Entitled opinions: Another podcast for the living mind

Recently I raved about the BBC's In Our Times podcast. Today, on browsing the iTunes home page for IOT (click on the small arrow next to the title of the podcast) I came across reviews. I didn't know the iTunes store had begun featuring reviews. Of course all the reviews were perfect fives, each vying to be more excessive in their praise.

One of them, however, suggested a look at an amateur (in the good sense of the word) rival from Stanford:

Entitled Opinions (about Life and Literature)

... hosted by Professor Robert Harrison - is a weekly literary talk show that ranges broadly on issues related to literature, ideas, and lived experience. The show is typically a one-on-one conversation with a special guest about select topics or authors about which he or she is especially entitled to an opinion...

Robert Harrison is the Rosina Pierotti Professor in Italian Literature at Stanford University and is Chair of the Department of French and Italian, where he has been since 1985.. He was trained as a Dantista at Cornell University where he received his Ph.D. in Romance Studies in 1984. Among his publications are the books The Body of Beatrice, Forests: The Shadow of Civilization, and The Dominion of the Dead...

The titles look great, but I've only just added this to my collection. A nice touch is that one can download the back catalogue, I think they've done over 10 shows.

I wonder if/when small radio stations will start simply broadcasting podcasts ...

Where are my keys?

Via GMSV, a plausible visit to the near future: Slibe.com: google in 20 years

Nasal decongestant addiction: I don't buy it

I don't buy the conventional explanation for nasal decongestant addiction:

Nasal Sprays Can Bring on Vicious Cycle - New York Times:

... It works so well that you tend to keep using it,' says Dr. David Vernick, an ear, nose and throat specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. 'You're used to breathing well with the spray, and when you stop it, you get congested. So you use it a little more frequently, yet the congestion doesn't clear up for long.'

That's because after three or four days of continuous use, the sprays can cause the nasal linings to swell up again, even when the cold or attack of sinusitis or allergy that originally caused the problem has passed. If this pattern continues, a patient has a good chance of becoming trapped in a vicious cycle of overuse and dependence that can last for months or years.

Nyah. It's not that I don't believe in the rebound effect, it's rather that it seems insufficient to explain the range of behaviors seen. I suspect that a small portion of the population develops a true cocaine-like addiction to the decongestant. Anyone who's taken oral sudafed at bedtime knows this class of drugs has stimulant activity. My bet is that a few people metabolize these drugs in a peculiar way, and the result is a truly addictive substance.

Pure speculation. No data.

Latest GOP Bill would send me to prison for 15 years ...

Fifteen years. Hmm. That might dissuade me from blogging or speculating about Bush's monitoring programs:

Reporters Exempt From Eavesdropping Bill

Reporters who write about government surveillance could be prosecuted under proposed legislation that would solidify the administration's eavesdropping authority, according to some legal analysts who are concerned about dramatic changes in U.S. law.

But an aide to the bill's chief author, Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, said that is not the intention of the legislation.

"It in no way applies to reporters _ in any way, shape or form," said Mike Dawson, a senior policy adviser to DeWine, responding to an inquiry Friday afternoon. "If a technical fix is necessary, it will be made."

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the draft of the legislation, which could be introduced as soon as next week.

The draft would add to the criminal penalties for anyone who "intentionally discloses information identifying or describing" the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program or any other eavesdropping program conducted under a 1978 surveillance law.

Under the boosted penalties, those found guilty could face fines of up to $1 million, 15 years in jail or both.

The WaPo article's headline actually contradicts the article's text. It's a bad headline, but what's clear is that non-journalists would probably be guilty if they promulgated or discussed the GOP's surveillance programs. I wonder if what I've written or speculated would qualify for jail time under such a law.

Were such a law to come to pass, I most certainly would not be talking about such programs on this blog, or in any other forum. I wonder what a council of the wise would say? Is "it" "happening here"? Perhaps the ACLU ought to launch an alternative form of 'doomsday clock' that would measure how close we are the 'tipping point'.

note: I fixed up a few links and revised wording after the initial publication.

Same genes, different outcome - why?

Chimps and humans have 99% overlap in genes. It turns out, of course, that not all genes are created equal. The impact of changes in transcription factors can be enormous, and that's what's different between us and chimps ...

TIME.com: Eye on Science - Science Blog Archives - Why We're Humans, Not Chimps

... a comparative analysis of rhesus macaques, chimps, orangutans and humans shows that the specific genes for so-called transcription factors, which act as on-off switches for other genes, have changed dramatically over the past 5 million years.

All humans have very similar genes (almost clonal), but we vary greatly in capabilities. Presumably the transcription factors will turn out to be important in that too. That's where we'll intervene to ensure that, thirty years from now, wealthy children will have average IQs of 200. Speciation by wealth?

Gwynn Dyer: Interpreting America to Iran

Gwynne Dyer, the iconoclastic Canadian journalist and military historian has added another five articles to his web site. (Please email him and ask him to start a blog with a simple posting when articles are added).

17 February 2006 Iran, Oil and Euros
19 February 2006 The Leg Drain
23 February 2006 Iraq: Civil War
27 February 2006 America's Indian Ally
3 March 2006 Montenegro

The list doesn't include his recent fascinating article for the Tehran Times, in which he explains that Bush and his minions are indeed crackers and are willing, if not eager, to attack Iran with tactical nuclear weapons. In the article on the bourse he explains that while Iran's creation of a Euro-based oil pricing system could cause the US economy to crater this is not why the US may attack Iran -- Bush doesn't care about economics.

The de facto role with Iran is fascinating. Other than his income from the Tehran Times I don't know if he's being paid for this or if it's simply an emergent phenomena, but Iran could do far worse than employ Gwynn Dyer.

Saddam's downfall was apparently not understanding Bush II. Dyer's record suggests he understands Bush and the US, and he also understands Iraq and the middle east. We're all better off if Iran understands the nature of the US under Bush, and doesn't assume we won't do something perverse and, arguably, crazy.

Minnesota imports Indiana's climate

Global climate change involves severe perturbations to a chaotic system with an unknown number of attractors. In the near term some places may cool, but the poles are warming fast. Alaska is melting, and so is Minnesota.

I've noted before that cross country skiing and skijoring are dying sports in most of the US, here we learn that a local outdoor store feels guilty about selling snowshoes. The changes in Minnesota have been dramatic, even over the 12 years we've lived there...

THE MELTING OF MINNESOTA

... Out on Lake Osakis, a popular fishing spot in central Minnesota, there were half the usual number of shacks, and sheets of water lay over thin ice. In town, despite the completion of a new trail, snowmobile traffic was scant.

... state climatologists, using almost 140 years of data, have determined that Lake Osakis now breaks open in the spring, on average, a week earlier than it did a century ago.

... In northwest Minnesota, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists cite warming as a reason why a moose herd that 20 years ago numbered nearly 4,000 may soon disappear. In the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, foresters are noticing that maples and oaks more suited to warmer climates are taking hold. Near St. Peter, naturalist Jim Gilbert says lilacs are blooming in the spring two to three weeks earlier than when he first began watching them in 1967. In Dakota County, parks officials no longer schedule skiing and snowshoeing events for December and January, for lack of snow.

Those examples are reinforced by a pile of meteorological data showing that the state has been getting warmer and wetter for some time...

Greta Petrich, who reports the Lake Osakis ice-out dates to the Department of Natural Resources, said local dealers are switching from selling snowmobiles to selling all-terrain vehicles. "Change or die," she said.

Brian Bahn, who works for Midwest Mountaineering in Minneapolis, said recently that he finds it "hard to look somebody in the face and sell them snowshoes."

The Minnesota Department of Tourism, responding to the recurring mild winters, produced a video promotion this season that for the first time features indoor activities, not just ways to enjoy snow and ice. The spots show an actor in a bear suit ice fishing and snowmobiling, but also browsing in an art gallery and making moves on a dance floor.

... The causes and effects of the warming so far have been most dramatic in the Northern Hemisphere, because it has a higher proportion of both people and land -- which reflects heat, rather than absorbing it. And places far from oceans, such as Minnesota, are thought to be positioned for some of the most extreme changes.

... Minnesota's annual average temperatures have been rising faster than the rest of the globe's -- some say twice as fast. The state Office of Climatology has calculated the rise at 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1894. That's four times the variation the globe saw over the previous three to five centuries.

... Minnesota has been warming in both the short and long runs. For the Twin Cities, four of the five warmest winters since 1891 have occurred in the past 24 seasons. Four of the nine warmest have happened over the last nine winters, including this one.

According to University of Minnesota Extension meteorologist and climatologist Mark Seeley, the recent trends have been marked by warm winters, warm summer nights and high dew points. Elevated dew points -- a measure for human discomfort that also reflects plant vitality -- have increased in frequency and duration over the past 20 years. Dew points last July in Minnesota, Seeley noted, resembled those commonly recorded in Bombay, India.

Average annual precipitation -- often overlooked in discussions about climate changes -- has increased even more sharply than temperatures across Minnesota. Because of its connection to increased water vapor in the atmosphere, elevated precipitation is one of the central predictions in many global warming studies.

... While some climate scientists have predicted that the northern pine and birch forest could vanish altogether, Frelich said the red oak and red maple could replace it if the warming climate trend includes enough moisture. If the climate trend goes warm and dry, he said, the area could come to resemble oak savannah -- grassy prairie with intermittent stands of oak trees...

From our selfish family perspective, this is all bad. Winter is still too cold to bike and swim, but now it's too warm to ski and sled. Even ice skating outdoors is iffy; our local rink now uses a Zamboni to maintain the outdoor ice. Minnesota is going to need outdoor Zambonis and refrigerated outdoor rinks. We get more cloudy days (January was very gray); those cold, clear, crisp days of old are less common. Yes, 40 below is indeed cold, but those days weren't frequent and I kind of liked the challenge of dressing for extreme cold. (On the other hand, 19th century local winters were a bit much.)

We're at the vanguard of change now ...

PS. I want Google to start auto-generating at the end of each blog posting a list of all similar postings on the same and related blogs ...

Update 3/12: This Zimmer review of two books on global climate change is a nice extension of the above. Apparently an ITH editor introduced an error in the magnitude of the temperature change mentioned in the article.

A theory disproved: Saddam knew he had no WMDs

Why did Saddam risk an American invasion? One theory was that he himself thought he had bio and chemical weapons that he could use to blunt an invading force. A leak of a Pentagon report, printed in the NYT, claims that in fact he new Iraq had no WMDs but his senior leaders thought they existed:

Even as U.S. Invaded, Hussein Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat - New York Times

The Iraqi dictator was so secretive and kept information so compartmentalized that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction, and they were demoralized because they had counted on hidden stocks of poison gas or germ weapons for the nation's defense....

... he ordered a crash effort to scrub the country so the inspectors would not discover any vestiges of old unconventional weapons, no small concern in a nation that had once amassed an arsenal of chemical weapons, biological agents and Scud missiles, the Iraq survey group report said.

Mr. Hussein's compliance was not complete, though. Iraq's declarations to the United Nations covering what stocks of illicit weapons it had possessed and how it had disposed of them were old and had gaps. And Mr. Hussein would not allow his weapons scientists to leave the country, where United Nations officials could interview them outside the government's control.

Seeking to deter Iran and even enemies at home, the Iraqi dictator's goal was to cooperate with the inspectors while preserving some ambiguity about its unconventional weapons — a strategy General Hamdani, the Republican Guard commander, later dubbed in a television interview "deterrence by doubt."

That strategy led to mutual misperception. When Secretary of State Colin L. Powell addressed the Security Council in February 2003, he offered evidence from photographs and intercepted communications that the Iraqis were rushing to sanitize suspected weapons sites. Mr. Hussein's efforts to remove any residue from old unconventional weapons programs were viewed by the Americans as efforts to hide the weapons. The very steps the Iraqi government was taking to reduce the prospect of war were used against it, increasing the odds of a military confrontation.

Even some Iraqi officials were impressed by Mr. Powell's presentation. Abd al-Tawab Mullah Huwaish, who oversaw Iraq's military industry, thought he knew all the government's secrets. But Bush administration officials were so insistent that he began to question whether Iraq might have prohibited weapons after all. "I knew a lot, but wondered why Bush believed we had these weapons," he told interrogators after the war, according to the Iraq Survey Group report.

The story sounds persuasive, but the Bush/Pentagon propaganda campaign makes me cautious.

The implications are that the world believed Iraq had WMDs because every nation's intelligence service was hearing from Iraqi military leaders -- and those generals thought Iraq had WMDs. Only Saddam, and presumably some trusted insiders knew the truth. Saddam was reluctant to fully verify this because he feared Iranian invasion, and wanted Iran to think Iraq might have WMDs. That was the wrong choice.

Update 3/12: Kaplan has more details from a subsequent Foreign Affairs article.

Catherine the Great: A BBC audio podcast

It's taken me a while, but I've become addicted to podcasts.

I've exported my current podcast list and put it on my sharing page. I've only tested this once, but I believe you can save the podcast locally and then import it into iTunes. I don't know if it will replace the podcast you have or add to it, so I suggest exporting your list first. Caveat emptor.

What did me in? Well, the specialty casts on digital photography and security, and NerdTV (Cringely) are good, but what really got me was the BBC's Channel Four. In particular, their weekly show 'In our Time'.

Catherine the Great. Negative Numbers. Friendship, Human Evolution. The Oath. Where the heck do they come up with these shows? Do they pull them out of a hat?

The guests are always marvelous. They host invites two to three English Dons and lets them go at the topic, with a bit of guidance. It's a bit different from American talk radio. Instead of lunging at each other's throats they very politely contradict one another, but pretend nothing of the sort happened. They're not always smooth or even terribly articulate, but they are wonderful.

I get this podcast via iTunes. If you search you can find it, it's a bit hidden I think. The BBC also has a download list but I think the archives are shallow. (3/12: A contributor also suggests checking out the BBC's Listen Again page for more of an archival view.)

Here's a few notes on Catherine I picked up:

1. They are rather cute about Catherine's love life, which is generally the first thing people remember about her. In the US this would be the entire episode.

2. Vaccination (immunization) was in fashion. She was Protestant (german) and the catholic church opposed immunization as being "against the will of god" -- ie. unnatural. Catherine had her family immunized - a rebellious act. (Is this really true? I couldn't find any verification on the net. It's fascinating.)

3. She created a marvelous home for foundlings (orphans) in Moscow. No child survived there past the age of one year. (Is this true? Maybe it was the first few years?)

4. Russia in her time reminds me of a large US corporation. Not a democracy, but neither a classic aristocracy. More of a corporate oligarchy, but severance might have a sharp edge to it.

Origami really IS bad. Why?

When I read the NYT preview on Origami, I was sure Microsoft couldn't really be preparing another botched product. I figured after their disastrous slate experience, they wouldn't want to bring another flop to the market.

Then I read the CNET announcement:

Reality check for the much-hyped Origami PC | CNET News.com

Bill Gates' vision of an ultramobile PC seemed like a winner: a device with all-day battery life, yet small enough to fit in a pocket and much cheaper than a laptop.

But as devices begin to come out a year later, reality still trails Microsoft's ambitions. The first generation of devices, being announced Thursday and already featured on Microsoft's site, are bigger, pricier and more power hungry than the software maker had hoped.

Microsoft acknowledges that instead of a mass-market hit riding a wave of prelaunch hype, these devices are likely to appeal only to the most hard-core gadget fans.

... Over the last year, several PC makers have been readying minitablets under the Origami code name. These minitablets are capable of running Windows XP along with a "Windows Touch Pack" that allows the devices to be more easily controlled using fingertip input. Microsoft expects that "gadget geeks" will make up most of the early buyers of the devices, which weigh roughly two pounds, pack a 7-inch screen and cost around $800.

Sounds like the NYT was right. Heavy, expensive, short battery life. It makes zero sense as a product.

This is an iPod video killer?! Either Microsoft is incompetent, or they're trying to poison the marketplace to buy time for a real product. That strategy worked well in the PDA market of the 1990s, but I'm not sure it will work today. I wonder what's in it for Samsung though? Are they taking a hit now in the hope of a payoff a year from now?

A simple explanation of the significance of the current account deficit

This is how you sell a nation.

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal

Economic growth produces about $1.3 trillion of new net wealth in America every year, and at a current account deficit of $1 trillion only $300 billion of that is an addition to the wealth of Americans--the $1 trillion that matches the current-account deficit is an addition to the wealth of foreigners.

William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, called the Silent

DeLong's permalink is broken, but he has a lovely quote today from a book about William of Orange. I want to learn more about this man. We can only pray a leader of half this caliber might emerge in America.

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal
The end of C.V. Wedgwood's William the Silent:

... There have been politicians more successful, or more subtle; there have been none more tenacious or more tolerant. 'The wisest, gentlest and bravest man who ever led a nation', he is one of that small band of statesmen whose service to humanity is greater than their service to their time or their people. In spite of the differences of speech or political theory, the conventions and complexities which make one age incomprehensible to another, some men have a quality of greatness which gives their lives universal significance. Such men, in whatever walk of life, in whatever chapter of fame, mystic or saint, scientist or doctor, poet or philosopher, and even--but how rarely--soldier or statesman, exist to shame the cynic, and to renew the faith of humanity in itself.

Of this number was William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, called the Silent.

The people understand the need for a strong leader

Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post experiences an unpleasant bit of synchronicity:

Two Leaders' Power Failures

... "The powers of the presidency have been eroded and usurped to the breaking point. We are engaged in a new kind of war that cannot be fought by old methods. It can only be directed by a strong executive who alone is not subject to the conflicting pressures that legislators or judges face. The public understands and supports that unpleasant reality, whatever the media and intellectuals say."

These words came from a White House aide defending U.S. policies on Guantanamo Bay prisoners, secret renditions and warrantless eavesdropping in a conversation with me. A few days later, I heard a Russian official use nearly identical terms to defend his country's coercive merging of private energy and media companies under state control...

Ahh yes, the "media" and the "intellectuals" are the problem. The people understand the need for the strong leader.

Gee, there's something familiar about that phrasing. I'm sure I've heard it somewhere before ....

The falling cost of havoc - some numbers

I've long claimed that what we need to worry about is not al Qaeda in particular, but rather the falling cost of havoc. The Christian Science Monitor gives us some real world numbers, in an article explaining the limits of tracking financing:

Why terror financing is so tough to track down | csmonitor.com

This, experts say, is partly a result of the vigorous multinational effort since 9/11 to break up the Al Qaeda network and stanch the cash flows that sustained terror attacks. But it's also due to the reduced cost of mounting terror attacks, they say.

Estimates suggest that the 9/11 attacks may have cost as much as $500,000 to stage. By contrast, the Madrid bombings of 2004 are believed to have cost no more than $15,000, and last year's London attacks perhaps $2,000.Four bombs, four rucksacks, some train tickets, a little gasoline, and a few phone calls.

"Terrorist financing is very different today," says Loretta Napoleoni, author of "Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks." "Five years ago, we had large movement of funds which went through the international financial system.

"Now we are just talking about four friends who raise £1,000 to stage an attack," she adds. "The unit cost of terrorist financing has crashed to the floor. They [terrorists] don't need another 9/11. They can do a small thing and create the same hysteria."

American Gulag

In a just world, we'd all pay for this.

They Came for the Chicken Farmer - New York Times

... Because Mr. Bush does not recognize that American law or international treaties apply to his decisions as commander in chief, these prisoners were initially not given hearings. The transcripts are from proceedings that were begun under a court order. They started years after the prisoners were originally captured — a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. And they were conducted under rules that mock any notion of democratic justice.

Prisoners do not see the evidence against them and barely have access to legal counsel. Now, thanks to a horrible law sponsored by Senators Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Carl Levin, a Democrat, they have virtually no right of appeal. The law even permits the use of evidence obtained by torture.

If the stories of the chicken farmer and the men with the wrong watches are new, the broad outlines of this disaster have long been visible. It is shocking in itself, and in the fact that average citizens have not risen up to demand that these abuses come to an end. The founding fathers knew that when you dispensed with the rule of law, the inevitable outcome was injustice. Now America is becoming the thing they sought to end.

There are so many, many, reasons to take power away from the GOP. I have no faith, however, that Americans will do the right thing.