Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Tuesday, July 30, 2002
Monday, July 29, 2002
Sunday, July 28, 2002
Saturday, July 27, 2002
Friday, July 26, 2002
IRAQ: PHASE ONE UNDER WAY
Pravda.Ru sources in the Gulf have confirmed that the military build-up by the US Forces has begun, with �tent cities� being built in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, while in Washington military sources have confirmed that operations have started. The new French Foreign Minister, Dominique Villepin, told French diplomats that she expected the military action from the USA against Iraq to come �soon� after a meeting with US National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice. Military strategists in Washington have leaked to the press reports that the first strike would be with special forces, possibly Delta Force and CIA operationals, together with British SAS and SBS, setting up blockades along Iraq�s road arteries, while aircraft carried out punitive missions and advanced bases were set up in Mosul, in the north and Basra in the south. This, according to Major Charles Heyman, spokesperson for Jane�s Information Group, could take place �much sooner than expected�, in August or September. These bases would be used in a second phase next Spring with a large invading force of some 250,000 troops liaising with Kurdish and Shi�ite guerrillas. A legitimate basis for such an attack has not yet been declared. John ASHTEAD PRAVDA.Ru LONDON UNITED KINGDOM PravdaThursday, July 25, 2002
Isn't there something in Disclosure Project about this? Asteroids as a reason to militarize space.

They don't scare me! And if I get hit, I will only break into small sticks...
On Macs: We had the intro to OSX yesterday, I will have a new Mac under my desk by September 1. Plus 1: I will have local admin rights. However they could give that to me now, and I could actually install Quicktime player and watch the Mac ads posted. Plus 2: I can boot onto any machine, and my desktop settings will follow. Well, you can do this with a shared network for PC's, but that would be work for the IS guy (read supported laziness). Plus 3: When I start up an app, it will swoop into the screen, Genie action. Okay, this is cool, but do I want to tax my operating system with simple tasks? Plus 4: It is pretty. Cannot deny it is easy on my eyes. Much like Miss Ellen, cutie. Plus 5: It will streamline our production and the pre-press house will like us more. But we will be staying with a pdf work flow. Huh? All this wingeing about fonts and compatibility, and we are staying with the same work flow? Don't get me started... Plus 6: Shared folders. I can view others' folders, and make my own little webpage for my co-workers to look at. Okay, a definate plus! Built-in f**king around time at work. And I will never have to speak to a co-worker again. I can just stuff a screenshot into their folder and it will pop up on their screen. Oh yeah! Plus 7: Quark will run smoother. There are some weird annoying bugs with my windoze app, but if I had admin rights, I could try and work them out. Oh! But Quark doesn't run in OSX... I am sure there are more pluses, and perhaps it is a better working environment. We will see when I'm actually driving the thing. And for the record, if someone gave me a Mac for Christmas, I'd be pretty happy. But I'd rather have a trip to the spa...
Wednesday, July 24, 2002


Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Monday, July 22, 2002
Normal Science?
Robert K. Merton's famous norms of science-communism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism (CUDOS)are the locus classicus for most understandings of the inimical and unnatural relation of science and secrecy. Drawing upon his pioneering study of Puritanism and the rise of the new science of the 17th century, Merton extracted what he identified as the guiding norms of the scientific community. In an influential 1942 article, Science and Technology in a Democratic Order, Merton articulated his famous norms as a direct defense of the necessary relation of progress in science with democratic politics. 7 As David Hollinger has observed, Merton made it clear that science could only flourish under a democratic regime, not the fascist regime of Nazi Germany. 8 Merton clearly stated that secrecy was the antithesis of his norm of communism, the belief that scientific knowledge was the common property of all people. My point here is not to claim that Merton invented the idea that science and secrecy are anathema. After all, his claim was that he had identified this practice through his study of the history of science. Central figures in the so-called Scientific Revolution distinguished themselves from other knowledge producers because of their emphasis on the public, and published, character of their knowledge claims. He was merely making clear to social scientists what natural scientists took as a self-evident truth, one that was visible from the emergence of the Royal Society in 17th century England.
For Merton the problem with secrecy in science was two-fold. First, secret science could not provide the researcher with the appropriate credit for their discoveries. Given that the only recognition in Merton's universe came to those who established their priority in making discoveries or breakthroughs, secrecy was clearly not in a researcher's self-interest. While working on a particular problem, researchers might choose not to communicate with others about their work, but when the work was completed they would race to publish their findings. Priority was the means to a reputation, to greater credibility, and to the rewards of science-prizes, grants, and status. 9 Second, secret knowledge was not open to the scrutiny of others who might point out errors and problems related to both the production and interpretation of the knowledge claims. If, as Merton and others believed, science -worked- through the rigorous self-policing of knowledge claims, then secrecy or restricting the dissemination of information might lead to the production of false knowledge. Finally, note that Merton's norms also created an autonomous social space for science, since only other scientists could credibly discuss the veracity of specific technical knowledge claims. Those untrained in the ways of science were incapable of adjudicating intellectual matters.
If Merton and his students, especially Bernard Barber, 10 were among the prime intellectual sources for the post World War II understanding of the relationship between science and secrecy, then we must look to the war itself and the subsequent militarization of American science for the institutional context in which such discussions began. Here we must make a historical point. We may think of the war, especially the Manhattan Project, as the modern occasion for our discussions of science and secrecy, but that would be a profound mistake. Discussions about secrecy were endemic with the establishment of the first industrial research laboratories in early twentieth century America and the great expansion of such laboratories in the post World War I context, what one observer called a fever of commercial science. 11 Similarly, the fear that corporate monopolies might control the production of scientific and technological knowledge, as presented in the Temporary National Economic Condition (TNEC) Hearings of 1939, was an early analogue of postwar fears of the military control of science. 12 To an extent we are largely unaware of, wartime discussions of secrecy drew upon these earlier debates as well as the recognition that for many industry had not affected science in a negative manner. On the contrary, many began to conceive of industrial research laboratories as universities in exile, a view that had little relation to corporate reality. With this caveat, let us turn to the war.
Google!Sunday, July 21, 2002
Saturday, July 20, 2002
Friday, July 19, 2002
The Moral Minority
We all lose when we leave right and wrong to a clique of ethics experts. [...]It is widely assumed by both detractors and supporters of genetically modified anything that bioethicists are biased in the same way expert witnesses are. Most biotech companies keep an ethicist on retainer, if not on staff. But leave aside for a moment the inherent conflicts. Why cede a moral monopoly to any group of people? The whole concept of bioethics � as a distinct and separate practice � is bankrupt. [...] [...]The alternative is to continue to concentrate an enormous amount of power into the hands of "experts." No matter how well-intentioned, it's absurd to assume that a few select minds can posit the full array of scenarios better than a broad coalition. What's the worst that can happen? Market collapses triggered by a spooked public catalyzed by some unforeseen consequence, global activism that halts positive technological progress, compensation claims on a massive scale when acts of God are redefined as acts of corporate malfeasance, and the like. The worst, of course, is an irreversible biological event of catastrophic proportions. None of these scenarios are out of the question. [...] http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/view.html?pg=2Thursday, July 18, 2002
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
Switch on for state snooping
From August net service providers in The UK will be legally obliged to carry out automatic surveillance of their customers' web habits. Controversial laws passed in 2000 oblige large communications companies to install technology that allows one in 10,000 of their customers to be watched.[...] BBCTuesday, July 16, 2002
Vitacost.com Acquires DrKoop.com
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 9:01 a.m. ET BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Vitacost.com, an online source of consumer health information and products, has acquired the health Web site DrKoop.com, company officials said Monday. The $186,000 cash purchase by privately held Vitacost.com will give the Web site the ability to provide daily information updates about mainstream, alternative and natural medicine. The deal included the brand name, trademarks, domain names, the Web site and the e-mail addresses of its registered users. No other personal information -- names, phone numbers, health information or purchase histories -- was transferred. Users were given the option to remove themselves from the database in advance of the sale. Vitacost.com sells most of its health products at wholesale prices while also providing consumer health information. DrKoop.com currently attracts more than 900,000 visitors per month and has a database of more than 2 million registered users. DrKoop.com was established in 1997, funded with more than $200 million and reaching a market capitalization of more than $1 billion before the crash of the Internet stock market. The company filed bankruptcy in December 2001.Scientists call for vaccination strategy
"Vaccination should be part of any strategy to control a future foot-and-mouth outbreak in the UK, a government-commissioned report recommended on Tuesday." "They [farmers] were also worried that vaccination would lead to lengthy bans on meat and livestock exports. " "The Royal Society urged international research groups to investigate "a vaccine that conferred sterile lifelong immunity against all foot-and-mouth strains", which would globally reduce the threat from the disease. " http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Now read the TRUTH about Foot & Mouth Here.Monday, July 15, 2002
Bang! Zoom! Send them to the Moon!
SYNTHESIS OF POLIOVIRUS FUELS DEBATE The synthesis of infectious poliovirus from mail-ordered chemical components, newly accomplished by Pentagon-funded scientists and reported in Science Magazine online yesterday, is renewing a simmering debate about whether limits are needed on the conduct or publication of scientific research and, if so, who should define those limits. The scientists described the methodology that they used to assemble the virus in Science Magazine here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1072266/DC1 Some initial reactions to the announcement were reported in "Scientists Create a Live Polio Virus" by Andrew Pollack in the New York Times here: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/12/science/12POLI.html Anticipating controversy, lead author Jeronimo Cello defended publication of the virus paper on grounds that "By releasing this, you alert the authorities... [to] what bioterrorists could do." For obvious reasons, this is not a very persuasive argument. Penrose Albright, Senior Director for Research and Development at the White House Office of Homeland Security, said in May that his Office had "spent many hours" considering whether and how to seek limitations on scientific research relating to weapons of mass destruction, but had made little progress. "We look to the scientific community" to define appropriate criteria and procedures, Dr. Albright said. The unstated implication was that if the scientific community does not somehow rise to the challenge, then government will eventually intervene in some clumsy fashion, particularly if there are new indications that terrorists pursuing these technologies. One post-September 11 restriction on biological research is a new requirement, enacted in the recent Bioterrorism Preparedness Act, to notify the government of the possession of certain highly lethal biological agents and toxins. Draft guidance for providing such notification was published in the Federal Register today. See: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/07/fr071202.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------Sunday, July 14, 2002
