Dean's World

Quoted:

A few weeks back my husband and I watched the committee hearing and questioning, i.e. "hectoring" of those who were agin it, those who wrote the report you have copied in your blog. It was very interesting. I'm pretty intelligent and I don't have a PhD but my husband does, and he knows how to catch those who are lying with statistics. A lot of that went on in the hockey stick model. We both know that money in the form of grants is kept pretty close to small cliques of those who agree with each other, and they are the ones who "peer review" each others papers. They are the editors and reviewers of the journals to which those papers are submitted. This is a huge scam. Money and power are the name of the game in science as in everything else that goes on in this world. I am old enough to be really, really cynical about this.

...Ruth Hoese

As I have noted to some of my friends who are scientists and who respect the peer review process: it's fine to respect peer review, which has many important strengths that should never be forgotten or ignored. But in the last 20 or so years we have reached a point where "peer review" doesn't just mean that your peers review your research before you publish it, which is a good idea. "Peer review" has also come to mean that your peers also control the government grants that are awarded to you, or denied to you. And worse, the "peers," in too many areas of science, are so specialized that often it means that even though it's supposed to be anonymous, in truth everybody important knows everybody else, and tends to recognize each other's work implicitely.

The biggest reforms I can think of to help alleviate the situation, assuming we want government to keep funding research (which I certainly do) would be to implement some of the changes in the Wegman report: require the grant committees to always be multi-disciplinary, and not just the people involved in the narrow area of research the grant is for. Require independent mathematicians, statisticians, or epidemiologists to review the applications whenever possible. I'd add one other requirement: currently the peers and their comments are kept "anonymous" in their comments on any grant application, but to keep transparency I would suggest that after something like 2 years all of the peer reviewers are published with their names in full associated with their comments, so that there is some actual accountability.

My friend Peter Duesberg wrote on this very issue in his 2003 paper, and I think it very valid here:

The peer review system derives its power from the little known practice of governments to deputize their authority to distribute funds for research to committees of “experts”. These experts are academic researchers distinguished by outstanding contributions to the current establishment. They alone review the merits of research applications from their peers, and they have the right to elect each other to review committees. Outwardly, this “peer review system” appears to the unsuspecting government and taxpayer as the equivalent of a jury system – free of all conflicts of interest. But, in view of the many professional and commercial investments in and benefits from their expertise, and even of the rewards from their universities and institutions for the corresponding overheads and partnerships – all legal in the US since president Reagan – ”peer reviewers” do not fund applications that challenge their own interests (Duesberg 1996b; Lang 1998; Zuger 2001). Since “peer review” is protected by anonymity, does not allow the applicant personal representation or an independent representative, nor a say or even a veto in the selection of the “jury”, and does not allow an appeal, its powers to defend the orthodoxy are unlimited. The corporate equivalent of academia’s ”peer review system” would be to give General Motors and Ford the authority to review and veto all innovations by less established carmakers competing for the consumer.

Even the professional journals and the science writers of the public media comply with the interests of government-funded majorities because they depend on their monthly “scientific breakthroughs”, the lucrative advertisements from their companies, and the opinion of their subscribers. For example, an early precursor of this article was written in response to an open invitation from a pharmacology-journal over 3 years ago. But, after considerable pressure on the journal from anonymous “AIDS experts”, the editor requested a reduced article, which was neither accepted nor rejected. Instead, the editor simply dropped all further correspondence. Subsequently, the editor of a prestigious German-based science journal invited another precursor of this article 2 years ago, which received two favourable reviews in short order. But before the manuscript could be revised, the editor informed us that the publisher was concerned about losing subscribers if our paper were published and ceased all further correspondence. It is this passive resistance that can grind down even the most determined truth seeker.

However, the mere potential to resolve the agony of AIDS by alternative hypotheses, such as ours, should be sufficient reason to replace the medieval “peer review system” by a modern jury system without conflicts of interest and with rights for representation and appeals of the applicant. If the current, unproductive AIDS establishment objects, because AIDS-science is too complex to be understood by non-HIV-AIDS scientists, funding should be withheld until the AIDS establishment finds ways to explain the complexity and merits of its expertise to other scientists.

Peter may be wrong about AIDS, but no one can doubt that this National Academy of Sciences member has in his lifetime turned in some incredible research, and a number of the world's foremost cancer researchers now think that he is onto a theory of carcinogensis that may be the most important breakthrough in the last 100 years (and that is not hyperbole). Yet he cannot get funded for any research except through private grants--which, while some libertarian-oriented thinkers may think is proper, is just stupid, because most research these days is in fact government-funded. And if we're going to keep funding research through government funds, we should at least have a greater transparency and more independence in this granting process, should we not? What we're doing now makes no sense at all.

Oh, and by the way: the above was quoted from this 2003 PDF of Peter's last paper on AIDS, which contains all the appropriate references, and which he says will almost certainly be his final one as he is now centered on cancer research. But why is it that Peter never had a single grant application for anything turned down, until he questioned the orthodoxy on AIDS, and then had dozens of grant applications turned down, every single one shot down, even those that had nothing whatever to do with AIDS? Even today some of the world's top cancer researchers believe Peter is brilliant and has much to contribute. Two nobel laureate biologists, including one of the fathers of molecular biology, think his work is of great merit. Lynn Margulis, one of the most important evolutionary biologists alive, thinks his work has merit. The members of the Indian Academy of Sciences felt Peter's 2003 paper worth publishing. But he can't get a grant to save his life. I've been tempted to try to raise funds for his lab at Berkeley myself.

The system has become very dysfunctional, and there is nothing whatever wrong with the laymen who pay the taxes to fund all this asking hard questions and demanding greater reforms and greater transparency and accountability.

Senator Byrd admits to placing the hold, and has now lifted it.

Now that's neat.

More here.

In Byrd's defense, he said he simply hadn't had time to review the bill and didn't want it rushed to the floor before everyone had a chance to read it. I will say he does not have a history of being technophobic either. Indeed, he was the Senator who was responsible for letting television cameras into the Senate with C-Span. So I can cut the old Byrd [pun intended] some slack. The bill looks like it's going to go through...

*Update*: Whoah, it was also Stevens! Stevens and Byrd *both* put on holds, and have *both* lifted them! Well well well, what are the odds that the two biggest pork kings in the Senate would *both* try to stall a bill that would increase transparency in congressional spending?

A tale is told here.

This is only the signed & numbered limited edition first available this week. The regular edition will be available shortly through most booksellers.

"Damn fine read, this book. I will look forward to a first edition copy to put in my library.... I will most definitely be looking forward to reading it again, despite that I just read it for the second time last week." --Deanna Barr

Check out some cuts from Darker My Love's (pictured) new eponymously titled CD, released by the indie Dangerbird Records label. I like the songs that are up on their My Space webpage: "Summer Is Here" and and especially "Hellium Heels". The Los Angeles-based band has a nice, ominous, psychedelic rock sound, with a touch of grunge. It would be interesting to see the group in a live performance.

I wish I'd noticed this sooner: a PDF copy of a The Wegman committee's report on the 'Hockey Stick' analysis on recent global climate change.

This entire report needs to be read in full, but here is an important section, with some highlights in bold by myself:

"The Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce as well as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations have been interested in an independent verification of the critiques of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) [MBH98, MBH99] by McIntyre and McKitrick (2003, 2005a, 2005b) [MM03, MM05a, MM05b] as well as the related implications in the assessment. The conclusions from MBH98, MBH99 were featured in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report entitled Climate Change 20013: The Scientific Basis. This report concerns the rise in global temperatures, specifically during the 1990s. The MBH98 and MBH99 papers are focused on paleoclimate temperature reconstruction and conclusions therein focus on what appear to be a rapid rise in global temperature during the 1990s when compared with temperatures of the previous millennium. These conclusions generated a highly polarized debate over the policy implications of MBH98, MBH99 for the nature of global climate change, and whether or not anthropogenic actions are the source. This committee, composed of Edward J. Wegman (George Mason University), David W. Scott (Rice University), and Yasmin H. Said (The Johns Hopkins University), has reviewed the work of both articles, as well as a network of journal articles that are related either by authors or subject matter, and has come to several conclusions and recommendations. This Ad Hoc Committee has worked pro bono, has received no compensation, and has no financial interest in the outcome of the report."

"In general, we found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling. We also comment that they were attempting to draw attention to the discrepancies in MBH98 and MBH99, and not to do paleoclimatic temperature reconstruction. Normally, one would try to select a calibration dataset that is representative of the entire dataset. The 1902-1995 data is not fully appropriate for calibration and leads to a misuse in principal component analysis. However, the reasons for setting 1902-1995 as the calibration point presented in the narrative of MBH98 sounds reasonable, and the error may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology. We note that there is no evidence that Dr. Mann or any of the other authors in paleoclimatology studies have had significant interactions with mainstream statisticians. In our further exploration of the social network of authorships in temperature reconstruction, we found that at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface. This committee does not believe that web logs are an appropriate forum for the scientific debate on this issue.

It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. Overall, our committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.

Recommendation 1. Especially when massive amounts of public monies and human lives are at stake, academic work should have a more intense level of scrutiny and review. It is especially the case that authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, should not be the same people as those that constructed the academic papers.

Recommendation 2. We believe that federally funded research agencies should develop a more comprehensive and concise policy on disclosure. All of us writing this report have been federally funded. Our experience with funding agencies has been that they do not in general articulate clear guidelines to the investigators as to what must be disclosed.

Federally funded work including code should be made available to other researchers upon reasonable request, especially if the intellectual property has no commercial value. Some consideration should be granted to data collectors to have exclusive use of their data for one or two years, prior to publication. But data collected under federal support should be made publicly available. (As federal agencies such as NASA do routinely.)

Recommendation 3. With clinical trials for drugs and devices to be approved for human use by the FDA, review and consultation with statisticians is expected. Indeed, it is standard practice to include statisticians in the application-for-approval process. We judge this to be a good policy when public health and also when substantial amounts of monies are involved, for example, when there are major policy decisions to be made based on statistical assessments. In such cases, evaluation by statisticians should be standard practice. This evaluation phase should be a mandatory part of all grant applications and funded accordingly.

Recommendation 4. Emphasis should be placed on the Federal funding of research related to fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of climate change. Funding should focus on interdisciplinary teams and avoid narrowly focused discipline research.

There's a good deal more there, much of it very worth reading. They did far, far more than look at a couple of papers, which I see that some in the paleoclimatology community have tried to sugggest. No, they actually looked at those papers and at dozens of related papers, and found almost all of them wanting. They further did an extensive mathematical analysis of the social networks involved in those many papers.

Certainly, they slam Mann and his colleagues for misrepresenting data, sloppy math, and worse. Which is a big deal all by itself, since Mann is one of the most frequently cited researchers in the entire field. Another damning quote:

While the works do have supplementary websites, they rely heavily on the reader’s ability to piece together the work and methodology from raw data. This is especially unsettling when the findings of these works are said to have global impact, yet only a small population could truly understand them.

Making conclusive statements without specific findings with regard to atmospheric forcings suggests a lack of scientific rigor and possibly an agenda.

The social network analysis of authors' relations suggests that the 'independent reconstructions' are not as independent as one might guess.

At bare minimum, damning accusations have been levelled at Dr. Mann, and by extension, just about everyone associated with him--who turn out to be dozens of important people who've co-authored papers with him, or conducted peer review on his work.

This, again, from research that was a core part of the IPCC report telling everyone in the world--important politicians and the general public--that catastrophic global warming was real and probably human-caused and required extensive and very expensive public policy changes to address. All of it put together by the same tiny little social network of equally self-interested researchers, with two or three cliques pretty much at the center of everything (with "clique" being mathematically and precisely defined by the Wegman group, no less!)

I have to say that I found the response "RealClimate" guys (probably the most prominent bloggers representing the orthodox climate change position in the blogosphere) to be--well, disappointing, to put it charitably. I searched their entire web site for "Wegman," and found only this frivolous response. It's got to be the most thin-gruel defense against a damning indictment that I've ever read. They even fail to point to the actual Wegman group report, choosing instead to focus on Dr. Wegman's much more limited personal testimony to Congress.

Frankly, here's what it looks like to me: "Hey, what's that behind you?!" [zoom away while backs are turned.]

I was literally aghast at the Wegman group's report. It makes it clear that only a tiny handful of researchers are at the center of most research and most public policy recommendations on climate change, and that practically no one outside this tight little clique-ridden community is in charge of reviewing their work. They all simply review each other's work--and now literally dozens of papers in the field, along with general practices and procedures in the field, have been independently reviewed and found deeply flawed.

Worst of all, although the Wegman report does not say this openly, anyone who knows how taxpayer funding of science recognizes this (and it is all over the Wegman report by inference): Practically all the taxpayer funding for this climate research, much of it clearly shoddy, is controlled by this same Good Ol' Boy Network with practically no independent review, who simply "peer review" each other in a not particularly anonymous way while they dole out each other's grants and approve each other's papers.

Which is all, by the way, pretty much exactly how Dr. Richard Lindzen has described it. (More on Lindzen here.)

Worse, when I've seen the "RealClimate" blog guys try to answer these charges, they throw around words like "conspiracy" and try to laugh it off--changing the subject to "conspiracies" instead of acknowledging the real words: "Clique," and "Good Old Boy Network in the guise of peer review." Other useful terms instead of "conspiracy" might be "professional ego and reputation" and "conflict of interest among the closed group of people who 'anonymously' (wink, wink) control each other's funding and access to publication."

I happen to agree with the Wegman report that weblogs are not the place to hash out climate change research on the scientific merits. But you know what? On the issue of public policy? On the issue of how my tax dollars are spent? On the issue of demanding greater transparency and accountability? On asking for a thorough independent investigation of allegations of scientific bullying and isolation of dissenters in the so-called "peer-review process" that awards those government grants? Oh, I think those are all entirely fair discussions to have on weblogs, and among all members of the public.

I'd like to see which scientists in the Climate Change research community are willing to step forward and talk bluntly about those issues--and do more than assure us that "hey the system's not perfect but it works I assure you" or "no conspiracies here, haha, move along now."

These people not only take in millions of taxpayer dollars, but they're treated like high priests who are allowed to ask for some of the most massive and sweeping public policy changes on the globe. There is not a damned thing wrong with asking them to answer hard questions for the taxpayers and the general public. And not just about the research, but about ethics and standards and ethical practice and independent review and isolation of dissenting ideas that might be professionally inconvenient for some researchers.

I'd like to see a thorough response to the actual Wegman report, and not vague armwaving generalizations, "oh, that's boring, nothing to it, can we do something more interesting now?" No, boys and girls. If you don't want the dirty, dirty politics in your science, stop taking the dirty, dirty taxpayer money, and stop making public policy recommendations. Otherwise, it's time for a lot more questions to be answered.

I am now more convinced than ever that Richard Lindzen and others like him need to be listened to.

Recent books:

The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria, a lengthy meditation on what democracy really means in the 21st century and around the world. Bill Ardolino is very anxious for me to read this.

Losing Our Democracy by Mark Green. I'm already a third of the way into this book, and I must admit that I'm mostly finding it painful. I agree with about 50% of its policy recommendations, but am constantly confronted with items of sheer ignorance. For example, Green asks if President Bush ever talked about the need for democracy in Iraq before we took out Saddam. He asks this, rhetorically, and implies that it never happened. Unfortunately for him, it did happen, in multiple Bush speeches in fact. Stupid (dishonest?) errors like that make this book hard to slog through. It provides warm meat for rabid Democratic Party partisans, and good insight for Republicans looking to understand Democratic talking points for the next election. But I'm mostly finding it a chore.

The Out Of Office Countdown from Sourcebooks. A 2007 calendar providing copious (mostly out-of-context) quotes of George W. Bush meant to entertain the "Bush is an idiot" crowd. Those who intensely dislike this President and who think that "Bush is dumb!" is the height of hilarity will love this calendar and draw comfort from it. I find it mostly sophomoric and shallow, but lots of it is funny and I'm sure there are lots of people who'd gladly have it in their work cubicles or kitchen.

Well we're ready to start taking orders on Methuselah's Daughter, although there's a SNAFU. But first, let me have some people tell you more about it:

"As a novel, Methuselah's Daughter is a delight. John and Dean have built a plausible world around an entirely implausible character, who remains entirely human in spite of her super-human qualities, though she may not realize just how fully human she really is. It is a high bar that not many writers have cleared, but John and Dean have, in essence, made a real woman. At various times I alternately admired, pitied, and even feared Zsallia Marieko, but even in those moments where she is attempting to appear contrived and artificial, the ring of authenticity still sounds through the plastic mask.

"But Methuselah's Daughter isn't just a novel. It is the beginning of the future. 'Engaging' is a word that gets tossed around in the world of literature like a wiffle ball in a Sunday park. John and Dean have taken the concept to its logical next level: a character with whom the reader can actually interact, not only through the novel, but via the Weblog, where Zsallia Marieko has taken on a life of her own, complete with friends, acquaintances, and the occasional antagonist.

"Methuselah's Daughter is an unconventional, fast-paced feast for the mind. If this is what Dean and John look like coming out of the chute, I eagerly anticipate seeing what comes when they hit their stride." —Edward C., Mr. E. Poet

"It's excellent reading, and in a world of 'hey, that reminds me of...' books, distinctive." —Jay and Deb Solo, Accidental Verbosity

"An epic tale woven around a fascinating character. By turns you will love, hate, and fear Zsallia Marieko, but you will never forget her."—Jerry Kindall, jerrykindall.com

"I loved this novel! Not only could I not put it down, to the point of neglecting my own writing, but I was deeply intrigued by the heroine, and when I finished reading her tale, I almost went into a post-partum depression!" —Kristina O'Donnelly, author, "Andromakhe - An epic novel of Troy and a Woman's Triumphant Valor"

“An immortal. That's what she claimed to be. I lurked for awhile, reading every single word as Methuselah's Daughter, or MD as she was known back then, wrote about her past and her present. My heart would beat strangely as I wondered, could she be real? Others argued back and forth, but I decided not to listen to them. I'd had, for a very long time, a question for an immortal. I decided, that for now, I'd believe MD was real. I was going to ask her my question; about loneliness. Somehow, my own fears about loneliness were alleviated by Zsallia's answer. John and Dean brought her to life, but there still is that part of me that believes... Zsallia is real.” —Jayne D’Arcy, author and editor, 3rd Eye Writers Group

However, due to a last-minute SNAFU regarding the cover, we've got a delay in the publication of the regular edition of Methuselah's Daughter. It shouldn't be long though. In the meantime, advance interest has been very high so we've decided to do a special, limited-time-only First Edition, and we can start taking orders for that right now.

To be clear, this initial offering is a one-time-only, special edition. Each copy will be a custom-printed, deluxe bound hardback, and will be personally autographed and numbered by the authors. And once they're sold out, there will be no more copies of that first edition.

This is an open attempt to help us raise some immediate funds, and also to give people who say they really want it a chance to get a special, limited-time-only first edition.

This includes shipping anywhere in the world, within reason. Certainly the UK, Europe, Australasia, etc. should be no problem. We may revisit that if we get any unpleasant surprises.

Buy one. Buy two. Buy ten! But buy now. ;-)

(Yes, we can only take Paypal on this one, although if anyone wants to mail a check or money order that will be fine too. But you'll need to let us know right away if you're doing that because as I said, once this initial run is sold, that's it, there won't be any more. And we should have the regular edition paperback available soon, through more regular distribution channels.)

By the way, if you'd like a free preview, you can check out her blog. It started in December of 2002, and was in fact one of the first blogs in the blogosphere.

Buy now! ;-)

You know, it's fun sometimes to find quotes that seem spooky on the internet, but it's really annoying when you find that people have simply made crap up. Take this thing I recently got in email:

Koran ( 9:11 ) - For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah and lo, wh ile some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced; for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah; and there was peace.

(Note the verse number!) Hmmm mmmm?! God Bless you all Amen !

Nice thought. I'd love it to be true. But it's a bunch of crap. I've got four translations I've checked and that entire section of the Koran is about how to deal with non-Muslims, and basically says that as long as unbelievers are honorable and keep their word and/or treaties with you you should leave them in peace and even offer them protection if they ask for it. There's not a single reference to eagles or birds or even Arabs in it.

Why do people just make crap like this up? This may not be quite as egregious as Noam Chomsky's pernicious assertion that anyone who questions his patriotism is working in the tradition of Stalin or Hitler--I mean at least this is meant to be a nice thought and not a smear--but it's still a lie. Yeesh.

"President" Ahmadinejad of Iran says he wants a live uncensored debate with President Bush so that all the American people can hear and decide. He doesn't seem to have made a similar offer so that all the Iranian people could hear. But anyway, Dr. Zin has more, plus other news from Iran.

MIT's Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen speaks heresy:

``We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change" is one of Lindzen's many heresies, along with such zingers as ``the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940," ``the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average," and ``Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why."

Legitimate scientists welcome debate (right, Dean?). So why do otherwise legitimate-looking scientists (with white coats, pince-nezes and pointy beards) involved in global warming eschew it? Well, not eschew it -- they actually demonize it:

I [Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam] sat in a roomful of journalists 10 years ago while Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider lectured us on a big problem in our profession: soliciting opposing points of view. In the debate over climate change, Schneider said, there simply was no legitimate opposing view to the scientific consensus that man - made carbon emissions drive global warming. To suggest or report otherwise, he said, was irresponsible.

This (via Instapundit, yes, but it can't be read by enough people), more than anything screamed about by the left, is the McCarthyism of our time.

I overheard the following short conversation between my Aunt Raine and her friend Claire a few minutes ago:

Claire: "I hear that President Bush is taking full responsibility again for dropping the ball on Katrina."

Aunt Raine: "Our president girl! And yes he did."

Claire: "He ain't my President. And it's way too late to be all responsible. Look at how you've been treated by the Feds and insurance companies after you loss your home down there."

Aunt Raine: "Yes he's your President and yes the treatment has been 5th class but at least he's man enough to take responsibility."

Claire: "HA! He isn't a man and he messed up terribly!"

Aunt Raine: "Well he ain't God, you dummy! And I'm tired of this Bush bashing crap. Katrina screwed up everyone from the direct victims on up to the President. God can't get screwed. Men can."

Claire: Whatever Raine. You didn't vote for him anyways. Why you defending him?"

Aunt Raine: I'm not defending him. I'm acknowledging his manhood by him taking responsibility. Why do I have to devalue him as a man all because I didn't vote for him?"

I love my Aunt Raine. She's just full of good ol' common sense. Louisiana style.

Well, now isn't this lovely violin music?

More right here. (Via Sandi, who has two additional tracks.)

When looking at the antics of López Obrador and his followers in Mexico these days, I suddenly feel a whole lot better about our own society and culture. No matter how angrily Americans disagree with each other, so far we've never gotten that bad.

Talk about the world's largest temper tantrum. Yeesh.

I am a fan of sudoku puzzles. Originally, I would avoid them like the plague as I merely assumed that it involved math. However, back in January my aunt quickly broke it down for me on a flight to visit some relatives. Contrary to what many folks believe, sudoku - which means "the digits must remain single" in Japanese - is a logic-based placement puzzle and not a math-based one. I don't play online, but solve puzzles in local newspapers. I also have a sudoku book of easy, medium, and hard puzzles that I bust out to pass the time (e.g., on a train). And it makes for a decent conversation starter.

A Wikipedia entry notes: "An early variant of the puzzle was published in a French newspaper in 1895 and may have been influenced by the great Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, who repopularized Latin squares. Euler is frequently cited as the source of the puzzle, but examples of Latin Squares were engraved in ancient architecture as numerological talismans. Euler made no changes to their rules. Arabic numerologists had already compiled an exhaustive list of order 3 through order 9 Greco-Latin Squares in the Jabirean Corpus by 990 AD. The modern puzzle Sudoku was invented in Indianapolis in 1979. Interest in Sudoku stems from a revival in Japan in 1986, when the venerable puzzle publisher Nikoli discovered the game as invented by Howard Garns and initially distributed for children under the name 'Number Place' in an older Dell Magazines publication from 1979, and republished the format leading to widespread international popularity in 2005."

...only these five Senators have refused to unequivocally deny holding up transparency and accountability reform:

Byrd, Robert C.- (D - WV) Gregg, Judd- (R - NH) Hatch, Orrin G.- (R - UT) Stevens, Ted- (R - AK) Bennett, Robert F.- (R - UT) - a staffer denied, but not unequivocally

All 95 other Senators have unequivocally denied the hold.

I think the smart money at this point is indeed on either Robert Byrd or Ted Stevens. Even Crapo has now gone public with an official "no."

Last night I thought this might all be much ado about nothing, but I now think I was wrong. With proper delaying, this thing could effectively be buried despite its wide bipartisan support. Hopefully you folks in West Virginia, New Hampshire, Utah, and Arkansas will contact your Senators. You can find their contact information easily right here.

(Oh and by the way, four Republicans and one Democrat? Republicans like to talk big on ending wasteful spending, but apparently they're all talk eh?)

Update: It's starting to look more and more like Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. That would be no surprise at all.

The latest Carnival of the Vanities is up at L'il Duck.

And, Aziz has an interesting new experiment: a Real-Time Carnival. Check it out, and maybe contribute!

Here's an incredibly useful resource you'll want to use any time you come across someone who approvingly quotes Chomsky: The Chomsky Hoax.

It's a treasure trove. Some of this I'd read already but a lot of it I hadn't. Excellent!

(Thanks, Rune! Now if only we could find something similar on that America-hating fascist tool Howard Zinn....)

Christopher Hitchens has an excellent summation of the Plame idiocy.

His criticism of David Corn, in particular, is right on the money.

Instapundit notes that the FEC is cracking down hard on any political ads that criticize politicians between now and election day. (He typed FCC but he meant FEC.)

This is without doubt the most greivous assault on freedom of speech of my lifetime. It certainly guarantees that I'll never vote for John McCain or Russ Feingold for President--not unless either or both of them repudiate these hideously unAmerican laws.

A friend of mine, an unreconstructed '60s leftist, recently forwarded a video to me. He seemed to think I would find it deep. It was this flagrantly dishonest, shallow video from the biggest anti-American, anti-Zionist philosopher in the West, Noam Chomsky.

Notice how cleverly Chomsky works his usual paint-by-numbers bulls**t: if we took him seriously, then the charge of anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, really, anti-anything should be automatically equated with totalitarianism. In other words, we are never allowed to have these thoughts about anyone, otherwise we are the same as Hitler or Stalin.

Nice shell game, Noam. Too bad it was a tired cliche decades ago. Furthermore, Noam, given your vast record of sucking up to totalitarian fascists and reflexively criticizing all significant U.S. government policy for decades on end, regardless of who is in charge, it's not just a cheap rhetorical trick and a tired cliche--it also makes you a damned liar.

What makes you more of a liar, Mr. Chomsky, is that the real difference between a totalitarian society and America is one you will rarely admit to: in America we have free speech, free press, free association, and free elections. Which means that if you reflexively, and consistently, attack virtually all of our government's policies for decades on end, which is all your pathetic career has been defined by, then you are indeed anti-American by almost any sane definition. Because we have government of the people, by the people, and for the people--unlike many of the totalitarian societies you have done so much to make excuses for while attacking America and her allies.

Ditto if you always side 100% of the time with the Palestinians and other Arab governments against Israel--which is also you've ever done with your sad, pathetic public life. Defending fascists and tyrants and terrorists has been your bread and butter, and it's what keeps your fans lapping up your pathetic books for decades on end.

By the way, for Mr. Chomsky and all his would-be defenders, here's something I stand ready to defend to the death:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

What gets me is the deep naivetee of anyone who thinks, "Wow, this guy is so wise! You should listen to his words!" With the assumption being, of course, that no intelligent person might be intimately familiar with this scumbag Chomsky and have found that familiarity only bred deeper contempt.

I recommend Peter Collier's The Anti-Chomsky Reader for a thorough takedown of this man and his anti-American, anti-Israel worldview.

If this story is true, then suddenly I feel suckered.

I mean, it's nice to see the Senate responsive and all--which is as it should be--but if it's true that this procedural move could only have caused a few days of delay, then this was a big stink made over nothing, wasn't it?

*Update*: Ed has posted an update, and says:

Dean Esmay says he feels suckered with all of the Secret Holder publicity, saying that all we would have lost without the Porkbusting effort was six days. However, this means six legislative days, and there are only 15 of them before the election, according to Frist. The hold would make the calendar very tight, especially considering all of the appropriations bills awaiting action in the Senate. And don't forget that the House still has to take up S. 2590 after the Senate passes it.

Also, one should consider the message that our effort sent. The national attention should convice politicians that a new era of openness in government has come, even if we have to thrust it upon them.

... the one who always wins, according to Captain Ed — the more fertilizer they shove on him, the bigger he grows...

Heh.

Now 72 Senators have denied holding up the bill.

Neither of my two Senators is on record yet. No answer to my emails...

Update: We're now up to 79, and I'm pleased to say that both of my Senators, Levin and Stabenow, have denied placing the hold.

Update 2: Up to 92 93 denials. Only 8 7 left. I'm still betting it's Robert Byrd...

I wonder if the people in his lockup have this option during their "interviews"...

The WaPo claims that American muslims are not assimilated. I say we are.

Chris has duly gone in the predicted direction with Day by Day and is hashing out the positions.

Today's comic (linked to above) goes like this, only without much clothes on:

Sam: "Damon, did you ask Jan if she wanted the baby?" Damon: "But it sounded like I had no say about it!" Sam: "Now you know how she feels."

It took me a minute to get it, but the argument is, of course, that in a world in which abortion would be illegal (which is not at all the topic of the conversation), Jan would not have any say over whether she could have an abortion; she could not.

Of course, this doesn't answer Damon's concern at all. He is arguing that he should have some say in the matter, not that Jan shouldn't. I think Jan thinks Damon should have no say about it at all.

Of course, no one is asking how the baby "feels" about having no say about it.

UPDATE: Awwwwwwwwwwwwww............

I once belonged to Amnesty International. I was vice president of its club in high school, and wrote long letters to Ferdinand Marcos and Saddam Hussein begging them to free political prisoners or stop atrocities they committed. I continued funding the organization well into the 1990's.

However, Amnesty International switched sides in 2001.

Amnesty International sticking up for the human rights of terrorists, dictators, and other assorted forms of bad guys is not unprecedented. In 2001, the organization sued the CIA to get documents pertaining to the hunt for Pablo Escobar (the head of the largest drug cartel in Colombia). The group claimed that the CIA had knowledge of "human rights" violations committed against associates of the Medellin drug cartel. In 2002, Amnesty International worked to free Ahmed Hikmat Shakir from Jordanian custody. Shakir was known to have attended the January, 2000 al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, and had escorted at least one of the 9/11 hijackers though Malaysian customs. Amnesty International also has regularly campaigned against the holding of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. The organization also tends to downplay or flat-out ignore violations by various terrorist groups. This includes the beheading of prisoners and deliberate attacks against civilian targets, like airliners and pizza parlors. Amnesty International criticized Saddam's human rights record. However, the group also claimed that the 2003 liberation of Iraq was not justified. In other words, Saddam's regime did bad things, but they did not warrant corrective action – just reports and press releases. (StrategyPage)

What happened?

Hugh Hewitt's got a great letter. It expresses my feelings exactly. Ditto the comments about Bill Maher, who's nothing but a left-wing Mort Downey Junior. (My, that's a dated reference isn't it?)

You can watch the entire Hitchens appearance right here by the way, and not just the 40 second snippet but the whole thing. It's worth it. Hitchens was simply devastatingly brilliant.

Welcome to the Carnival of the Liberated, a sampler of some of the best posts of the week from Iraqi and Afghani bloggers. This week we've got Plan A, a good neighborhood, names, and much more.

Roads to Iraq has been posting up a storm this week with posts about U. S. foreign aid, American atrocities, and multiple posts about the Kurds. This post, on what Ladybird refers to as “a new Israel called Kurdistan”, is worthy of your attention.

Mohammed of Iraq the Model recommends staying the course.

Miraj of Baghdad Chronicles posts on the hazards of living in a (formerly) peaceful neighborhood.

Rambling thoughts from Truth About Iraqis on the possibilities for citizen journalism.

Where Date Palms Grow wonders “What's in a name?”

Dave Schuler posts regularly to his own weblog, The Glittering Eye. The Carnival was originally conceived by Ryan Boots.

In the previous thread, some argued that selected passages in children's textbooks in Egypt support Donald Sensing's contention that "any muslim" is bound to consider the forced conversions of the FOX journalists valid. I respect the work done by the CMIP to try and translate textbooks but I think that their work lends itself to others' polemical agendas rather readily.

I think that it's self-evident why a court ruling that forced conversions are not valid carries more weight than a textbook for grade schoolers. But the issue is worth addressing because the chidlren's textbooks used in Egypt are actually a sign of increasing tolerance, not less.

In my elementary school in suburban Chicago, I was taught Manifest Destiny of the United States and that the Native Americans were savage but noble people who are now protected citizens and have embraced modernity. I think that there are few people in my generation who still subscribe to this view, despite having been "indoctrinated" as impressionable youth. And certainly my grade school textbooks have no relevance to many court rulings in favor of the Indian Nations that say that the treaties they signed with the US were continually and habitually broken.

But let's look a little more closely at the textbooks in question. The translation seems pretty poor to me, but here's the whole paragraph:

If a Protected Person [Dhimmi] is forced to convert to Islam, his conversion is valid. If a Harbi [non-Muslim alien] is fought against and converts to Islam - it is valid... If the [same] Dhimmi returns [to his former religion], he is not killed [like an ordinary apostate], but imprisoned until he converts to Islam [again], because there is doubt regarding his belief [when he was forced to convert]. There is a possibility that it [i.e., his forced conversion] was sincere, so he is to be killed as an apostate. It is [also] possible that he did not believe [in Islam while having been forced to convert] and then he [should] be a Dhimmi and shall not be killed...

The reason I say the translation is poor is because the first sentence is an absolute one, that is directly contradicted by later ones. In actuality the assertions were probably more nuanced - Arabic is not a language that lends itself to machine or brute force translation.

Also it is worth noting that textbooks are often a vehicle for social activists to push their social agendas. Their value in this is beyond dispute; look at the turf war over textbooks being fought in the Evolution/Intelligent Design debate. The specific textbook in question is one issued by Al Azhar university, which is not a monolithic entity but actually has numerous factions ranging from liberal modern to islamist medieval. The CMIP notes that textbooks issued by the Ministry of Education are much more reasonable, and that in general the textbooks used by school children are much more tolerant than they were in the past. If you read the entire report you get a much more nuanced picture. Also keep in mind that the passage above is from 2002.

Are children's textbooks in Egypt still intolerant by our standards? Well, if by "our standards" you mean the United States circa 2006, then yes, absolutely. If you mean 1956, then no. Given that the trends are pointing in the right direction I think that it's pretty disingenious to try and use these textbooks as evidence of how the precepts of Islam dictate that "any muslim" (Sensing's words, not mine) would consider a forced conversion valid.

The bottom line is that a textbook is just a textbook. It's not the Qur'an, which I quoted in my earlier post. And the fact that there are jurist rulings on how forced conversions are not valid pretty much overrules any textbook-derived analysis.

A remarkable organism.

...in Iran.

Heh.

Could the Secret Senator be my own Debbie Stabenow? Mary Katherine Ham thinks so. I'm a little skeptical. She's a first-term Senator running for re-election for the first time. I can't imagine she's got that much to hide in this legislation.

Still, I did write to her. We'll see if she responds. (You can still write to your own Senators by clicking here.)

Update: So far, 58 Senators have issued denials.

Just when you thought the Valerie Plame non-scandal could not possibly get more ridiculous, the final bit of news arrives: the fact that Valerie Plame worked for CIA was revealed by none other than Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and not anyone in the White House. Worst of all, Armitage opposed the liberation of Iraq, which means the supposed motive for "outing a secret agent" did not exist.

It was always a stupid idea for a motive anyway. I asked many times for the True Believers on the "Plame Affair" to explain to me how that would be anybody's motive. "Joe Wilson published a piece in the New York Times we didn't like--let's reveal his wife's status as a secret agent! That'll show him!" Bah. It never made any damned sense, which is why people who aren't afflicted with Bush Derangement Syndrome always recognized that this was a ginned up non-scandal in the first place.

It very much appears that if Valerie Plame was ever an undercover agent, the only person who actually revealed that information was Joe Wilson himself. If I didn't know better I'd say think that Karl Rove conspired to make this story up with Joe Wilson just so Democrats would look like complete idiots.

You know what happened in New Orleans, right? Well you're probably wrong. The government now admits that Katrina was not the proximate cause of flooding in New Orleans. Paul at Wizbang has an astonishing report.

If you're skeptical, I repeat: the government now says openly that this is so. Read the report all the way through. It's rather stunning.

It's good for you.

(Via Michael.)

He did not murder the girl. He's either a liar or a loon, apparently.

Oh well.

If it had been thy Lord's will, they would all have believed,- all who are on earth! wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe! Qur'an 10:99 (Yusufali)

Donald Sensing, analyzing the gunpoint conversions of the FOX News journalists who were kidnapped in Gaza and then subsequently released, comes to the conclusion that Muslims necessarily accept a forced conversion as valid:

So according to the precepts of Islam, Centanni's and Wiig's confessions were completely valid. Any Muslim, not just their captors, considers it so. That they were uttered "at gunpoint" is unobjectionable. The guns simply enabled the two newsmen to understand that submission to Allah was required of them. Regardless of what Centanni or Wiig may think or believe, Muslims now consider them to be of their religion.

Unfortunately, this interpretation of Islam is driven as much by Sensing's own Christian polemical agenda as it is by any real attempt at understanding the issue of conversions. It is rooted in a false understanding of what the "submission" that is Islam's name means - a deliberate misunderstanding to be sure. It is just as false as a muslim claiming that Christians are polytheists because of the Trinity doctrine.

The truth is that the acceptance of Islam is a purely individual decision. The Shahada (There is no God but God and Mohammed Is His Prophet) is an oath. Sensing portrays this as a submission of slave to master, but in reality it is no different from the oath of citizenship that immigrants take when becoming US citizens.

Whether or not a person is muslim depends solely on whether that person declares it to be so. Since Centanni or Wiig appear to have indicated that they only gave the shahada out of fear for their lives, it's essentially obvious that they are not truly muslim.

This issue also touches on the issues of takfir and of taqqiya. I will leave discussion of the latter to Ali Eteraz (link forthcoming).

UPDATE: a commentator to Sensing's post observes,

the original post did not cite legal opinions, which is what is relevant. It would be as if Rev Sensing tried to guess what Orthodox Jews could eat, by reading Leviticus and speculating, instead of actually consulting a source on Kashrut. Wed get halacha according the school of Sensing, not anything that told us anything about what ANY Jews actually do. Somehow we accept this kind of reasoning wrt Islam, cause of the manifold problems Islam has - and yes, Im quite aware of who and what our enemies are. I also think the threat from Salafist terrorism, and the related threats from Khomeinism and pan-arab nationalism, are serious enough to want to be precise in our investigations of the Islamic world.

Sensing did not cite legal opinions of Islamic jurists nor did he even bother to cite the Qur'an! (I prefaced this post with one verse, myself). I will also point to this court case from Cairo back in February 2006:

Cairo, Egypt - Two young Coptic Christian women whose father had converted to Islam when they were infants have won a court battle in Egypt to retain their official religious identity as Christians.

Now 18 and 19 years old, Iman and Olfat Malak Ayet will be issued national identity cards matching their Christian birth certificates tomorrow.

In the final verdict, presiding Judge Farouk Ali Abdel Kader of Cairo’s District No. 1 Administrative Court declared that the civil authorities had conducted a “non-justified intervention” by imposing upon the two plaintiffs a belief they had not chosen. [...] Nearly three years ago, the Ayet sisters were surprised to learn that, before his death, their father had changed their identities from Christian to Muslim on government records. The change also left them with new Muslim names.

This is just a single example, obtained from a casual google search, but it serves to rebut Sensing's assertion that the "precepts of Islam" compel muslims to accept forced conversions as valid.

Dean's World reader Martha Ferguson writes:

Dean, I just sent a similar note to my senators (IN-Bayh and Lugar). If we get responses, perhaps it would be possible to hone in on the anonymous senator through the process of elimination. After all, there are only 100 of them.

You bet. Once again, you can look up and email your Senators right here.

(Hey, this is getting fun isn't it?)

Tim Worstall, as usual, has a great piece in Tech Central Station.

So who is the anonymous Senator?

I just sent a polite note to both of my Senators. You should feel free to send something similar to both of your own Senators--you have only two, after all. Here's what I sent:

Hi Senator (Levin, Stabenow). I have a question: are you the anonymous Senator who is blocking S. 2590? Because if you are I would like you to stop blocking it. If you aren't, please let me know. Thanks.

Dean Esmay, Westland MI

You wake up one morning, a bit bleary-eyed. Horrible things are happening all around you. Much of it shocks you. But in a world full of darkness and pain, you suddenly realize that you are the biggest, tallest, strongest person present.

You are not omnipotent. You are, in fact, far from perfect. You have many things that you are embarassed about. But you suddenly realize that you are the biggest guy in the room--a room full of thugs and thieves and murderers. Worst of all, you realize that you don't want to be King, but you do want to make things better.

You didn't ask for this. But the world thrust it upon you.

"Why me," you plaintively whine?

"Because you!" Fate thunders in response.

"Sh*t!" you say.

Without question the most under-reported story