interrogated and thrown into jail. He was not charged with anything, and he never would be charged with anything, but his life would be ruined.Even now US courts can still surprise. Perhaps Mr. Arar's case will yet be heard. Judging by the fall of Zimbabwe, sometimes the courts can retain integrity even when all other institutions have been corrupted.
Mr. Arar was surreptitiously flown out of the United States to Jordan and then driven to Syria, where he was kept like a nocturnal animal in an unlit, underground, rat-infested cell that was the size of a grave. From time to time he was tortured.
He wept. He begged not to be beaten anymore. He signed whatever confessions he was told to sign. He prayed.
Among the worst moments, he said, were the times he could hear babies crying in a nearby cell where women were imprisoned. He recalled hearing one woman pleading with a guard for several days for milk for her child.
He could hear other prisoners screaming as they were tortured.
"I used to ask God to help them," he said.
The Justice Department has alleged, without disclosing any evidence whatsoever, that Mr. Arar is a member of, or somehow linked to, Al Qaeda. If that's so, how can the administration possibly allow him to roam free? The Syrians, who tortured him, have concluded that Mr. Arar is not linked in any way to terrorism...
... Mr. Arar is the most visible victim of the reprehensible U.S. policy known as extraordinary rendition, in which individuals are abducted by American authorities and transferred, without any legal rights whatever, to a regime skilled in the art of torture. The fact that some of the people swallowed up by this policy may in fact have been hard-core terrorists does not make it any less repugnant.
Mr. Arar, who is married and also has an 8-year-old daughter, said the pain from some of the beatings he endured lasted for six months.
"It was so scary," he said. "After a while I became like an animal."
A lawsuit on Mr. Arar's behalf has been filed against the United States by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. Barbara Olshansky, a lawyer with the center, noted yesterday that the government is arguing that none of Mr. Arar's claims can even be adjudicated because they "would involve the revelation of state secrets."
The following countries have lower average IQs than that of the US (which is 98):I wondered where the heck this alleged data came from, so I searched on a subset of the list (what did we do before the net?). It turns out it's from a book called the IQ and the Wealth of Nations, evidently inspired by the notorious/famous/infamous "Bell Curve" book.
Canada 97 Czech Republic 97 Finland 97 ... Guinea 66 Zimbabwe 66 Congo (Zaire) 65 Sierra Leone 64 Ethiopia 63 Equatorial Guinea 59.
The researchers suggested that the high risk might be linked to sports injuries, performance-enhancing drugs or exposure to environmental toxins such as fertilizers or herbicides used on football fields, as well as genetic factors.It's an interesting correlation, but I bet it's not a causal relationship. It does suggest some interesting research opportunities. Researchers will look at prevalence by socioeconomic class. Does ALS correlate with wealth or relative poverty? Is it related to the prevalence of some early infection? (I've always been interested in the relationship between MS and sunlight, presumably due to some modulation of the cutaneous immune system.)
But equally, it might be that people prone to ALS are drawn to sport, said Dr Ammar Al-Chalabi from London's Institute of Psychiatry.
'There could be some quality in their neuromuscular make-up that not only makes them good at sport, football particularly, but also makes them susceptible to ALS,' he said.
Dr Brian Dickie of the Motor Neurone Disease Association, said: 'We still don't know what causes this link, or whether it would be reflected in other groups of footballers and sportspeople.
'There is some anecdotal evidence of a link between high levels of physical exercise and an increased risk of developing motor neurone disease.
'However, much more research needs to be carried out before we can draw definite conclusions.'
