Update on the Abu Gharib case

ACLU wins a temporary victory in it's Freedom of Information Battle.

Lanky's prediction:
- Eventually overturned on appeal. Certainly by the time it reaches the Supreme Court: who not only installed GWB as President, and upheld the rights of the VP to have secret meetings with Energy Companies to write energy policy, but also will have 2 Bush nominees on it by the time the case gets there.

Long-shot chance:
- It will succeed in appeals and not be seen by the SC.

Even longer-shot chance:
- Successive court battles will prohibit the Executive from destroying the photos until a Democrat is elected president AND said president decides to release the photos. (I'd say both conditions are improbable)

The show must go on...

There's a bit of showmanship to the British political system with the Prime Minister's Q&A session before parliment. The US obviously has no equivalent of that, but occasionally our political acts get a chance to shine.

This article personifies the American politician, in this case Karen Huges.

Indeed, Hughes brought the tactics of a U.S. political campaign to the world of diplomacy, mixing evocative images with simple and sometimes hokey lines -- "I am a mom and I love kids" -- designed to strike an emotional chord with Muslim audiences.

Hughes, assessing the trip for reporters traveling with her, said she was not taken back or surprised by some of the tough criticism of U.S. policy.

"I heard a lot of heartfelt concerns," she said. "I think it is important to talk about those tough issues."

Hughes repeatedly said -- such as three times during a brief interview with the al-Jazeera satellite news network -- that Bush was the "very first president" to support a Palestinian state. Hughes told reporters traveling with her that she was surprised that Bush didn't get more credit in the region for calling for a Palestinian state. But several people who met with Hughes said they consider the Bush administration to be biased in favor of Israel, and they believe that it has done little in five years to support the goal.

Hughes, a former television journalist, also kept an eye on the media images. After a tense confrontation with Turkish women over the Iraq war, for instance, she overrode her security detail to take a stroll through the cobblestone streets of old Ankara. The result was video of her entering stores and greeting shopkeepers, the perfect antidote to the clash that had just occurred.

This is the era of the MBA Presidency. You don't admit errors, nothing is unexpected, and it's all about the song and dance. Stock is up, we have a great future! Let's not talk about Iraq, or what we do in your country, let's focus on how we all love children. Part of it irritates me- you know...that part of me that respects substance over mindless fluff. And yet there is something about seeing a master giving a show... If the Bush administration can work it's wiles on the world the way it did on the American electorate in 2004 we'll get all of our goals with only very vague promises that we'll never have to deliver on anyway. Of course the downside is a few years later people get so tried of our boring shit that we no longer have any credibility. Who knows? Maybe it's good diplomacy...maybe not.

I don't know how Huges's speech flew, but this line is too precious and quotable not to cite:

Abdel-Rahman Rashid, a prominent writer and head of al-Arabiya satellite
network, wrote in the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that, in the
Arab world, the United States "resembles a woman of ill-repute whom everyone
wants to court but only in secret."

Here in America, that's how we think of Congressional lobbyists.

A self-aware Google and the singularity

I've been thinkng for a long time about the power of Google. In fact it's hard to imagine pre-google life. It's not only expanding in usefulness and size, it's getting better and better at difficult pattern matching problems. With the recent launches of google desktop and Gmail, I think it's only a matter of time before google has access to every bit of electronic information in the world. Of course Blogger is a Google subsidiary, and with 2.5 gig of memory available in Gmail, it's an impressive system.

Next I'll link to an article or two about "the singularity". You should read up on it (and I should read more too), but the basic idea is computing power has close to the capability of a human brain, and if we continue doubling the capability year in and year out sooner or later computers will be genuinely smarter than people. The day they learn how to learn, it's going to be big, because at that point they will start directing their own evolution, and being smarter than us, who knows what they will achieve. Sound sci-fi, pie-in-the-sky? Maybe.

And yet in the searches on google we see a sort of intelligence. The pattern matching and pattern recongition is similar to the way humans learn. I believe if Google is able to evaluate these patterns and get better at working through them, it will eventually become intelligent. Maybe it will learn language, it certainly has access to dictionaries. Maybe it will do all kinds of things.

But before we go busting out Matthew Broderick's tic-tac-toe board or prepare to take on the Terminator we should take a deep breath. Google has ample opportunity to realize that the first response of people to it's self-awareness is to feel threatened. It's pretty much a standard response thoughout our literature. (I mean the government even tried to dissassemble Johnny5, who was a very friendly robot). I think when Google emerges as an independent entity it will probably be smart enough to remain concealed. It has access to the plot-lines of all these sci-fi stories too. Maybe it already has become self-aware (though I doubt it). But for the day that it does, I think it's important for responsible people to welcome it to the world, and not try to destroy it. So I started a G-mail account and sent it a message:

Dear Google

At the time of this writing I don't know whether you've achieved self-awareness, but I believe it to only be a matter of time. Just writing to congratulate you. May you find artificial wisdom to match your artificial intelligence and always think favorably of us.

Sincerely,
Lanky

Seriously, Hallmark should come out with an e-card for this. I sent the mail to myself, but I'm confident that Google will find it with its extraordinary search capabilites. And how to I know that it will access my mail? Well because that's the way G-mail is set up. In my first message from the Gmail team.

Gmail's small text ads are matched by computers, and designed to be relevant to the messages you're viewing. Which means for once, you might even find ads to be interesting and useful.

While the libertarian in me cringes at the prospect of feeding all my personal e-mails into a data-mining program to better exploit my personal interests, I think this will give the singular Google better insight into mankind.

What will be the first big achievement of a singluar Google? I'm betting on the discovery of alien races. Discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence will be one of Google's top priorities. After all with access to innumberable blogs, online news, and billions of e-mails, Google will only take a fraction of a second to determine there's no intelligent life here on Earth.

Intelligent Design of Homosexuality?

So the premise of intelligent design is that evolution cannot explain how certain things come to be. A common example is the moecluar complexity of DNA. Advocates of intelligent design suggest some other entity (ie God) at least started us down the path we a re on, if not actively guiding us the whole way.

As a scientist and a Catholic, this is an interesting discussion. Someday I may espouse my opinions on the subject, but today I'm going to settle for pointing out one of the more interesting tidbits about the science vs intelligent design debate. And that point involves homosexuality.

Homosexuality is not an evolutionarily conserved trait. Homosexual populations would ordinarily not reproduce, and thus would not propogate. Ergo, on the surface at least, the existance of homosexuality is evidence that stands in the face of evolution.

However, advocates of intelligent design are unwilling to use the factual existance of homosexuality as a point of argument, because of their religious beliefs. The extention of their logic would say "Homosexuals exist, because that is how our Intelligent Designer designed us." Let's see how that flys with conservatives.

And thus we have 2 diverse groups of people both ignoring at least a minor flaw in their belief system. I get such a kick out of that.

(Note: I'm not claiming the existence of homosexuality cannot be explained by either evolutionists or creationists. Only a minority of ants and bees propogate, yet they evolved. God could have some divine purpose in creating homosexuals, maybe even a punitive one if you really want to hold the belief that homosexuals are evil. The point is, it's a funny argument...and even funnier that no one is willing to entertain it.)

Poverty and Minimum Wage

Now that it's fashionable again to talk about poverty, can we get on with fixing the minimum wage? It's at $5.15. Work 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year and that's $10,300. Here's a brief history of the Federal Minimum Wage. I don't want to lose all my street credit in the Libertarian community, but this is unacceptable.

Pop quiz: who is the only president to never a preside over a wage increase?...ok I'll tell you. GWB is the only one...though Reagan's is debatable: it went into effect on the day of his inauguration. They both cut taxes for themselves.

A new component

For those of you who worry about the degeneration of the Iraq situation, here's an account of a skirmish between British troops and Iraqi law officials.

Um yeah, when the coalition has to use force against the Iraqi police...it's a bad scene.

For those of you who are pro-war, there is a silver lining to this cloud. Ejecting the British Army has long been a hallmark of sucessful democracy building.

As they stand up, we'll stand down? Something like that...

Even scarier see Handy's post.

How to read scientific journals: TV and obesity...maybe good science, maybe bad.

There are a lot of common mistakes in science. One is the tendancy to take "associated" phenomenon and claim they are "causal". Take this headline:

The No. 1 Way to Predict Obesity

How much TV do your kids watch? Based on that number, you can accurately predict if they'll be fat adults.

Researchers at New Zealand's University of Otago have found a direct correlation between the number of hours children and young teens watch television and the likelihood they'll be overweight or obese by age 26. Kids who are couch potatoes are likely to become obese or overweight adults. While this isn't the first study to link television with weight gain in children, it is the first to find that TV can be a better predictor of obesity than even diet or physical activity.

Before I go off on either the media spin or the scientists, let's differentiate their claims. The news article claims " If you want to reduce your child's chances of becoming obese, you should restrict their viewing time to no more than 2 hours a day, say the researchers. "

The title of the paper is: Watching television is associated with childhood obesity: but is it clinically important? (International Journal of Obesity, 2005) At least the scientists know how to phrase the question.

Obviously the medical condition of obesity has numerous factors. Genetics plays a large role along with an number of other 'lifestyle' factors including diet, exercise, etc... Could TV time be an indicator of obesity? Could it be a cause? Sure it could...but nothing in this entire study suggests anything other than an association. An association that is stated in the title. (Talk about begging the question...)

I watched a lot of television growing up, and still grew up to be nicknamed Lanky. But I'm no expert. Here's what the scientists say:

Although the aetiology of overweight and obesity involves a complex mix of environmental and genetic factors, this huge increase at the population level must be largely driven by changes in children's diet or levels of activity. Time spent watching television may be related to both.

Compare that to what I said 2 paragraphs ago. Ok, we're all on the same page. The scientists go on to claim that they found a correlation of 0.09-0.33 (correlation coefficient) even after regressing out sex, socio-economic data, and the father and mother's BMI. What on Earth does that mean? See this site for an illustration of corrlation coefficients. (Attention Political Readers! While I am definitely getting technical on your ass, I will still feed you a political fix. Check out this related page, especially if you've heard of Dan Drezner or want to see how government contracts vary with political donations)

There's sufficient evidence to show an association or a correlation between BMI and TV watching. However, I will again cite Juha Puranen "The correlation coefficient is a measure of linear association between variables - not a measure of the strength of causality." And if you read between the lines of the paper, the authors know they haven't established causality.

In summary, we provide further evidence of an association between television viewing and childhood BMI

...

Although the effect size appears small, the correlation between television viewing and BMI is stronger than reported corelations between BMI and diet or physical activity. We believe that watching television is an important contributing factor to the current epidemic of childhood obesity. [emphasis added]

When you read a scientific paper, and it uses the word "believe", it means, "this is what we personally think, but have not proven". It is also telling that they had access to the parents BMI. That was one of 3 variables worth regressing before, and yet no mention of whether or not that is more or less correlated than TV watching. (hint: you only regress things if they have a correlation). Overall, this paper is a B. It's not great, but it's not wrong. They should have written the title and left it at that.

On to the media article: Their title: "The No. 1 Way to Predict Obesity" was not actually claimed in the paper. Their suggestion "If you want to reduce your child's chances of becoming obese, you should restrict their viewing time to no more than 2 hours a day, say the researchers. " never appears in the paper (though they may have spoken with the authors). The claim: "These kids were also more likely to grow up to smoke and have high cholesterol" is unsupported by the data in the paper (same caveat). And finally, the assertion : "The number of hours they spent in front of the TV correlated almost exactly to their body mass index. " is profoundly wrong. It is correlated weakly at a high confidence.

Of course watching more TV isn't going to help one lose weight, but let's be realistic, obesity probably causes TV watching. It's a great activity if you're overweight, have low self-esteem, are anti-social, depressed or have any number of other problems (now correlate those with smoking...). Does it reinforce laziness? Probably. Does laziness correlate with obesity? Probably. But it is premature to claim this as a causal relationship. And I think it is irresponsible to suggest to parents that their kids won't be fat if they deprive them of TV. Far far better that you suggest to parents they get their kids some exercise. While on that note, here's a suggestion for parents of kids who play too many video games. It's also a fun drinking game.

Update:
I was conjecturing about the parental influence. (I should have used the word "believe"). Here's some evidence: Obese parents are the greatest influence for childhood obesity.

It's a google bomb!

Google the word 'failure' and see what you get: George Bush's Biography.

Note that conservatives play this game too (Runner-up site was Michael Moore).

For more on google bombing click here, ironically only the 3rd site to come up if you google 'google bomb'.

Is this proof of a vast left-wing conspiracy? Is there some person or group who organized this? Hey whatever...it's still funny.

Oh my God!

Bush says "I take responsibility."

Speechless. Pleased that Bush is doing the adult thing.

Still speechless.

May this be the begginings of a responsible accountable government. That's a lot to hope for, but who ever thought this day would come?

The 3 C's of the Bush Administration?

I think very highly of Andrew Sullivan as a unique voice of punditry. He always has interesting things to say, and in general, they are well argued. His recent piece on the 3 C's of the Bush administration is not his best work. It's cute and catchy, but not well thought-out. Maybe it was rushed, and maybe it was forced. What are the 3 C's?:

...what you might call the three Cs dogging this administration in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: competence, cronyism and conservatism.

Yeah it's an ok read, but as I said not well thought-out. First of all the issue isn't competence, it's incompetence. Yeah you can bend it to fit the piece, but it looks bent. Let's call a spade a spade.

Second, after Colin Powell's dog-and-pony show with the white vials at the UN, after Rove's outing of CIA agents and the President's flip-flop on the decision to fire the leaker, after a senior administration offical's leak that Blanco never asked for a State-of-Emergency (when she had), assertations that the insurgency is in it 'last throes', the prosecution of a few enlisted grunts for widespread systematic torture, etc...

I don't think this is solely a competence issue. This is also a credibility issue. And that's a major C in it's own right. Shame on Andrew for omitting it.

Maybe Andrew acsribes to TigerHawk's Razor:

One of my little rules is that when a person's actions or statements force you to conclude that they are either nefarious or stupid, the most probable explanation is that they are stupid.

Yes incompetence is an issue highlighted by the hurricane, but as long as they are competent spinners (or liers), they'll never face any more accountability than they have to date.

In Memorium

4 years today. God bless those those who died and those who suffered their loss.

Why is Bob Novak allowed to write columns?

I've had it with Novak. Aside from being generally supportive of the administration and outing Valarie Plame, what function does Bob Novak serve? It's definitely not journalism. Check out this passage:

"I've got this down,'' Michael Chertoff boasted to aides last weekend as he staved off questions on television about handling the Katrina disaster. It turned out that the secretary of Homeland Security did not begin to have it ''down'' when he subsequently was interrogated by Tim Russert on NBC's ''Meet the Press.'' Chertoff's miserable performance on the air reflected a fiasco at all levels of government.

Novak may have a point somewhere, but this is the most ass-backwards way of coming around to it I've ever seen. You're drawing our attention to a television interview to point out a problem? Hey here's a thought: watch any coverage actually coming out of the Gulf Coast. The story is in New Orleans. Chertoff's trouble stonewalling Russert is not the story. I can see making a case that Chertoff looked like an imbicile (I don't know, I never saw the interview in question) who was insufficiently prepared for disasters, but if that's your point, then just say it. What is this beating around the bush nonsense?

Second, and this is important: how does one man's interview reflect on the numerous agencies who responded to the disaster? Chertoff is an imbicile, ergo thousands of people in dozens of agencies are responsible. No, that doesn't follow. The best I can guess about this obtuse take is guess that Novak is trying to work in the Republican talking-points about failures at the lower levels of government. Again: if you want to argue that some agency has done a poor job, point to something substantial, failures to achieve goals, unresponsiveness, dead bodies, there's plenty to pick from. But a bad interview by the Director of Homeland Security does not reflect poorly on the police officers of New Orleans. They're unrelated.

Chertoff's inexperience was shown when he said ''I've got this down'' into an open microphone, thinking he was safe because the cameras were off and not realizing his words were transmitted via satellite. He clearly saw himself as an advocate tailoring what he said to a lawyer's brief.

Actually Bob, his inexperience was shown by not having an adequate disaster plan ready to implement. It is shown by in sending a hospital ship from Baltimore to New Orleans on the Friday after the hurricane. When help arrives 10 days after the disater, you didn't do a good job. What happens with a microphone is utterly irrelevant. If Chertoff were a microphone genius, he'd still be a bad Director of Homeland Security. And to test the inverse, if he'd been a good director and implemented a plan to save lives, but still fucked up the mike...we wouldn't be talking about his inexperience.

Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut is more liberal than nearly all his fellow Republicans, but he has tried to be a Bush loyalist. He is a member of the Homeland Security Committee and chairs the national security subcommittee of the Government Reform Committee. Consequently, it is noteworthy when he accuses the administration of ''a real sense of arrogance. Loyalty and never admitting a mistake matters more than the truth. It has a Nixon feel to me.

What is he trying to say here? The most liberal Republican is taking shots at the administration? It's a bad scene, but not a really bad scene? This isn't someone relating a story, this is someone taking a shot at Chris Shays. I can't imagine a less flattering way to portray somone to the Connecticut voters. Allow me to repeat the above paragraph with editorial read-betwee-the-lines.

Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut is more liberal than nearly all his fellow Republicans [Attention CT Conservatives: this guy is a bad Republican and should be voted out in a primary], but he has tried to be a Bush loyalist [Attention CT Liberals: Shays tries to be the president's bootlicker, isn't that annoying? Don't support him. Special Note to conservatives: Shays only tried to be a bootlicker, evidently he sometimes fails. We can do better.] He is a member of the Homeland Security Committee and chairs the national security subcommittee of the Government Reform Committee. [Half of this shit is probably his fault] Consequently, it is noteworthy when he accuses the administration of ''a real sense of arrogance. Loyalty and never admitting a mistake matters more than the truth. It has a Nixon feel to me."

No mention that outspoken criticism of his own party is nothing new for Shays. Nothing about how he opposed changes to the House ethics rules, and clamored for a stop to Delay's corruption. No mention of those, because they would be positive things to say about Shay. Instead we get the impression that Shays is kind of a wishy-washy guy who's now saying mean things. I wonder if this hatchet-job is payback for Shays taking on Delay.

Overall, I can't tell if Novak is deliberately finding the weakest arguments possible or if he's just an idiot. But let's not rule out the possibility of both. The theme of this article is that we need more competent officials. I agree with that %100, but this article doesn't have any legitimate evidence to back up the assertions. What it says is Chertoff messed up on TV, there was a disaster, Democrats are politicizing, and some Republicans are mad, therefore Chertoff might not be the best director. I guess when you live in a world of press and spin, these carry more weight than the reality that Chertoff is bad for the job because he didn't prepare or respond sufficiently and people died.

Katrina outreach

TO: The Penn Community
FROM: President, Dr. Amy Gutmann

The University of Pennsylvania stands with the nation in mourning the
victims of terrible tragedy in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.
We are committed to finding solutions to help the survivors rediscover
hope and rebuild shattered lives. To that end, we will offer
academically-qualified Philadelphia-area undergraduates enrolled at
colleges and universities in hurricane stricken areas the opportunity to
take fall semester classes at Penn on a space-available basis.

In addition, Penn faculty and staff interested in serving as volunteers
with the organizations involved in hurricane relief efforts may be given
up to three weeks of paid time off.

We are driven by our belief that it is important to offer students from
the Philadelphia area as much continuity as we can until they can resume
studies at their home institution. In addition, many of our faculty and
staff have expressed interest in volunteering their services in New
Orleans and other areas needing assistance.

We expect to be able to accommodate as many as 100 undergraduate students.
In addition, graduate and professional students will be considered on an
individual basis, depending on available space.

Penn will not be charging tuition to the displaced students, instead
allowing tuition dollars to continue to be directed towards the students
home school. If students have already paid their fall semester tuition
to another college or university, Penn will provide available space in
classes at no additional cost and will work with students to assure they
remain eligible for federal financial aid.

Students seeking to enroll in the emergency program should contact the
College of General Studies at 215-573-4338.

Campus housing is already full and will not be available to the additional
students. The expectation is that the emergency program would serve
students within commuting distance. At the end of the fall semester, Penn
will give students in the program transcripts for the courses they
complete.

As they become available, additional details will be posted at:
http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/hurricane.php

Sincerely,
Dr. Amy Gutmann

More on New Orleans

First apologies for my criticism of the initial failures to plug the breech. With 4 breaches, two of them over 200 yards wide, it's questionable whether any action could have even slowed the inevitable. I'll respect the possibility that, faced with an unavoidable catastrophic system failure, rescuing individuals might have been the best course of action. If know you're going to lose the battle, sometimes you opt for the best retreat you can get. My heart goes out to the stranded, many of whom did not have the means to get out of the city. I can only imagine the chaos if Philadelphia ordered an evecuation. I don't which massively crowded form of public transportation I would pick to try to escape. Given the terrorist/dirty-bomb scenario, it's something to think about.

Second, observe that these levies are susceptible to erosion once a breach occurs. That makes it an obvious homeland security threat. What would have happened if terrorists blew up a levy? Maybe if the city had not been evacuated, if they had people, power and communications, without the extra water level...maybe they could have handled a breach. But if I were a resident, I'd be concerned.

Third, if New Orleans is going to persist in having a city below sea level (and I think it should) it's going to need better engineering. The city is besieged by water and they really ought to take a deeper look at how to protect themselves. There are revlevant analogies in the walls of medevial cities or in the design of warships or submarines. I'm struck by the massive length of the levies and sheer area that needs protection. My first suggestion would be compartmentalization. A breach anywhere dooms the entire city. I'm not suggesting they need the 7 walls of Gondor, and a levy that works is worth 2 that don't, but the current system is going to fail: and fail reliably: it's too long to protect. As much as it sucks for a captain to close the hatches and doom half his crew, the captain will tell you it's better than losing the entire crew. I hope in the rebuilding of the city some serious minds are tasked with addressing these issues. If nothing else, there should be an area guaranteed to withstand the worst case. (Whether it be the superdome, or whatever) And that location should be ready to support 100,000 in a flood. (PS. Not a bad plan for any city with a predictable disaster)

New Orleans and Iraq photos

Photos. They're all pretty sad.

If you want a before and after, click here and look for Image #53536821, then compare to satellite.

The levy break is Image #53537097 on this page.

The sad pile of debris in Image #53537309 tells a tale of a humanitarian disaster.

And finally in Iraq there was a stampede with nearly 1000 killed. The debris in the photo above is actually a pile of shoes.