Southwest Left Coast

Web glitch -- Back later

2009-08-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

I apologize for this brief (I hope) interruption in service. My blog is going to a new CMS (don't ask), and links are not working.

When they are fixed, which I hope is by Thursday, Aug. 6, San Diego Science World will be back in operation.

Welcome Cathy Seipp Fans!

2008-06-03T04:40:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be revitalizing this nearly-abandoned blog. I've done most of my posting at The Festering Swamp, to this blog's detriment. The Festering Swamp is a group blog that celebrates the work and life of the late Cathy Seipp. I'll be doing more writing in that vein here.

Comments are now working. I'm using the Blogger commenting system for now; later I may switch to Haloscan, if I can only get it to work. I was stymied by the inability to download my template. I can't find the option to do so in the settings, although Blogger says it is supposed to be there. So for now I'll try Blogger comments and see how it works.

So if you've got something nice to say about Cathy Seipp, please say so here!

Attention Festering Swampers:

2008-02-03T17:41:00.000-08:00

Click on the title link to comment on the current Festering Swamp post. We've had repeated troubles with Journalspace this weekend, so I may set up a mirror on this under-utlized blog.

Below is the post for Sunday, Feb. 2:

British deaf rights organizations want to give parents the right to choose deaf embryos from in-vitro fertilization. That eye-opening news comes courtesy of gold bug/dancin' fool and witticism king allan, who checked in to the comments section to give the news. The writer allan quoted likened the proposal to Blade Runner, where genetically altered humans called replicants were created for the amusement of normal humans. From allan's newsletter:

"Right now, in the U.K., a pair of deaf-rights organizations — the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People and the British Deaf Association — are lobbying to give deaf prospective parents (and presumably, hearing parents as well) the right to genetically engineer deaf children. Their efforts are focused on amending a bill currently passing through the legislative process in the House of Lords, the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, which currently would prohibit the screening of embryos for the purpose of choosing one with an abnormality. According to the U.K.’s The Sunday Times, a broader coalition of organizations representing people with disabilities will also begin campaigning for this amendment to the bill, starting this month."

Some deaf parents would rather have deaf children, the rationale goes, as explained in the Sunday (UK) Times, so they would fit better into the household.

A clause in the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, which is passing through the House of Lords, would make it illegal for parents undergoing embryo screening to choose an embryo with an abnormality if healthy embryos exist.
In America a deaf couple deliberately created a baby with hearing difficulties by choosing a sperm donor with generations of deafness in his family.
This would be impossible under the bill in its present form in the UK. Disability charities say this makes the proposed legislation discriminatory, because it gives parents the right to create “designer babies” free from genetic conditions while banning couples from deliberately creating a baby with a disability.

Technically speaking, this won't be genetic engineering. The embryos are not being altered. Generally speaking, IVF creates multiple embryos, and only one usually gets chosen. But we are already edging close to outright genetic manipulation. The Times article mentions a case where an American deaf couple chose a sperm donor whose family line has a history of genetic deafness. I'm reminded of the Ellen Jamesians from The World According To Garp. The novel describes the EJs as a group of radical feminists who react to a girl being raped and having her tongue cut out, by cutting out their own tongues.

Is that analogy fair? I can imagine how some deaf-rights advocates must feel about the current IVF standards, which call for discarding embryos with abnormalities such as deafness. Could that be viewed as a form of genocide against the genetically deaf? But is choosing an embryo that has a genetic defect, merely for the convenience of the parents, morally right? For that matter, is choosing to abort a fetus (or not implant an embryo), with a genetic defect also a case of convenience for the parents?

Just to muddy the waters a bit, here is another example of eugenics, one that does not involve aborting fetuses or selecting embryos:

Rabbi Joseph Eckstein pioneered an entirely new approach to Tay-Sachs disease in 1985, in light of the fact that he found all the available options either unappealing or irreconcilable with halachic (Jewish) law. His solution: to eliminate the gene from the Jewish population entirely. Eckstein is the founder of an international genetic testing program called Dor Yeshorim, the "generation of the righteous." In the program, Orthodox Jewish high school students are given blood tests to determine if they have the Tay-Sachs gene. Instead of receiving direct results as to their carrier status, each person is given a six-digit identification number. Couples can call a hotline, if both are carriers, they will be deemed "incompatible."
Individuals are not told they are carriers directly to avoid any possibility of stigmatization or discrimination. If the information were released, carriers could potentially become unmarriageable within the community. During 1993, 8000 couples were tested, and eighty-seven couples who were previously considering marriage decided against it as they were at risk for having a child with the disease. The program then, aims to eradicate the disease through the venue of choice of mate.
Jewish writings contain references to genetics and eugenics as far back as the Bible and Talmud. In Jewish law, it is prohibited to "marry a woman from a family of epileptics or lepers lest the illness be transmitted to future generations." Avoidance of genetic disease by choice of mate has been accepted since the biblical era. Do the Jewish ancient writings thus indirectly sanction the approach of Dor Yeshorim?

* * * * * * * * * *

UPDATE: As a Libertarian who had been interested in Ron Paul, I don't have much choice among the other presidential candidates on the ballot. But there's someone I can recommend wholeheartedly, who has the insight and honesty needed for the job. A refreshing voice in the political wilderness. I hereby endorse . . .

Click on the photo to get to the Web site of the best candidate for Prez.

NOTE: Click here to comment via Haloscan

This One's For You, James!

2008-01-31T10:40:00.000-08:00

I am mostly blogging at The Festering Swamp, and this personal blog has been sadly neglected. Due to relentless prodding from my journosaur friend James, I'm going to start updating it again.

This is just the barest of updates. Click on the title link to go to The Festering Swamp, where I mark my five decades as a carbon-based life form on Planet Earth.

Too Long A Wait

2007-09-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

Ack. I've really let this blog go. Most of my time has been spent writing for a group blog, The Festering Swamp.

I'll be updating this blog more regularly from now on. It's my own blog, after all.

In the meantime, here's Charley Stough, author of BONG BULLETIN, with an example of the Grey Lady lapsing in a most fundamental manner: Forgetting how the calendar works:

SPEAKING OF THE END. In July the New York Times published this correction: "An article on Thursday about the arraignment of three men in the shooting of two New York police officers, one of whom died, misstated the schedule set by a judge for a trial in the case. The trial is expected to begin by February, not by 'Feb. 30.' The error occurred when an editor saw the symbol '--30--' typed at the bottom of the reporter’s article and combined it with the last word, 'February.' It is actually a notation that journalists have used through the years to denote the end of an article. Although many no longer use it or even know what it means, some journalists continue to debate its origin. A popular theory is that it was a sign-off code developed by telegraph operators. Another tale is that reporters began signing their articles with '30' to demand a living wage of $30 per week. Most dictionaries still include the symbol in the definition of thirty, noting that it means 'conclusion' or 'end of a news story.'"

Yeah, well, it also ends something else. When a copy editor for the New York Times doesn't know what "--30--" means, as well as thinks there has ever been or ever will be a Feb. 30, something else has gone by the boards too. Sure hope somebody regrets the error.

Selling out is selling out

2007-06-26T07:14:00.000-07:00

Federated Media, the blog advertising network, recently got caught using its bloggers to help with an advertising campaign.

What's wrong with that? What's wrong is that these bloggers have presented themselves as independent voices in the tech world. That's a journalistic function. Yet they lent their names, and words, to advertising in exchange for money. In this case, the client was deep-pocketed Microsoft, which wanted to push its meme of "people-ready".

In the old-fashioned print media world, this would be an obvious no-no for ethical journalists. We journalists are not supposed to tie what we write to advertising dollars. And we most definitely are not supposed to get paid for lending our names and journalistic prestige to ad campaigns.

Some people on the Web like to call this old-fashioned idea outmoded. The new paradigm, they recite with a numbing patter of marketing jargon, is to bring in advertisers along with journalists and the public. It's a win-win-win.

Some call this an example of "conversational marketing", which its advocates say is a way to benefit all parties ---- journalists, readers and advertisers ---- by getting them talking with each other to find out the others' needs.

But conversational marketing is also a convenient way of sugar-coating an attempt by advertisers to control how journalists write. Nick Denton of Valleywag deserves thanks for exposing this campaign. Now that it has been exposed to the light of day Federated Media has hastily retreated from its conflict-laden plan.

Jeff Jarvis, one of the most far-sighted media types, forcefully made this point about Federated Media's plan.

Jarvis, who had a long career in print media, said the case reminded him of similar attempts to buy him.

"In each of these cases, the advertiser’s effort is to get more closely associated with us, our content, our reputations, our brands," . . . Jarvis wrote. "They want us to speak their names. Nicely. Or at least be near them, associated with them. This happens at every editorial product I know and it becomes incumbent upon their editors to resist and to protect their integrity from integration. . ."
Read it all.

Jackie Danicki provides more perspective.

Some of those involved in the Federated Media debacle, such as tech guru Om Malik, reacted honorably. They recognized the criticism had validity. Their reputation for integrity was too valuable to tarnish.

John Battelle, founder, chairman and CEO of Federated Media, honorably took responsibility for the debacle. However, he still doesn't seem to get it. He gives a straw-man version of the criticism:

"Microsoft was trying to do something new, but the overwhelming presumption behind many of the critics of this campaign has been that Microsoft was being evil. That it was trying to pull the wool over our eyes. That it was, in short, a bad actor. Why? Why this knee jerk assumption that an important character in the conversation happening in our world is evil, wrong, malicious? And that all the authors associated with the campaign are dupes, fools, schills? Are we really still stuck in 1996, where every single thing the company does is presumptively evil?"

This has nothing to do with Microsoft being evil. This has everything to do with an advertiser's attempt to get involved in the editorial process. Once you've said it's okay for journalists to help advertisers with their campaigns, you've broken a crucial ethical barrier that is there to prevent undue influence. It is a bad precedent.

Microsoft was just doing what many advertisers would do, if given the opportunity. And Microsoft was not breaking any ethical barrier; it is not a journalistic outfit. It is not Microsoft's duty to obey standards of editorial integrity and trust. That is the duty of journalists.

Still, Battelle deserves credit for wrestling with the matter. Much of what he writes about the value of conversation with advertisers has validity; it is referenced in the classic ClueTrain Manifesto. He just needs to remind himself that technological advances do not necessarily invalidate ethical considerations.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, who evidently doesn't value his reputation as much, was less responsive than Battelle. Arrington told his critics to "go pound sand."

"People understand that if there’s text in an ad box, someone is paying for it to be there," Arrington said.

But people don't expect that a supposedly independent journalist is being paid to provide the text. They don't expect, and shouldn't have to expect, that the journalist is being paid by an advertiser to advance a pet theme.

This is no new media paradigm. It's an old-fashioned conflict of interest. (Judging by the numerous blinking, tacky animated ads on his site, Arrington is desperately doing all he can to kiss up to advertisers, even at the expense of annoying his readers).

Give the man credit for openly admitting he doesn't see an ethical problem with advertisers buying his words. Now the onus is on Arrington's readers to figure out which words are really Arrington's and which words are from advertisers using Arrington as a ventriloquist's dummy.

And some in this sordid mess don't seem to take their own "conversational" schtick too seriously, at least when they're on the defensive. Chas Edwards, Federated Media's vice president for sales and market development, posted a weasel-worded defense of his company's campaign, "Does Relevant Advertising Mean Selling Out?"

Of course, the headline is misleading. The relevance is not in question; it's editorial co-operation and pay for taking part in advertising.

Yesterday, I left a comment on Edward's blog saying so. It hasn't been posted. Indeed, no responses have been posted.

Perhaps Chas Edwards doesn't like what the public is telling him and has decided to shut down the conversation.

Thanks, Rocky, and Tony!

2007-06-20T05:50:00.000-07:00

As a native San Diegan, I'm very grateful to the city of Los Angeles for its fine choice in elected officials. Namely, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky "The Clown" Delgadillo and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio "Romeo" Villaraigosa.

These two jokers have made Los Angeles the laughing stock of American cities, the Cleveland of the Left Coast. That takes the prize away from San Diego, with our own oafish misadventures, such as a city employee pension fund that is costing billions more than anticipated. The New York Times gave San Diego the dubious title of "Enron-by-the-Sea".

We San Diegans also had an incompetent chucklehead of a Mayor, Dick Murphy, who campaigned on a platform of "20-20 vision", yet couldn't see the debacle. Murphy ignored the advice of the city's pension board and got rid of a pesky member who warned of the ongoing catastrophe. Thankfully, Murphy had the good sense to resign.

But our new mayor, Jerry Sanders, seems more competent than Murphy and his predecessor, Susan Golding (although that's admittedly a very low bar). We also have a city attorney, Michael Aguirre, who's aggressively investigating alleged corruption.

But mostly, San Diego has been helped by our colossus to the north, which has entertained the country, indeed the world, with the comical mishaps of its leaders.

If you've been on Mars recently, Rocky the Clown has been caught lying and dissembling about his wife's use of his city-owned vehicle. She got in an accident with it, when she was apparently using it improperly for a personal errand. Rocky the Clown billed the taxpayers. He has now reimbursed taxpayers.

His wife also was driving without auto insurance for a while -- as was RtC himself. For the full, hilarious story, read Steve Lopez's columns in the Los Angeles Times.

Romeo's contribution was his own dissembling about his marital woes. Earlier this year, he denied a report by blogger Luke Ford that his marriage was on the rocks.

Here's Luke:
On Jan. 29, 2007, I reported the following on this blog:

The mayor and his wife Corina haven't been seen together in public in about ten months (since the president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, visited in May 2006). Villaraigosa no longer wears his wedding band (not since the first week of September 2006). His wife does not live with him in the mayor's mansion (I don't think she's ever lived there with him).

"So, will he be reverting to his maiden name?" asks one internet commenter.

Connie was recently spotted cleaning the couple's home at Mt. Washington.

Around 2:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26, a journalist at City Hall finally worked up the courage to ask Villaraigosa after his press conference, "Where is your wedding ring? What's the deal?"

Villaraigosa said that he had lost weight and hadn't had the time to have it resized. The mayor said he was still together with his wife Connie.

In June, the mayor conceded he was separating from his wife, Corina.

Guess the exercise program didn't work out. Or, perhaps his wife objected to the kinds of exercises Mayor Romeo was performing.

Blogs such as Mayor Sam have reported a rumor that the reason for his marriage's breakup is that Romeo has fathered a little bundle of joy -- but not with Corina.

This is unconfirmed, but if true, one suspects the evidence will show before long.

Then there's the debacle with Paris Hilton and Sheriff Lee "Xenu" Baca, which should need little explaining.

Although San Diegans are supposed to be jealous of L.A.'s higher profile, this is one category in which I'll gratefully concede precedence.

Microsoft hooks Linspire

2007-06-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

When you shake hands with Microsoft, count your fingers afterward. San Diego's Linspire may find that out, courtesy of an agreement it signed with Microsoft to make their computer operating systems work together better.

The deal was promptly attacked by prominent Linux supporters, who see it as part of Microsoft's long-term strategy to neuter a rival operating system it sees as a growing threat. Linspire sells a version of the non-proprietary, open-source Linux operating system. Microsoft, of course, sells its ultra-proprietary Windows operating system.

"Through this agreement, the companies will work to advance office document compatibility, enhance instant messaging interoperability and reinforce existing collaboration on digital media," the companies said in a June 13 press release announcing the deal. "In addition, Linspire will be providing its customers with the option of acquiring a patent covenant from Microsoft for customers operating the Linspire desktop."

Microsoft has been threatening legal action against Linux users, claiming that the non-proprietary software includes its intellectual property. The deal with Linspire is the latest in a series of non-aggression pacts Microsoft has signed with Linux makers, including Novell, Xandros and now Linspire.

Microsoft claims that Linux and other open-source software violates 235 of its patents. However, Microsoft has not identified the allegedly infringed patents. Defenders of Linux say Microsoft is attempting to scare companies away from using Linux by spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt, known by the acronym "FUD".

In the press release, Linspire chief executive Kevin Carmony said the agreement will make it easier for Linspire users to share documents and technologies to make Windows and Linux work better together. Read the entire press release here.

“Linspire has always been about choice, and this announcement continues our tradition of offering options for improved interoperability, enhanced functionality and confidence," Carmony said in the press release. "Over the years, in an effort to expand choice, we have entered into dozens of agreements with commercial software vendors. It certainly made sense to collaborate with Microsoft, one of the most important partners in the PC ecosystem."

However, Groklaw one of the foremost Web sites devoted to defending Linux and other open source software, said the deal is really about Microsoft's attempt to lock down all Linux competition. Microsoft will use these agreements to intimidate those using other versions of Linux not covered by its agreements.
Groklaw's post: "Linspire joins the plot:" is recommended reading. Find it here.

If you want to support Linux against Microsoft's suspiciously warm bear hug of an embrace, there are numerous other versions of Linux to use. There's Debian and Ubuntu Linux, for starters.

For those who don't understand how Linux works: take this Linux 101 online course..

More Patterico on Flight 327

2007-06-07T07:25:00.001-07:00

Patterico has just posted a very detailed article with more information from current air marshals who think Flight 327 was a terrorist dry run or probe.

This is precisely what I like to see in a story — plenty of meat on the bones. The readers know where you got your information from, what the sources told you, and why it is important. When you had to keep sources anonymous, you said so, and why. We weren’t left to wonder. Facts are spelled out, not just implied. And you have some unexpected eye-openers. (The unwritten policy of ignoring illegal immigrants is indefensible and incomprehensible).

The article also distinguishes between a probe and a dry run. A probe is simply looking for weaknesses. A dry run is a rehearsal for a plan already well advanced. Obviously, the latter is more serious.

Congratulations, Patterico, for doing the work the Washington Times didn't do.

Apology to Patterico

2007-06-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

I unfairly used harsh language in challenging blogger Patterico's claims about a Washington Times story on reports of terrorist dry runs. I apologize to him. Patterico did a very good job of providing the evidence the article did not provide. I should have known he would come through.

Read my fuller explanation at The Festering Swamp.

Another tired rant against anonymity

2007-05-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

This time, it's in the Washington Post. It's another in the sopoforic series of of deadly dull pontificating against the uncouth, unsanitary medium of blog comments.

Tom Grubisich writes:

"You would think Web sites would want to keep the hate-mongers from taking over, but many sites are unwitting enablers. At washingtonpost.com, editors and producers say they struggle to balance transparency against privacy. Until recently, many of the site's posters identified themselves with anonymous Internet handles -- which were the site's default ID. Now, people must enter a "user ID" that appears with their comments."

Yes, he wrote "user ID" in quotes. That says a lot about Grubisich's "opinion" of the "savvy" of the readers of his rant against anonymity on the "Internet". He then ponderously wades through the predictable arguments for anonymity, such as for whistleblowers, and, predictably, concedes that, yes some allowance must be made.

"If Web sites required posters to use their real names, while giving the shield of pseudonymity when it's merited, spirited online debate would continue unimpeded. It might even be enhanced by attracting contributors who are turned off today by name calling and worse. Except for the hate-mongers, who wouldn't want that?"

So it goes in Grubisich's mental simulation of the Internet. Only hate-mongers, he says would object to improving "spirited online debate" by controlling it. So that makes me a hate-monger, along with all the others who find such prissy, clueless babbling to be worse than useless. Flash: People are rude on the Internet! Flash! I've got a solution that's been proposed a gazillion times before! That makes me some Internet pioneer!

Grubisich really falls on his face when he points to washingtonpost.com -- where his piece appeared -- as an example of how controlled discussion can work. (A little kissing up never hurts, I guess). For example, read the comments about washingtonpost.com's new policy.

Grubisich linked to this announcement, but apparently didn't bother to read what people were saying. They weren't pleased. The commenters point out how the nifty feature of collecting a commenter's statements on a MyPost page doesn't work. (Derivative as hell, despite the Post's feeble disclaimer it is not copying MySpace).

For those too lazy to click, here's the entire list of comments on the MyPost announcement, as of May 15:

I like it. I think it will be a great way to actually see who is who on the site, and not have to deal with anon. trolls.
Posted by: amberdb | May 8, 2007 09:17 AM

Clicking on "wiredog" on the home page doesn't work, let's see if it works here.
Posted by: wiredog | May 8, 2007 10:24 AM

Nope. Doesn't work here, either.
Posted by: wiredog | May 8, 2007 10:26 AM

Can we have mypost on the blogs too? Pleeeeease!
Posted by: amberdb | May 8, 2007 11:16 AM

hi, i think this is a great idea. really super. but if it's launched already, why can't we access our posts when we click on our ID? please help. thanks.
Posted by: angelinalenahan.blogspot.com | May 8, 2007 12:37 PM

It is not set up on the blogs, but it works from other news articles. It should be set up on the blogs too!
Posted by: amberdb | May 8, 2007 02:32 PM

Uh, I just commented on an article, and it didn't give a link, either. This "MyPost" does not appear to be public at all. Are you sure you pushed it live? (Yes, I'm a Web geek.)
Oh, and will comments be connected to our IDs? My comment name is not the same as my WP user ID.
Posted by: The Cosmic Avenger | May 8, 2007 03:57 PM

Excellent.
Posted by: lcharters | May 14, 2007 10:00 AM

When will the Forums be restored to the state they were in when Lindsay was moderating?
Posted by: eerieindiana | May 14, 2007 10:37 AM

where is MyPost
Posted by: testing | May 14, 2007 12:38 PM

If this MyPost exists, then it is not showing up on my PC (tried using Opera and IE to find it).
Posted by: Tirade | May 14, 2007 05:15 PM

Well, clicking on my name doesn't work, and I can't make any comments after any articles. All I get is "View all the comments" and there are none, and "Make a comment" can't be accessed. Am I missing out on something or is this not operational yet?
Posted by: psherman | May 14, 2007 09:56 PM

This is a great idea. Perhaps this is why I haven't been able to post after the articles for the last week.
Posted by: Lynne | May 15, 2007 07:54 PM

I just posted a comment, it didn't show. What's up?
Posted by: Lynne | May 15, 2007 07:56 PM

This looks like a watered down version of usatoday.com's user profiles.
Posted by: Huh? | May 15, 2007 09:22 PM

There you have it: the chasm between the reality of the user experience, and the pompous pontifications and bloviations of so-called Web experts pandering to empty suits at corporate behemoths.

The place is Traxx

2007-05-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

I'm just passing through Irvine on Amtrak, headed to the meetup of fans of the late Cathy Seipp. We denizens of The Festering Swamp will enjoy socialite, convivialite, bibulosite.

Liveblogging will follow at the event on TFS. So hie thee hence, beginning around 3 p.m. Saturday, PDT.

Blackwhite Department

2007-05-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

War is peace
Freedom is slavery
DRM benefits consumers

Meetup of Cathy's Fans This Saturday

2007-05-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

Someone just called me about my blog, asking how many times I updated it.

Not enough.

But most of my blog writing is now at the Festering Swamp, linked to in the headline above. Click on it and go there.

If you're too lazy to click, here's the post, made May 9:

--------------------------

Inland San Diego has been sweltering the last couple of days. So when I got home today I rushed straight to the shower to cool off and degrime. Scrubbing away with soap felt deliciously refreshing.

This soap came from Lisa of Goatboy Soaps, who sent it and lip balm to liven up our meetup this Saturday at the bar in Traxx Restaurant, at Union Station, at 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. The soap is deliciously aromatic and felt very soft on the skin. Each soap is imprinted with a lovely dragonfly design. I also enjoyed the lip balm, which is also scented in lemonade or watermelon. (Well I had to try it out to tell you what to expect . . .)

Thanks Lisa!

Be one of the first 19 at Traxx, and these luxurious party favors are yours. When you shower with the soap and anoint yourself with the lip balm, you'll experience what I mean.

Patterico, we hope you can show up, along with others of your blogging peers who admired Cathy's work or just want to check out the scene. Bring your famous Treo.

Mark and David Ehrenstein, hope you can make it!

Mike K., LYT, Dana, DNS and Julie Scott, it'll be a pleasure.

allan, you'll keep the quips flowing!

Lurkers who haven't commented, ya gotta show up! Our new commenter Anonymous (who really needs a nym), please introduce yourself.

Taco Bell Chihuahua, ¡vamanos! ¡bebemos! ¡borrachamos!

No RSPV required. We're just going to congregate for however long we want. Although if anyone knows they'll be going, it would be nice to know. so I can budget for all the shots of Patron.

No Showdown At The Festering Swamp

2007-04-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

This new blog, set up by some of my commenting pals from the late Cathy Seipp's blog, has become a beast. As in "feed the beast". It demands more time, more words. Must ... be ... fed.

So I have a good excuse for not frequently posting. You'll see more of my stuff festering there than here.

We just had a pretty good discussion earlier today on abortion, the weather and the merits of basil, tomato and goat-cheese pizza.

We're being nice to each other, in part I think because we're still stunned by Cathy's death last month. It wasn't unexpected, as she had battled lung cancer for years. But the awful finality is something you can't really understand until it happens. She lived a good life, short as it was.

Or maybe we're being so darn nice because we're so contrary. I half-expected a flame war to break out on abortion, which I posted on. And I hinted as much.

But just to confound me, everyone was thoughtful. Passionate, direct, but also respectful. The very opposite behavior of what tech publisher Tim O'Reilly fretted about in his ill-fated call for a bloggers' code of conduct.

Where, oh where did I go wrong?

Cargo Cult Journalism

2007-04-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

I've got a new piece up at The Festering Swamp on a highly deceptive Washington Post story about Bush's "sixteen words" on Iraq seeking uranium from Africa. The story used an anecdote about the forged documents about a sale of uranium to discredit the idea that Iraq had ever sought uranium in the first place. The two don't follow, but that's concealed through the reporter's evasive language.

The story, brought to my attention by Patterico, shocked me because it was published in such a reputable newspaper. It has still not been corrected. So much for the Post's respect for factual accuracy.

I think the Iraq war is a bad idea. However, my personal thoughts shouldn't enter into whether a story is factually accurate. Double standards don't fly with me.

I am consciously invoking the spirit of scientific rigor the late Cathy Seipp quoted from Richard Feynman:

And the one feature Feynman noticed is missing from all cargo-cult science is what he calls “a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to...a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it.”

Seipp showed that spirit in her own journalism, when she attacked the unethical behavior of Michael Fumento, another conservative reporter.

. . . Fumento says (after suggesting that his nemesis, Business Week's Eamon Javers, has a "grease-lined hat") I should not have cooperated with the NY Times. According to his way of thinking, we on the right are all in this together, and should circle the wagons against any attack. But I have no more sympathy for that argument than I do for the notion that Jews should support Jack Abramoff.

Reporters need that spirit, or we end up with cargo-cult journalism like the Washington Post uranium story.

Sunshine on the Seipps

2007-04-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

Harvey Seipp and his late daughter Cathy. They are basking in the sun, Canadian-style (face away from the solar disc.) Taken at Cathy's roast-tribute on Sept. 10, 2006. I didn't post this photo because of the glaring sun, but now it looks somehow rather comforting.

Wallow in the Festering Swamp!

2007-03-31T12:39:00.000-07:00

Festering Swamp is a new blog, in honor of Cathy Seipp, run by some of her fans: David N. Scott, his wife Julie Scott, Mike (in S.A.) LaRoche, and moi.

Here is my first post, about liberal media bias. Yes, it does exist, even if some of the conservative complaints are overblown. I think Cathy's obituary provided an example of this liberal bias in action. Read the entry to see why.

As to what happened since Cathy died . . . well, I attended her funeral on March 23 in Los Angeles, driving up with the estimable Mike K. It was quite a moving service, especially the tribute by best friend Sandra Tsing Loh. I'm going to link later to some of the tributes to Cathy, which are far better than anything I could write.

Have a good weekend.

A Hard, Honest Look at Linux

2007-03-22T17:05:00.000-07:00

The various versions of the Linux OS have made great strides in useability in recent years. I'm typing this entry on a PC running Debian Linux. Here, I'm free of the onerous copy restriction and other DRM embedded into Windows, especially the clunky, hardware-hogging Windows Vista. But Linux doesn't have enough software to totally substitute for Windows. Here's a good look at the issues that can arise when using Linux.

I'm not knocking Linux by any means. But we're still not totally free of the need for Windows in some instances. The Linux community is hard at work reducing that need.

A Petition Worth Signing

2007-03-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

Sign this cyber-petition if you liked Cathy Seipp.

After a valiant struggle, Cathy Seipp succumbs

2007-03-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

Cathy Seipp, who was hovering on the brink of death for the past two days, has finally succumbed.. She died shortly after 2 p.m. Wednesday, March 21.

For those who wish to do something in her memory, donations to the Lung Cancer Alliance and the Humane Society of the United States are encouraged.

UPDATE: I hesitate to contradict Cathy on her own memorial wishes, but I cannot recommend the Humane Society of the United States, due to its opposition to animal research. The medicines that kept Cathy alive were first tested in animals. Instead, I suggest contributing to a local animal shelter. The San Diego Humane Society and SPCA is one such worthy group.

Fans of Cathy to Visit

2007-03-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

Cathy Seipp accumulated a diverse and eclectic set of friends and fans. To know them is to know a little something about her. Here's some must-visit Web sites and blogs along that journey:

Amy Alkon
Andrew Breitbart
Emmanuelle Richard
Jackie Danicki
David Ehrenstein
Ray Richmond
Rip Rense
Luke Ford
Maia Lazar
Mike in S.A.
Nancy Catmull Matocha
Nancy Rommelman
Luke Y. Thompson
Matt Welch

More TK

Cathy Seipp -- A Wonderful Life, Too Short

2007-03-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

After years of struggling with lung cancer, Cathy Seipp, writer, blogger and one of the most extraordinary personalities in Los Angeles, is reaching the end of her life this week. I was an avid reader and regular commenter on her blog, Cathy's World.

UPDATE: I have changed this post so as to say Cathy has not actually died as of this writing, but is in the process of dying. As of Tuesday evening, she was still alive at Cedars-Sinai, but not expected to live much longer.

Several things made Cathy stand out from other writers. One, her almost unfailing sense of humor and ability to write about depressing subjects (such as battling the HMO bureaucracy), with a deft, light touch. Two, her sense of fairness for the underdog, and willingness to stick it to the powerful types -- deftly. Three, her ability to blaze her own political and philosophical trail, not being captured by political correctness of the left or right. And four, her curiosity and willingness to explore the thoughts and lifestyles of people quite different from her.

Cathy was not only a delight to read, and, on the two times I met her, a delightful person, she set an example as a journalist that challenged me to be better.
There is so much more to say, and words are inadequate. If you want to get a sense of her life, read her blog, and look at a few of the clips from her roast/tribute in Los Angeles on Sept. 10 of last year. Here are mine, and over here are the DVD files, converted for Web viewing. Thanks to doug for hosting these files.

Peace to Cathy. Healing from your family and friends to her beloved daughter, Maia.

The Microsoft Way: Having To Pay For Love

2007-03-17T21:57:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is offering free services and other credits to companies that agree to use its Live Web search, reportes John Batelle's Searchblog.

Apparently, Microsoft is unhappy about the low adoption of Live search; more employees prefer to use Google. So in the classic Microsoft tradition, it tries to boost an inferior product, not by making it better, but by pulling out its checkbook.

Microsoft's plan is to get executives to agree to these perks, then cajole or force their employees to use Live search. From Searchblog:

The presentation goes into detail about how a large company might promote this program to its employees, suggesting three levels of communication - "low, moderate, and high." Moderate and high promotions include "In-house training session on ‘how to get the most from web search’ using Windows Live Search," "Remove all existing toolbars," "Set Homepage to Live Search," and "Email message of encouragement from CEO." IE 7 is mandatory for the program, as one might expect.

If you can't compete, cheat. That's what Microsoft did to Netscape, according to the antitrust case that declared Microsoft a monopolist that unlawfully used it clout. And that's what Microsoft did with its absurd response to the Mac switcher ads, featuring a PR flack hired to play someone who switched to Windows.

This sleazy approach makes it all the more outrageous that Microsoft keeps on raising its price for Windows. It should instead be paying its users to suffer through the innumerable annoyances and deliberate crippling of its OS, such as ever more restrictive DRM.

I'm avoiding these hassles at home by using Linux as much as feasible. This update is being typed on a computer that originally ran Windows 2000, since upgraded to Debian Linux, which is free. Truth be told, I paid $40 bucks for a Linux guide that contained the Debian CD; still far cheaper than Windows. (There are easier forms of Linux, such as the Debian-based Xandros or Ubuntu, but I wanted to really learn some fundamentals). So this 7-year-old computer (Dell Optiplex GX110 with 500MHz CPU and 512MB RAM) is running quite nicely. Windows Vista would choke it. And I can install Debian from the CD onto as many computers as I like. Microsoft locks down Windows onto one computer.
Microsoft is quite correct in complaining that people are infringing on its intellectual property by copying its software without permission. I urge everyone not to do this. And the surest way to avoid such infringement is to avoid using Microsoft products. Debian or some other open source operating system lets you copy to your heart's content -- legally.

Debian can be tricky for the Linux newcomer. I installed it in command-line form from the CD-ROM, then installed the KDE GUI from a remote server. I had a problem with the fonts looking ugly, but just now fixed it. There's an option for fonts for anti-aliasing. This option, in the Control Center under Appearances and Themes/Fonts, must be checked to activate anti-aliasing. Now everything looks much better.

Thank you, Debian. And thanks to this book, which is proving a great help in learning Debian.

Advance in stem cell therapy

2007-03-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

Human therapy with embryonic stem cells is now possible, according to a new study published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine by researchers from the Burnham Institute and an international team. Here is my story on the study.

Human embryonic stem cells, turned into neural stem cells, reduced symptoms and increased life expectancy of mice bred to have the fatal genetic disorder Sandhoff's disease, related to Tay-Sachs.

Evan Y. Snyder, a top stem cell researcher at the Burnham, told me he is prepared to go into the clinic and test the therapy on humans.

The study has three exciting implications:

1: The embryonic stem cells did not cause tumors or other adverse reactions. That has been a big problem with embryonic stem cells, and a reason why there is no human therapy yet with these cells.

2: "Adult" human neural stem cells, also tested, were just as effective as the neural stem cells created from the embryonic stem cells. (However, it was easier to "scale up" production of the neural cells from embryonic stem cells).

3: The human embryonic stem cells were from a line approved by President Bush in August, 2001. These cell lines were thought to be of little use in therapy, partially because they had been grown on "feeder cells" from animals, exposing them to animal viruses and proteins, which could cause diseases and rejection by the immune sytem. But the cells used were grown without the animal cells for three years, Snyder said. And in the mice tests, no immunnosuppresive drugs were needed. That's important for human therapy, because such drugs make people more vulnerable to infection.

4: The stem cells repair brain damage (partially, this is not a cure) by multiple mechanisms, Snyder said. They work on several levels to restore normal brain activity.

Newswise has a 7-point recap of the paper's significant findings:

1. First successful use of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in a degenerative disease, significantly preserving function and prolonging life in this animal model, and laying the groundwork for a potential clinical trial.
2. First demonstration that stem cells employ multiple mechanisms – not just cell replacement -- to benefit disease
3. First use of hESCs grown in a manner suitable for clinical use (i.e., without contaminating mouse cells).
4. First head-to-head comparison of human embryonic and “adult” stem cells in the same disease model using the same metrics in the hands of the same investigators.
5. First evidence that stem cells, including hESCs may also have anti-inflammatory actions.
6. First demonstration that immunosuppression may not be necessary for successful transplantation in some diseases, making applications to a broad range of patients easier
7. First evidence that stem cell-derived nerve cells may integrate electrically and functionally into a diseased brain.

Left-right civility

2007-03-03T17:27:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote of my unpleasant experience with the unhinged moonbat Bush-haters who seem to dominate the liberal blog site Sadly, No! (There was at least one voice of reason, but he was outshouted by the lynch mob).

More recently, unhinged moonbat ultra-righty Ann Coulter spewed her vile "faggot" remark at a meeting of Republican conservatives looking over presidential contenders. Props to Patterico, a reasonable conservative, who has repeatedly denounced Coulter's hate speech.

Let's hear it for reasonable conservatives and liberals who don't demonize the other side or use such bigoted language.

Fumento's Folly

2007-02-24T09:41:00.000-08:00

Michael Fumento, best known for shoe-horning his right-wing views into factually incorrect "science" articles, just saw his low credibility take another hit.

Fumento claimed in the Feb. 8 issue of the Daily Standard that scientists have been covering up the "fact" that human adult stem cells have been proven as effective as embryonic stem cells into turning to the various specialized cells needed to treat diseases.

. . .Yet it's been virtually a state secret that for over five years researchers, beginning with a team headed by physician Catherine Verfaillie of the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute, have been reporting numerous types of adult stem cells (she used those from marrow) that in the lab could form mature cells from three germ layers. Experiments around the world have clearly shown that adult stem cells from one germ layer can be converted into those of another in a living human, such as those that have turned adipose tissue stem cells from the mesoderm germ layer into neuronal cells from the ectoderm germ layer. (It also produced bone; cartilage; skeletal; cardiac muscle; and blood cells among others but these are all mesodermal.). . .

That research has been found to be flawed, calling its conclusions into question
Adult Stem Cell Study Flawed, Panel Says

By JOSHUA FREED, Associated Press Writer
Friday, February 23, 2007

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A scientific panel says a 2002 study that suggested adult stem cells might be as useful as embryonic ones was flawed and its conclusions may be wrong, a finding that raises questions about the promise of a less controversial source for stem cells.
The research by Catherine Verfaillie at the University of Minnesota concluded that adult stem cells taken from the bone marrow of mice could grow into an array of biological tissues, including brain, heart, lung and liver.
So far only embryonic stem cells, which are commonly retrieved by destroying embryos at an early stage of development, are known to hold such regenerative promise. Many scientists believe they might one day be used to treat certain diseases and other conditions.
Opponents of stem cell research seized on the 2002 findings as evidence that stem cell science could move forward without destroying embryos. But Verfaillie has acknowledged flaws in parts of the study after inquiries from the British magazine New Scientist, which first publicized the questions last week. . .

Even if that research were flawless, it still wouldn't prove that adult stem cells are useful for human therapy. The AP article mentions a significant fact Fumento omitted: Verfaillie's experiments were performed with bone marrow cells from mice. Considering how many times we've cured cancer in mice, only to have the treatments fail in humans, that fact is quite pertinent.

Fumento has for years been painting a fantasy world in which human adult human stem cells are as useful as human embryonic stem cells for treating diseases. This idea pleases Fumento's right-wing audience, much of which is morally opposed to research with embryonic stem cells. I've talked to top stem cell scientists for years, and they tell a different story. The scientific view at this point is that for certain uses, adult stem cells may work okay, but for others you may need embryonic stem cells. That at least is what the top scientists in the field say; Fumento has been busily distorting and cherry-picking to push his own false picture of science.

I have no moral objection to research with human embryonic stem cells. But I'd be extremely happy if adult stem cells were found suitable for treating the diseases embryonic stem cell research is targeting. It would save lives without the political/ethical qualms, and if "cloning" or somatic cell nuclear transfer is not necessary, ethical problems from seeking human eggs would be eradicated.

But it's unethical journalism to falsely portray this field just to please one's audience, as Fumento routinely does. Fumento can only be excused on two grounds: one, he's a political activist and not a journalist, or two, he simply doesn't understand what he's writing about. A reporter doesn't have to be trained as a scientist to be a good science writer. But science writers must study the issues and get an understanding of the principles of science, and go wherever the data leads them. This data-driven mind-set is fundamentally different than that of the political advocacy world Fumento inhabits. And politicized science produces error-strewn work that true scientists and their followers can only mock. Fumento, after all, wrote on page 10 of his book BioEvolution that DNA is a two-stranded molecule of protein.

Conservatives who get their facts from Fumento are setting themselves up for a pratfall. And those looking for cures for their diseases from adult stem cells shouldn't read Fumento for guidance. They'll only wind up with false hope and crushed expectations.

Blog-ignorant reporter in action

2007-02-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

Reading stories about the blogosphere by obviously blog-clueless reporters is painful:

Political bloggers fear publicists will infiltrate sites
By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent February 23, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Erick Erickson has been running the popular blog Redstate.com long enough to know what his readers' postings sound like: red-meat conservative rhetoric served up with a little dash of populist anger.

So when postings from an unknown writer on the site showed up praising Senator John McCain -- one of the site's least-popular Republicans for his deviations from hard-core conservative orthodoxy -- Erickson thought he smelled a rat.

Or maybe a sock puppet, shill, or a troll -- Web slang for bloggers who pretend to be grass-roots political commentators but instead are paid public relations agents. . .

The reporter evidently has never heard these terms before, and got them garbled when hearing them in the course of reporting the story. Sock puppet, shill and troll have completely different meanings.

Here's a primer in these words for Mr. Wirzbicki:

A sock puppet is a false Web identity constructed by a person who also posts under his real name. The false Web identity is used to post material the person doesn't wish to have associated with him or her.

A shill is someone who acts as an agent for someone else, either openly or surreptitiously.

A troll is someone who deliberately posts inflammatory messages for the purpose of causing arguments.

That much-derided MSM does some good

2007-02-22T07:35:00.000-08:00

The Bush Administration has been spurred to action by the WaPo story about decrepit facilities at Walter Reed:

Swift Action Promised at Walter Reed
Investigations Urged as Army Moves to Make Repairs, Improve Staffing

By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 21, 2007; Page A08

The White House and congressional leaders called yesterday for swift investigation and repair of the problems plaguing outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, as veterans groups and members of Congress in both parties expressed outrage over substandard housing and the slow, dysfunctional bureaucracy there.

Top Army officials yesterday visited Building 18, the decrepit former hotel housing more than 80 recovering soldiers, outside the gates of the medical center. Army Secretary Francis Harvey and Vice Chief of Staff Richard Cody toured the building and spoke to soldiers as workers in protective masks stripped mold from the walls and tore up soiled carpets.

At the White House, press secretary Tony Snow said that he spoke with President Bush yesterday about Walter Reed and that the president told him: "Find out what the problem is and fix it."

Snow said Bush "first learned of the troubling allegations regarding Walter Reed from the stories this weekend in The Washington Post. He is deeply concerned and wants any problems identified and fixed." The spokesman said he did not know why the president, who has visited the facility many times in the past five years, had not heard about these problems before. . .

Of course, such repairs cost money. Congress can easily cut the bloated budget to pay for this, however. I suggest Congress starts with the $20 million it has earmarked for an Iraq victory celebration.

P.S. -- Those of you who encounter irritating registration requirements at these links should try BugMeNot.com, a free service that provides pre-filled IDs and passwords. BugMeNot works only for sites with free registration.

If you like BugMeNot, you can make it work even better in Firefox with an extension that automates the process. Just right-click on the login field and the extension does the rest! You can get it here.

Help Jerry Roberts

2007-02-18T08:16:00.000-08:00

Former editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press, Jerry Roberts is being sued for $25 million by the paper's eccentric billionaire owner, Wendy McCaw. (She got her money from divorcing cellular telephone pioneer Craig McCaw). What used to be a solid newspaper has been sent into turmoil by McCaw's crusade to install her hand-picked loyalists. The paper's best reporters and editors have left or have been fired, choosing to be loyal to their principles and journalistic ethics, not McCaw's distorted understanding of journalism and craving for servility.

Roberts is not only fighting McCaw's attempt to financially ruin him, he is fighting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of blood cancer. McCaw, who is very much concerned with preventing cruelty to animals, appears rather less compassionate to humans who run afoul of her.

You can help by contributing to Roberts' legal defense fund. (H/T: LA Observed.)

For more news about Santa Barbara and McCaw's latest antics at the Santa Barbara Independent (which McCaw is also suing), BlogaBarbara and Craig Smith's Blog.

McCaw's loopy allegations that the former employees were violating journalistic standards have not convinced the journalistic community. Last year, the Society for Professional Journalists gave an award to nine former News-Press employees for their support of journalistic ethics.

McCaw tried to convince the SPJ not to give the former News-Pressers the award, but there's some things even her money can't buy. Journalistic respectability is one of them.

Ode to a Disgruntled Reporter

2007-02-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

Charley Stough, editor of the Burned Out Newspapercreatures Guild, writes the incomparable BONG Bulletin, full of darkly satirical musings about the workaday world of journalism. Here is a sample nugget from Stough, a copy editor, to a disgrunted reporter:

"I wouldn't mess with your stories. Your stories are perfect, just like you. I place your stories on a pedestal and bask in their radiance. I imagine sitting with them in darkened bistros, with soft music of Gypsy violins and eunuchs for waiters, dreaming of ancient wonders and exotic poetry, sipping fine wines and rejoicing in the feel of silk on skin. Why would I change a word of your stories?"

Welcome to the Dextrosphere!

2007-02-17T08:02:00.001-08:00

There's a new conservative blog in San Diego. Red County/San Diego, made its cyber-debut Thursday with contributions from local Republican leaders and discussion of news relating to San Diego County.

Contributors include Rep. Brian Bilbray, Encinitas City Councilman Jerome Stocks, State Senator Mark Wyland (38th District), Assemblyman Martin Garrick (R-74th District), former La Mesa councilman Barry Jantz and Jennifer Jacobs, partner in the public affairs and political consulting firm Coronado Communications.

Friday's postings include a piece by Bilbray on the Iraq war. Bilbray criticized a nonbinding resolution in the House of Representatives opposing President Bush's "surge" plan. Bilbray said the resolution is a waste of time.

Wyland contributed an item on illegal immigration that praised Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as "the only major Republican candidate who is willing to be tough on this issue."

The blog also includes a news roundup featuring copious links to articles in the North County Times and Union-Tribune.

Sporting the motto, "Politics from the Center Right," RCSD is the third in a series of Red County blogs from Partisan Media Group. The Red County blogs are complemented by a print magazine, Red County.

My favorite headline so far is from Jacobs, "Is Being a Blogger Bad?"

I sure hope not!

(The article is actually a discussion of her parents' views of bloggers, which segues into Bank of America going after the illegal immigrant market with credit cards that don't require Social Security numbers in the application. And there's an advantage to this for everyone -- a relaxation of the widespread use of SSNs for non-governmental purposes. Overuse of these numbers makes identity theft easier).

Darwin musical tributes tonight, Saturday

2007-02-06T12:07:00.000-08:00

I've been dilatory about writing about one of my favorite groups: Dr. Stephen Baird and the Opossums of Truth. This group performs concerts every year in honor of Charles Darwin's birthday, which is Feb. 12.

I missed one of the concerts, but two are upcoming this week:

Feb. 6, 2007 at 7:30 p.m., the musical marsupials perform at the North Coast Repertory Theater in Solana Beach.
Cost is $20 for adults, $17 for seniors 65 and over, and $12.00 for students with ID. Tickets are available here: http://tinyurl.com/3aczuv .
Feb. 10, the Opossums perform at the UCSD Medical School Liebow Auditorium on the campus of UCSD in La Jolla.
Cost is $10 for students and $20 for adults.
Brownies will be served after the concerts in honor of Darwin. Group leader Stephen Baird, M.D., a Solana Beach resident, is a UCSD Medical Center professor of pathology and chief of staff at the Veterans Administration Medical Center. The Opossums nest on the Web at http://www.scientificgospel.com .
For more information, call Carol Baird at 858-481-8511.

No Credit from The Guardian

2007-02-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

The UK-based Guardian newspaper has published a story stating that the American Enterprise Institute offered scientists $10,000 each to write articles critical of the new IPCC report on global warming.

The AEI hasn't denied offering the money, but claims it was for an honest report and didn't want it slanted to be skeptical of global warming. That's simply not credible, considering how the letter was worded. It was obviously aiming to get support for a conclusion it wanted. It asks for papers that: "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

This kind of "research" by scientists-for-hire is common among think tanks and companies trying to buy support. As a reporter, I constantly see evidence of this financial manipulation of "science" to fool the public. Oil companies (and others) know they are not held in as high regard as ostensibly independent scientists, supposedly engaged in a pure search for truth. So these companies and the think tanks they fund try to downplay their role in favor of these supposedly independent "experts," who often are just shills. The public is not told that these scientists are not really functioning as scientists, but as PR guns. Not that there's anything wrong with PR. Openly conducted PR is honorable. It's the deception that's offensive and unethical. Perhaps the evidence for man-caused global warming is weaker than generally believed. That should be determined in open scientific debate, not by a PR campaign pretending to be scientific. Hint to AEI: Real scientific research isn't limited by preordained findings.

Now here's where the Guardian's journalism becomes suspect. The article didn't include the entire letter, although it is available. A blog called "DeSmogBlog" posted the letter and told pretty much the same story as the Guardian -- in November. Yet the blog is not credited. (DeSmogBlog, which posts an impressive amount of material I haven't yet had a chance to explore, says its goal is "to clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change.")

Did the Guardian find out about the letter by itself, without using DeSmogBlog as a source? I doubt it. The letter was sent to the same scientist the Guardian just happened to interview. And it was easily findable -- I got it in just 5 minutes of Googling. Any reasonably competent reporter could have done the same in researching the story. I'd certainly check to see if someone else had beaten me to the punch. And if so, I'd credit them.

Whether or not it saw the DeSmogBlog post, the Guardian ought to acknowledge it was not the first to report on this disturbing unethical behavior by the American Enterprise Institute.

What bothers me about the Washington Post . . .

2007-01-30T12:38:00.000-08:00

. . . is how it often prints opinion columns from lobbyists or other self-interested parties without revealing that information.

One example I saw today is a piece discounting harm from second-hand smoke, written by one Gio Batta Gori. Here is how the Post described him:

Gio Batta Gori, an epidemiologist and toxicologists,(sic) (UPDATE -- this typo is now corrected -- BJF) is a fellow of the Health Policy Center in Bethesda. He is a former deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention, and he received the U.S. Public Health Service Superior Service Award in 1976 for his efforts to define less hazardous cigarettes. Gori's article "The Surgeon General's Doctored Opinion" will appear in the spring issue of the Cato Institute's Regulation Magazine.

That sounds pretty good. Suspiciously good, to my eyes, because the article presented very little evidence. It read like a lobbyist's talking points. Well, that's what Gori became after he left the U.S. government. But the Washington Post didn't tell me that. I had to find it out myself.

My first stop was SourceWatch. Admittedly, this group has a liberal, anticorporate bias. But if Gori had any tobacco ties, this place would reveal them. Here is part of what SourceWatch said about him:

. . .In 1980 Gori became Vice President of the Franklin Institute Policy Analysis Center (FIPAC), a consulting firm funded initially by a $400,000 grant from the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation (B&W). Following its initial formation, FIPAC continued to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding annually from B&W. Gori worked on R&D projects for B&W, such as analysis of the sensory perception of smoke and how to reduce the amount of tobacco in cigarettes. By 1989, Gori was a full time consultant on environmental tobacco smoke issue for the Tobacco Institute in the Institute's ETS/IAQ (Indoor Air Quality) Consultants Project. In May 1993, Gori entered an exclusive consulting arrangement with B&W, reaping pay at the rate of $200/hour an day to $1,000/day for attending conferences.

Activities in which Gori engaged on behalf of the tobacco industry included attending conferences, writing and publishing books and papers, and lobbying.

But there's more. Even when he was with the government, Gori was known for being pro-tobacco. This excerpt is from a 1978 Time magazine article about the flap raised by Jimmy Carter's praise of tobacco:

The Tobacco Institute, lobby for the industry, declared, "We could not have written it [Carter's statement] better than that." And almost as if on cue, Gio Batta Gori, a high official of the Government-financed National Cancer Institute, announced a short-term study showing that some of the new cigarettes were so low in toxins that they could be smoked in "tolerable" numbers without appreciable bad effects on average smokers.

At the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which runs the antismoking campaign, people muttered a few words of sympathy for a President caught up in politics and went about their job of urging the nation to give up cigarettes. But when the new report on "tolerable" cigarette smoking hit the front pages, both an alarmed Surgeon General and Gori's boss at NCI went public to repudiate Gori and make sure everyone understood that cigarette smoking was still not considered safe. The federal antismoking campaign thus rolled on, expecting an extra $10 million from Carter's new budget.

Gori also admitted being paid to write pro-tobacco letters, according to this article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The agency began studying the issue in 1988. In the months leading up to the agency's final report, Tobacco Institute officials began planning ways to blunt what they anticipated would be the study's negative findings. They began an international search for scientists willing to criticize the report.

In one unsigned institute memo dated July 9, 1993, under the heading "Project: Recruitment of additional scientific consultants," the author expressed what the cigarette companies were looking for:

"Top priorities are a cardiologist and a numbers person (epidemiologist, biostatistician)," it read. "Ideal are people at or near retirement with no dependence on grant-dispensing bureaucracies."

Among the people they came up with was Dr. Gio Batta Gori, a former top official at the National Cancer Institute who now works as a consultant to the tobacco industry.

Between December 1992 and July 1993, Gori was paid $20,137 for two letters to the Wall Street Journal, one letter to the British medical publication The Lancet, one letter to the NCI Journal and one opinion piece to the Wall Street Journal, the records show.

The opinion piece was rejected by the editors of the Wall Street Journal, but that didn't stop Gori from billing the law firm of Covington and Burling $4,137.50 for it.

Gori, now a private consultant for tobacco in Bethesda, Md., said he didn't particularly remember the letters. "This is six years ago. Who the hell remembers those things?" he said.

He said there was nothing wrong with getting paid to write the letters. That's his job, he said.

"Are you getting paid for what you're writing?" he asked. "We're all out there working."

Of course, anybody with ethics would know what's wrong here: Gori is being paid for his propaganda, while pretending to be a neutral expert. He was hired to give a false facade of scientific integrity to a PR campaign. Being a tobacco industry rent-a-scientist is nothing to be proud of.

I found all this in a few minutes of Googling. Apparently, the editors of the Post don't know how to Google, or don't care that they're publishing an article by a tobacco lobbyist without identifying him as such.

Thank-yous -- Blake Ross and Google

2007-01-28T21:38:00.000-08:00

First, to Firefox Project co-founder Blake Ross. I won a copy of his "Firefox for Dummies" book. I asked it to be sent to my friend Andrew Kleske, the Webmaster at the North County Times. It arrived about two weeks ago, with a nice dedication from Blake himself. One small step toward making the Web more Firefox-friendly. At some point, I'm going to write about how much better Firefox has made my Web experience.

Second, thanks to Google, which has removed the objectionable self-promoting link I mentioned a while ago. We all make mistakes, but correcting them is much rarer.

I might add that so far, my conversion (forced actually), to the new Blogger has gone smoothly. I could not log onto the old Blogger, Google apparently having decided it was my turn. I resisted for as long as I could, knowing that there are often bugs in anything new. And the old Blogger was doing pretty much what I needed it to.

So far, so good.

Cat-happiness for Kevin Drum!

2007-01-28T21:04:00.000-08:00

Just a couple weeks after his beloved cat Jasmine suddenly died, Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly has brought back Friday Cat Blogging. The new feline in the drum household, Domino, is asserting her authority over Inkspot, who has gradually grown used to being Kitty No.2.

Best wishes from a fellow ailurophile!

Webifying the LA Times

2007-01-25T07:08:00.000-08:00

Blogger Patterico has some wise advice for the Los Angeles Times about how to improve its Web presence. The Times announced yesterday it will make the Web the primary means of delivering news.

Better late than never, I suppose.

A full 10 years ago, I asked the editors of the mazagine I then worked for, Computer Retail Week, whether we should be writing for the Web first. I never got a definitive answer, as they were struggling with that question themselves. But that was understandable a decade ago. It's a wonder the LAT held out this long before making a Web-first commitment.

Patterico urges the Times to go far beyond just getting stories on the Web quickly. He wants to see the Times make much broader use of Web technology, by posting relevant documents mentioned in a story and ---- painful as this may be ---- open up all the stories to comments and trackbacks.

He writes:

I know, I know. You’re worried about opening the floodgates. What about spam? What about idiots, nincompoops, trolls, racist commenters, and the like?

Welcome to the Internet.

You’ll have to devote some people to controlling that stuff. The L.A. Times web site is a big operation, with something like 40 times the number of unique visitors per month as my site, and something like 300 times the number of page views I get. If you open all of that up to comments and trackbacks, you’re looking at a lotta spam. I understand.

But if you want interactivity, that’s the price you pay.

Precisely. If the Times is serious about interactivity, it requires people to manage it. Idiot savant Michael Kinsley botched the experiment when he was running the editorial pages. He didn't put enough resources into monitoring Web comments, which were posted without moderation. And then he got in a snit because antisocial types began posting goatses. That's something any experienced Web hand could have told him would happen. Sadly, that debacle confirmed the misgivings of anti-Internet fossils at the Times.

If the Times is really clueful, it will also heed Patterico's plea to make the site fully compatible with his and other mobile devices:

Oh yeah . . . by the way, guys: can you finally fix the site so I can read all the articles on my Treo? I mean, there’s no reason for you to care about me– but I guarantee you that I’m not the only person with this issue.

Given all the corporate turmoil the Times is going through -- including the menacing prospect of being acquired by Rupert Murdoch -- I wonder if the Times' executives can keep their focus on this project.

I wish the LAT all successs in its Internet project.

New Improved Cathy Seipp roast videos!

2007-01-23T07:55:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally figured out how to rip the DVD made of the Cathy Seipp roast/tribute on Sept. 10 at the Figueroa Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. These are all on YouTube, and require Flash to see and hear.

UPDATE: Here is the entire DVD:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

Part 8:

Part 9:

Part 10:

Part 11: Sandra Tsing Loh pays tribute to a true "sister".

Part 12: Cathy, speaking last, thanks all of those who cared enough to show up on a Sunday afternoon to eat, drink and pay tribute to her.

The End. Just after Cathy's response, the formal program ended. Various friends and admirers of Cathy are interviewed.

And here are other snippets from the roast/tribute, cut a bit differently to show some highlights.

Cathy's sane, moderate blog commenters. Video is of Cathy reacting:

http://tinyurl.com/2ye2xt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m...h? v=mlrxG_4boVk
Intro video to Cathy's roast/tribute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G...h? v=GrfHPXmJtPw
Cathy's lovers and hatas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY1Z-GXWlpI
Nikki Finke sock puppets bash Cathy

http://tinyurl.com/3ysxwg
A certain carrot-topped, rudeness-punishing godless harlot of an advice columnist cooks Cathy to perfection.

http://tinyurl.com/2mq5dc
Cathy roasted to a crisp by the Notorious L.Y.T.

Animal rights deceivers and hidden agendas

2007-01-21T08:06:00.000-08:00

The militant animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has done a great job of getting its agenda into the press through its front group, Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine. Under the guise of improving medical care, PCRM has been pushing the PETA party line -- don't eat foods derived from animals, don't conduct medical research on animals. I take a look at this in my latest science and technology column.

I am all in favor of minimizing pain to animals, and restricting animal testing to what is needed to advance medicine. Cruelty to animals is sick. But it's not cruel to use animals to test drugs or medical procedures for safety and efficacy before trying them in humans.

Holocaust Abusers
PETA president Ingrid Newkirk and PCRM president Neal D. Barnard give favorable quotes on a Web site promoting a book by Charles Patterson, "Eternal Treblinka", comparing our use of animals to the Nazi Holocaust.

Here is the Web site's description of Chapter One:

"The focus of the chapter is the enslavement ("domestication") of animals and how it became the model and inspiration for all the oppressions that followed.
"The first part of the chapter describes the relatively recent emergence of homo sapiens as the dominant species on the planet and how the "Great Leap Forward" led to the "domestication" of sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and horses and their exploitation for milk, flesh, hides, and labor. The section looks at the methods used by present-day herders to manage and exploit their flocks.
"The chapter then looks at how the enslavement of animals inspired and led to human slavery in the ancient Near East and later in the Americas."

And here is the Web site's description of Chapter 5, where the killing of animals and the Nazi Holocaust are explicitly likened:

"The chapter describes features which American and German killing centers have in common, whether they be a slaughterhouse or death camp. Similar features include: making the operation as speedy and efficient as possible; streamlining the final part of the operation (chute/funnel/tube) which takes the victims to their deaths; processing the old, sick, and injured; and coping with the problem of killing young victims. The chapter also discusses the role of animals in the German camps (Auschwitz had its own slaughterhouse and butcher shop; Treblinka had a "zoo") and Hitler's relationship to animals.

"The final part of the chapter looks at Nazi letters and diary entries which reveal that eating meat and hunting animals were the chief rewards granted to German death camp personnel. The letters of SS-Obersturmfuhrer Karl Kretschmer, leader of a Sonderkommando killing squad, to his wife show that eating well was the most satisfactory part of his job. Entries from the diary of Dr. Johannes Paul Kremer, an SS doctor at Auschwitz, praise the meals at the SS officers' mess and the wealth of human body parts available for his medical experiments. The chapter closes with a discussion of "humane slaughter"--the need of the killers to find ever more efficient and less stressful ways to conduct their operations."

Here are Barnard and Newkirk's reactions:

"I look forward to the publication of Charles Patterson's book. Putting the issue of animal abuse in historical perspective should clarify the issue for many people and help raise their consciousness. Please send me an advance copy so I can inform our 100,000 members about its publication."
--Dr. Neal D. Barnard, PCRM

"I am so glad you are writing the book. It is so powerful. I write books calculated to allow people to see how easy and enjoyable it is to help animals, but they are little books. Your book is big. I hope to god it stirs everything up. Your book takes me to the edge. I think it is important and wonderful. You can tell publishers we will carry it. "
--Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA

If you ever run into Barnard, ask him if he thinks it's valid to compare our use of animals to the Holocaust. His answer should be interesting.

* * *
Mind the bias
Those supporting animal research and opposing the PETA agenda do need to be careful about who they cite as sources. Some of these sources also have their own agendas. One of these sources is Activist Cash, a Web site created by the Center for Consumer Freedom, a lobbying group for the food, restaurant and tobacco industries. In the time-hallowed nature of cynically named lobbying groups, consumer freedom has nothing to do with their agenda. Learn more about this agenda on SourceWatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy.

That's not to say the Center for Consumer Freedom's information is always wrong, but you have to read it with their agenda in mind. Don't take what they say at face value -- check it out from other sources that don't have such a big ax to grind. And along those lines, SourceWatch has its own agenda, which can be loosely identified as "liberal." It is, however, fairly careful to document its findings.

In the interest of fairness, here's how Activist Cash describes the Center for Media and Democracy:

"The Center for Media & Democracy (CMD) is a counterculture public relations effort disguised as an independent media organization. CMD isn’t really a center it would be more accurate to call it a partnership, since it is essentially a two-person operation.

"Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber operate, as do most self-anointed progressive watchdogs, from the presumption that any communication issued from a corporate headquarters must be viewed with a jaundiced eye. In their own quarterly PR Watch newsletter, they recently referred to corporate PR as a propaganda industry, misleading citizens and manipulating minds in the service of special interests. Ironically, Rampton and Stauber have elected to dip into the deep pockets of multi-million-dollar foundations with special interest agendas of their own. . ."

Where do I stand? I agree with the CMD that corporate public relations can be quite insidious, quite often using lies and deceptions to gain their goals. And I agree with the Center for Consumer Freedom that political extremists opposed to the free-market system are quite capable of using lies and deceptions to gain their goals. No one has a monopoly on truth. Except, of course, the humble scribes in the working press, who are never biased and always accurate.

(For the humor-challenged, that last statement was a rather cynical joke. PETA and PCRM depend on bamboozling ignorant reporters to perpetrate their deceptions.)

Border Patrol agents -- tempest in a teapot, says Patterico

2007-01-18T06:14:00.000-08:00

We denizens of Cathy's World have been discussing the famous/infamous prosecution of two Border Patrol agents in Texas sentence to prison for unlawfully shooting at, and wounding, an alleged drug smuggler. This case became a cause celebre in some conservative circles, where the agents were portrayed as victims of political correctness.

Now blogger Patterico, who is also a prosecutor, has weighed in. Patterico has just posted his look at the case, and concludes it was properly handled, if a fact sheet from the U.S. attorney for the district is accurate. He finds a Debra J. Saunders column about the case that I sent him to be rather one-sided in favor of the agents.

Saunders does mention another fact that goes against the agents — their curious decision to pick up the casings from the shooting, and pretend like it had never happened: “The agents picked up their shells and failed to report the shooting.” But she treats that as a mere administrative issue, deserving of a reprimand: “For that violation of agency policy, Ramos and Compean deserved an administrative review and some sort of job-related punishment.” She never seems to ask why they did it — and to consider the possibility that their actions show that they knew they had done something wrong, and perhaps criminal.

Patterico also quotes from the U.S. Attorney's fact sheet:

In America, law enforcement officers do not get to shoot unarmed suspects who are running away, lie about it to their supervisors and file official reports that are false. That is a crime and prosecutors cannot look the other way.

Unless someone proves the statements made by the U.S. attorney are in error, I'd say that sums it up.

Amy Alkon -- Snubbed by the WSJ!

2007-01-14T11:13:00.000-08:00

Amy, aka Advice Goddess, recently wrote about an obnoxious cell-phone blabber. The blabber, Eva Burgess, was so inconsiderate to those around her that she freely dispensed all sorts of personal information no one cared to hear, instead of taking her call outdoors.

Alkon wrote:

Hey, Eva, I know it’s kinda cold in NYC, where you’re apparently from (according to the area code you helpfully dispensed), but here in sunny southern California, at the moment you were talking, it was 58 degrees. Next time, you might take your business outside –- as exciting as I found it, on a morning I would normally have relaxed to the classical music while eating my breakfast and thinking my own thoughts, to instead be a part of your eyecare needs.

The Wall Street Journal picked up on this story in a warped fashion. While Amy decried the bad manners of the blabber, the WSJ article "The Snoop Next Door", made it seem as if the rude, intrusive persons were somehow being spied upon. Worse, Amy talked at length with the reporter, but didn't even get her blog mentioned.

Although the reporter, Jennifer Saranow, spent hours talking to me by phone and e-mail about my various "blogslappings" of the undercivilized, I ended up as mere background (grrr!). I told her she might warn people of that when she interviews them in the future. She thought that was good advice. Yeah, I'm all about good advice.

Bloggers and others who'd like a mention in an article should keep this in mind if Saranow calls and asks you to do the heavy lifting.

MSM scores a point . . .

2007-01-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

. . . against Pajamas Media. The blog conglomerate ran a huge story claiming that Iran's chief ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, was dead. Alas for Pajamas, Khameini was seen in public on Monday. The mainstream media didn't report this scoop because . . . it wasn't.

Pajamas Media, here's a handkerchief to clean up the egg on your face.

LA Times corrects polonium story

2007-01-07T07:40:00.000-08:00

Nearly a week after the LA Times ran a story on polonium that contained a couple of big errors, the Southland's paper of record has issued a correction. This update courtesy of Patterico.

R.I. P., Jasmine

2007-01-04T18:45:00.000-08:00

Jasmine was the beloved feline of political blogger Kevin Drum. She died earlier today. Kevin wrote an eloquent farewell.

"If there's a cat heaven, I hope Jasmine is there, eternally chasing fat, lazy mice and snacking on spicy tuna. Rest in Peace, sweetie."

As a cat lover myself, I know the feeling. My sympathies, Kevin.

Fact-checking in the New Year

2007-01-02T21:11:00.000-08:00

A belated Happy New Year!

One of my blog-mates over at Cathy Seipp pointed out an erroneous article on polonium-210 in the Jan. 1 LA Times. Polonium-210 is the isotope of polonium used to assassinate Alexander Litvinenko.

The most glaring error I've found so far:

Of polonium's 25 isotopes, polonium-210 is the most stable. After 138 days, half of it decays into a nonradioactive isotope of lead.

Polonium-209 has a half-life of about 102 years. Last time I checked, 102 years was longer than 138 days.

How did this pass through the LA Times' legendary four levels of editors?

UPDATE: doug over at Cathy Seipp's blog has submitted his critique of the errors.

Althouse Vs. Libertarians

2006-12-30T06:48:00.000-08:00

Ann Althouse couldn't handle being trapped in a conference with true-believing Libertarians. To her horror, she found at that Liberty Fund Conference in Chicago that Libertarians don't share her ideas on civil rights. Libertarians don't believe in government coercion against private businesses that discriminate. That makes them racists! Yes, the Libertarians said they would support boycotts and similar private voluntary actions against discrimination, but Althouse knows better. They wouldn't denounce racism the way she wanted to. Here's her account of the cruel attitude Libertarians had toward her at that conference:

"They utterly failed to respond to my need that they show that they cared about the terrible history of racism in the United States and the reality of human suffering. I wish you could see a videotape of the insolent attitude they displayed. They made it utterly clear over the course of two hours that they had no intention of showing any concern for what I cared about."

So because of this Libertarian indifference to what she cared about, this failure to respond to her need, Althouse walked out of the conference in tears. Of course, the Libertarians, including Ron Bailey of Reason magazine, told a somewhat different story.

Not having been there, I can't say whether Bailey was "grumpy" to her, or a young female Libertarian was smirking at Althouse. But I'm astonished by Althouse's astonishment about Libertarians. I learned about Libertarianism while at San Diego State University a quarter-century ago. It wasn't difficult: Libertarians don't keep their inner doctrines secret. And as their critics will say, Libertarians aren't exactly shy about spreading their gospel. (I'm still a Libertarian, although a bit more careful not to annoy people with evangelizing).

Today, you don't even need to talk to an actual Libertarian (although it would help). You can just go to the Web and learn all about Libertarianism.

Althouse is a law professor and blogger who speaks out on political issues all the time. She's supposed to be well-read. How could she not have known about these well-propagated Libertarian beliefs? My guess is that Althouse's personal circle is rather limited by her academic milieu in Madison, Wisconsin, as Althouse appears to admit.

I visited Madison a few years ago, and loved the city, the food and drinking from a "boot" of beer at a funky bar. It's also a bustling college town. One thing that the academic environment is supposed to offer is a wide range of exposure to different ways of thinking and points of view. I certainly encountered that at SDSU, where I not only met Libertarians, but College Republicans, Democrats, socialists, and a couple of Communist groups. That was 25 years ago. Could the University of Wisconsin - Madison be less open to political diversity? Of course not. Liberterians can be found in Madison, perhaps on the UW faculty, and certainly among her students. Althouse didn't have to travel to Chicago to get her tearful awakening about those heartless Libertarians.

Google gets evil

2006-12-27T13:11:00.000-08:00

Firefox mastermind Blake Ross explains how. It's time to start finding alternatives to Google, which increasingly resembles another arrogant tech giant.

Rago Unleashed

2006-12-22T10:04:00.000-08:00

iowahawk has found the original, unexpurgated text of Joseph Rago's rejected college thesis repurposed as a rant against blogs.

What are you waiting here for? Go follow the link!

Those Clueless Bloggers

2006-12-20T19:48:00.000-08:00

Cathy Seipp rattled a veteran journo, Bob Baker, by ridiculing his mea-not-very-culpa about his thoughtless blog post. Here is the comment thread on her blog about this, complete with defenses from a friend of Baker's.
Baker used the N-word repeatedly in a Lenny Bruce dialogue cited in an imagined PR agency's defense of Michael Richards . He blamed it on his being "seduced" by the low standards of blogs.

You see, Bob Baker knows better than to do that in print, because he has these "old-fashioned" checks and balances and high journalistic standards that wouldn't let anything so objectionable get into the paper. But put him in front of a computer and let him blog. Suddenly, he's infected by what he calls the "superficial and transitory and sophomoric writing that often passes for journalism in Blogland." It's the Flip Wilson Defense: The blog made me do it!

Oh, and Baker had trouble coming up with ideas for four weeks. That's another reason for his "stunt", as he tellingly describes it. The veteran journo with his nose in the air about the Internet stumbled into a pothole. And of course it's the pothole's fault.

* * *

But Baker sounds like Paul Saffo compared to Joe Rago, a chucklehead on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page (he should be at home there), who wrote an almost incredibly bad attack on blogs. Dr. Mike Kennedy, a frequent commenter on Cathy's blog, pointed out his wretched stab at profundity:

"Blogs are very important these days. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has one. The invention of the Web log, we are told, is as transformative as Gutenberg's press, and has shoved journalism into a reformation, perhaps a revolution.

"The ascendancy of Internet technology did bring with it innovations. Information is more conveniently disseminated, and there's more of it, because anybody can chip in. There's more "choice"--and in a sense, more democracy. Folks on the WWW, conservatives especially, boast about how the alternative media corrodes the "MSM," for mainstream media, a term redolent with unfairness and elitism. . .

I thought that dimwitted article was redolent with the overachieving and not-quite-getting-it off-kilter choice of words that one reads in a poor college essay. My impression was that Rago was some very recent college grad who was still writing to impress his professors. It's been decades since my college days, but I remember the style well.

And I was right. Rago graduated from Dartmouth in 2005. And the schlub can't write his way out of a paper bag. Oh, all the words are spelled correctly. They just don't add up to anything worth reading. It concerns some college controversy that I needn't bore you with. Just savor his command of metaphor:

". . .Perhaps it is best to envision the issue as a cannon firing a shot at some indeterminate angle and with indeterminate force, and we are to somehow chart the trajectory of the ball as it moves through the air. This, it hardly needs be said, is a tricky thing—not just because the ball is still moving and we would like to know where it will land, but the more so because of the various unknowns.

"I think the shot is still aerial. I will withhold my assessment of where it will go, on account of lack of evidence. There was an opportunity at the Town Meeting, and previously in my requests for interviews, to flesh out the indefinite. These were not taken. President Wright and Dean Larimore would have you believe that the cannon was never fired in the first place. This strains credulity. Such a position relies on a faint institutional memory that views the present though occluded lenses, evincing little understanding of College history. . .

This is the artless aspiring pundit who's telling us what's wrong with blogs!

Another commenter in the Cathysphere, Calvinist, pointed out the obvious reason this got published, which I should have realized at once:

"Now I'm sure his WSJ piece has been sitting around the office for some time, until there was absolutely nothing to go into the op-ed page on a slow pre-holiday news day."

Blogging certainly has its problems. But critics like these have nothing helpful to offer, because it's impossible to critique something one doesn't understand.

Did Four Mosques Burn in Iraq as AP Claimed? -- Apparently No

2006-12-19T07:10:00.000-08:00

That's the result of a rather Byzantine investigation into an Associated Press article that stated as fact that four Sunni mosques were burned and six worshippers burned alive in late November in Baghdad. Only one mosque appears to have been burned, and there is no evidence of any worshippers at those mosques being burned alive. Patterico has the summary of Armed Liberal's investigation into the murky facts.

In short, most of the AP story appears to be wrong, and its "we stand by our story" line doesn't stand. As Patterico and Armed Liberal (Marc Danziger) has noted, getting the truth out of Iraq is extremely tough. It is understandable that AP could have made a mistake. But what's not acceptable is AP's refusal to even admit its story could have been wrong. After a Reuters stringer was caught forging a photo from Lebanon this summer, AP should have taken heed to examine its own fact-gathering processes in Middle East conflicts. The situation in Iraq is bad enough without exaggerating it.

Errors are inevitable in the news business. A prompt admission of these errors strengthens a news organization's credibility. It's time for AP to learn that lesson.

Rich, chewy bloggy goodness!

2006-12-17T10:52:00.000-08:00

Some of the top bloggers got together and wrote a cookbook with their favorite recipes.
Ever wondered how bloggers eat their words? Now you know. I can't wait to get a copy.

The link goes to Deborah Uhler's site, where you can order the book. It will soon be on Amazon.com and the other usual places. H/T to Patterico, one of the contributors.

Cathy's back . . .

2006-12-16T07:14:00.000-08:00

. . . and replete with amusing anecdotes. Even when she was in the hospital, Cathy kept looking for material to write about. And her daughter Maia got a B average at UCSD, despite being admitted a year ahead.

Congratulations, Cathy and Maia!

Hang in there, Cathy!

2006-12-10T05:15:00.000-08:00

Cathy Seipp, writer, bon vivant and blogger extraordinnaire, is back in the hospital for treatment of advanced non-small lung cancer. Cathy has already lived much longer than she was expected to. May she continue to beat the odds and share her quirky joy of life and view of the world! I joined the Cathyphile club 10 years ago, reading her articles written as Margo Magee in Buzz magazine. Scroll down for my posts about her roast-tribute and the DVD release party.

Cathy's amazing family is also very much in my thoughts. Her daughter Maia Lazar, at the tender age of 17, is already conquering UCSD. And there is a video below of her father, Harvey Seipp.

Stan Ridgeway's culinary preference

2006-11-29T03:18:00.000-08:00

The wry, amusing persona of Stan Ridgeway has lasted over the years since his rise to prominence with the quirky genius of Wall of Voodoo. I saw him Monday night at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. He was in great shape Monday. He performed two of his most-liked songs, "Roadblock" and "Mexican Radio." I got some of his act (blurry, unfortunately) on my cameraphone.

Stan asked for a martini, which was brought to him. Ate an olive, then said he tasted polonium. Joked with a guy who was celebrating his 25th birthday.

Before he played "Camouflage," Stan explained the song's background, and said, "Goverments start wars, not solidiers."

Stan Ridgeway is well worth seeing, even if you don't like barbecued iguana. And check out Wall of Voodoo's MP3s - including "Mexican Radio," at its Myspace page.

The ins and outs of surgery

2006-11-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

Dr. Michael Kennedy, a retired thoracic surgeon, explains how surgeons adapt to instruments show mirror images of their internal target. He illustrates with an example of people who wore lenses that inverted their vision, so right became left and left became right. The brain learns to perceive motion and space correctly. Taken at the Cathy Seipp DVD giveaway party on Nov. 18 in the swanky Studio City digs of TV critic Ray Richmond.

I've got no accent

2006-11-25T06:44:00.000-08:00

As a native Californian, I knew this, of course. But it was nice to see it confirmed by one of those quizzes that proliferate throughout the Internets.

Here's my result:

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
North Central
The South
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The Inland North

L.Y.T.'s movie

2006-11-21T20:54:00.000-08:00

Film critic, actor and all-around personality Luke Y. Thompson discusses his new movie, "Mad Cowgirl", available on DVD Dec. 5. Luke attended the Nov. 18 DVD giveaway of Cathy Seipp's tribute/roast on Sept. 10.

All your bagel are belong to us

2006-11-19T17:30:00.000-08:00

Those bagels never had a chance. Ray Richmond shows the edibles who's boss at the superbly convivial brunch he hosted for the Cathy Seipp DVD giveaway.

Blue and Apricot: Kate Coe and Amy Alkon enjoy some laughs at Saturday's Cathy Seipp DVD giveaway brunch.

The great DVD giveaway!

2006-11-19T15:57:00.000-08:00

Too. Much. Fun.
Saturday I attended the long-awaited DVD giveaway of Cathy Seipp's Sept. 10 roast. After that brunch in Studio City, I also attended a marathon party that night in Solana Beach. After parking my car in Solana Beach early Saturday morning, the rest of the day I used mass transit; to attend the brunch, and to get back to Solana Beach for the party. I used Amtrak to Union Station, thence the Red line rail to Universal City, then the 150 bus to the brunch, and did the reverse to get back.

Here's a photo from the brunch; more coming later. This one below features Dr. Mike Kennedy, his daughter Annie, and guest of honor Cathy Seipp.

The harm of politicized science

2006-10-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

My latest science and technology column at the North County Times is up. It's about the study published in The Lancet on Iraqi war mortality, and the anti-war Democratic political activism of the researchers who conducted the study. That activism gives me reasonable grounds to suspect these researchers may have conceived and conducted the survey with political aims in mind.

The most flagrant breach of scientific ethics was committed by Les Roberts, one of the three lead authors, who actually ran for Congress this year as a Democrat opposed to Bush and the Iraq war.

This is from a news story about Roberts' decision to withdraw from his congressional campaign:

Roberts said, "Republican control of the Congress and White House in recent years has given us the most destructive governance since the Vietnam War."

The pre-emptive war against Iraq and record deficits fueled by "tax gifts for the richest few" have left the United States greatly weakened, he said.

Now contrast those statements with those made by lead author Gilbert Burnham in a Washington Post chat on the study:

"Somehow we have found ourselves in the middle of a political storm when our intents were to help other to think seriously about what happens to innocents--and even the perhaps not innocents--who get caught up in conflict. We have a huge job to convince people that we do NOT have political motives in this. We are disaster people. However I am not so sure we are getting our non-political message across as well as I had hoped."

Some advice for Mr. Burnham: If you and your fellow study authors want to convince people your message is "non-political", running for Congress isn't it. (Burnham, by the way, reportedly gave $900 to Roberts' congressional campaign).

Blogger Seixon has his own interesting ideas about what this study says about the corrupting influence of politics on science.

Now the criticisms of the author's conduct does not necessarily mean the Lancet study is wrong (although my impulse would be to throw it in the garbage as tainted). Another Web site dissects the arguments of Steven Moore, a Republican political consultant, who says the study is wrong.

"In the end, Moore has opened up some interesting lines of inquiry, but he has ended up over-reaching in an effort to prove the Lancet figures 'bogus.' " say Rebecca Goldin and Trevor Butterworth on the site Stats.org.

One final note: even though Moore's critique is a partisan one, and he also took part in the 2004 presidential campaign, raising money for commercials to argue that everything is improving in Iraq, that was not unethical. Moore is a political hack, and he does what political hacks do, Republican or Democrat. He is not a scientist whose profession values objectivity. Politics is all about being biased and subjective.

But Burnham, Roberts & co. are academic researchers who claim to be "non-political" and unbiased in their work. Becoming political activists in the field where they are doing research is a violation of scientific norms and ethics. Much the same is true of reporters, who are expected to refrain from outside political activities that interfere with their work. Imagine a political reporter continuing in that position while running for Congress. Could you trust that reporter's coverage to be fair? Obviously, no. Why, then, does a respected academic institution like Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where Burnham and Roberts work, tolerate this unethical mixing of science and politics?

UPDATE: I originally described blogger Seixon as a conservative, but upon further reading found that he declares himself to be a moderate, and presents his scores in one of those political quizzes. So I'll take Seixon at his word.

Fun memories

2006-09-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

Since Cathy Seipp has posted another picture from her Sept. 10 roast, I've got no choice but to do the same. Since much of the discussion on her blog of late has involved Islam, note the characteristically Islamic motif on the blue wall behind her.

YACSRTV

2006-09-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Yet Another Cathy Seipp Roast-Tribute Video.
This video snippet includes the last few seconds of a videorecorded Cathy Seipp tribute by conservative milblogger Odysseus (well, at least a toy soldier that greatly resembles him), immediately followed by liberal David Ehrenstein's left-handed praise for the blog's "negative energy." Recorded at the Cathy Seipp roast/tribute at the Hotel Figueroa in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, Sept. 10.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84e6xugHOBw

and

Neck Veins!

2006-09-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

Cathy Seipp on TV debating Lawrence O'Donnell on public schools. David N. Scott appears at first, to be followed by the famous exchange, in which Cathy calls O'Donnell "delusional", and his bulging neck veins fill the screen in response.

Video snippet reposts

2006-09-13T18:29:00.000-07:00

These got somehow deleted from my blog, so here they are again

Harvey Seipp describes the nascent toddler beginnings of daughter Cathy Seipp's noted independent streak.

Dr. Mike Kennedy, famed surgeon, boatsman and Dick Cheney fan, talks of his Seippophilia and how much fun the bash is.

Snippet at the Cathy Seipp tribute in which Cathy Seipp's physical attributes are compared to that of Mussolini, not unfavorably.

Gary McVey, FoC and executive director of the American Cinema Foundation, gives his warm greetings to those of Cathy's fans who could not be at her roast/tribute on Sept. 10, with special words of thanks to milblogger Odysseus "Ody", who makes it all possible.

Sock puppets ♥ Nikki Finke!

2006-09-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

Crude but hilarous sock puppets defend Nikki Finke against unfair aspersions on her personality and weight. Shown at the Cathy Seipp roast/tribute on Sunday, Sept. 10 at the Hotel Figueroa in L.A.

Feel the love!

2006-09-13T01:04:00.000-07:00

Video snippet of Cathy Seipp and crowd at her roast on Sunday, with a sound track of a typically twisted love song.

2006-09-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

Shaggy-maned Andrew Breitbart discourses on the joys of conservatism and Cathy Seipp at the Seipp tribute in L.A. on Sunday, Sept. 10

Air apparent

2006-09-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

Self-hating liberal Mickey Kaus instinctively holds his nose to ward off the ghastly fetor emanating from a bag lady who had somehow infiltrated Cathy Seipp's tribute. The intruder was actually Nikki Finke, who entered the posh event cleverly disguised as Kasatka. Shortly after this photo was taken, Finke's keepers lured her outside to the SeaWorld van with a basket of fresh herring.

More Wisdom From Arianna

2006-09-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Another screen grab of the transcription of Arianna Huffington's recorded congratulations to Cathy Seipp. Fingers courtesy Rob Long.

Seipp père et fille

2006-09-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

Harvey Seipp and his daughter, Cathy, bravely endure the hot summer sun for my camera. Canadian stoicism at its best.

Luke Ford Intervention/Cancerade

2006-09-12T07:32:00.000-07:00

Video snippet of Rob Long announcing the dual purposes of the Cathy Seipp roast.

Ross Johnson at the Seipp Roast

2006-09-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

Yet another speaker at Cathy Seipp's roast in LA on Sunday, Sept. 10. This time, the roastor is Ross Johnson. Check out Sandra Tsing Loh's expression in the bottom left corner.

Mo' Cathy Seipp Tribute Fotos

2006-09-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

Below are a few more photos I took from the Seipp bash on Sunday.

The sacred Seipp festivities were rudely interrupted by a Commie intruder, wearing the name of the treasonous New York Crimes. He was promptly taken into custody and fed to rabid raccoons.

Sandra Tsing Loh's radiant face contorts in what was either agony or ecstasy -- I couldn't tell which.

Matt Welch, the scarily respectable-looking assistant editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times, puts in a few good words for Cathy. Immediately after his speech, Welch bit the head off a live opossum, quoted from Homer's Odyssey in classic Greek pentameter, then demonstrated an elegant, concise proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

Jill Stewart, political writer and relentless scourge of complacent feeders off the public trough, joins the crowd scanning to see the monitors in the afternoon glare.

LYT, the insane DJ, did his thang and kept the mooooosik moooovin'.

He's not Luke-warm

2006-09-11T18:04:00.000-07:00

Luke Ford, one of the most, uh, singular of Cathy's wacky menagerie of friends, looks totally wholesome, even movie star material, as he roars during Cathy's roast. You would never think that he -- oh, never mind.

UPDATE -- Ford has a 12-question interview with Cathy in LAist. The site notes by way of explaining Ford:

"One of Cathy's best friends is the controversial local journalist Luke Ford, whom you might have seen on the cover of the LA Weekly's "LA People" edition this April. Luke is so controversial, in fact, that Pajamas Media let him go just days after hiring him, before he even wrote one word. Some presume that Luke's resume was brought to the attention of some at PM who probably should have seen it before accepting him. Luke, you see, is probably the world's best journalist in the adult video world."

LAist is right as far as it goes, but Ford is a good journalist, period. His interviews are thoughtful and comprehensive, even if he does tend to obsess on lesbian questions. And he has a good sense of ethics, unlike some of journalism's prima donnas that, for example, don't see anything wrong with sock puppetry. True, Luke would give Pajamas notoriety, his care with facts would also bring credibility. A lack of tolerance for oddballs may seem to be playing it safe, but in blogland it's just boooooor-ringggg.

When you've got Rob Long, who needs Jim Carrey?

2006-09-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

Rob Long, the rubber-faced emcee, demonstrated an uncanny range of facial gestures during Cathy's roastabration. His facial fleetness was exceeded only by that of Sandra Tsing Loh. (photos to come).

Huffington's post

2006-09-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

Arianna Huffington did not attend Cathy Seipp's roast/celebration, but she did send this touching handwritten note.

The Goddess Speaks

2006-09-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Amy Alkon, aka the "Advice Goddess," brings her politically oriented roasting skills to bear on Cathy Seipp at Sunday's roastabration at the Hotel Figueroa in Los Angeles.

More Seipp-sonalities

2006-09-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

Two of the men in Cathy Seipp's life at her roast/tribute-- her father, Harvey Seipp, and ex-husband Jerry Lazar. I spotted Jerry before the event started, wearing a nametag with just an "X". Had I been quicker thinking, I'd have realized it was a reference to his marital status vis-a-vis Cathy.

Seipp that Swallowed the Canary

2006-09-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

Cathy Seipp looks mirthfully at her roasters in yesterday's tribute at the Hotel Figueroa in the wilds of downtown LA.

Seipp-a-Bration

2006-09-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

The Hotel Figueroa, an oasis of cultured gentility in soulless downtown Los Angeles. Cathy Seipp, a transplanted Angeleno writer by way of Winnipeg. (And her fair Canadian complection seemed at times in danger of wilting from the SoCal summer heat). Several scores of her best friends and blog posters. The result: an amusing, almost magical few hours on Sunday for a
roast-tribute.

A touch of pathos -- but only a touch -- intervened during the event, acknowledging Cathy's struggle with cancer. That was also the hook for one of the lamest motivational lines I've ever heard: "If life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. If life hands you cancer, you make cancerade."

Ewwwwwwwwww! My first thought was how yucky the taste would be of pureeed cancer cells. But no matter, Cathy kept that wry, somewhat inscrutable expression during the event.

Speaking of wry, I discovered where Cathy inherited that gene, from a brief chat with her father, Harvey Seipp. Cathy, it seems, was driven to be autonomous even as a toddler. That too is on video.

Some of Cathy's top blog commentators were there, including Dr. Mike Kennedy, Donna B., but not , sadly, David Ehrenstein, who chickened out, together with his conservative doppelganger, a mysterious character named Mark (no last name). I think they're the same person.

There's much more to say, and I will later. For now, here's a couple of pictures, of the Mistress of Honor and Sandra Tsing Loh.

Enjoy.

Plame Flame

2006-09-02T07:42:00.000-07:00

Of all the issues regarding the Bush Administration, nothing has been more confusing to me than that furious web of charges and countercharges over the "outing" of CIA agent Valerie Plame, allegedly done by Bush Administration officials for revenge against her husband, Joe Wilson.

That theory was destroyed by the recent revelation that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a Bush critic, disclosed Plame's identity to columnist Bob Novak. Uber-blogger Patterico has a roundup and more comment on his blog.

Patterico notes that on a related note, Jason Leopold's fizzled "scoop" about Karl Rove's purported indictment has sank further into deserved ignominy. Here's the link to an update from Dana, one of his blog regulars. After my recent unpleasant tangle with Leopold, I'm reluctant to say too much more. Suffice it to say that months after Leopold's claim, there is no proof such an indictment exists, but Leopold won't retract his story.

How to (and not) Handle errors

2006-08-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

Getting caught having a major fact wrong is embarrassing and hard on the ego. I've certainly experienced it many times. But what's far worse is not correcting the error and pretending everything's fine. When you correct the error promptly, and are a bit humble about it, you get a good amount of respect. Try to bluff, and you lose respect.

Radley Balko, an analyst with the Cato Institute, may have to learn this the hard way. I usually agree with what Balko writes, but he simply got a major fact wrong -- actually two facts wrong.

Balko referred to a jury nullification decision as being handed down by the Supreme Court, when the decision never reached the Supreme Court. He also said the decision was favorable to jury nullification, when it wasn't.

Balko corrected the first error, pointed out by blogger Patterico, but has yet to correct the second, an error emphasized by blogger Xrlq. Making things worse, Balko referred to Xrlq on Patterico's blog as a " dim-witted, quick-tempered, angry douchebag that nobody reads".

Yes, Xrlq has a temper, but Balko was dim-witted for not checking the decision more closely before citing it a Fox News commentary last year -- and even more dim-witted for not correcting his errors more graciously.

In the article, Balko quoted the decision, U.S. v. Dougherty, but falsely said the decision upheld jury nullification. In fact, the decision said courts do not have to instruct juries about nullification. Balko picked out a quote from the decision that did not reflect this outcome.
Balko has presented this as a prosecutor vs. Libertarian disagreement, which is sad and wrong. It is a question of factuality. Regardless of one's political beliefs, one has the obligation to be factual, and to correct errors once found. If Libertarian philosophy is correct, it can withstand intense factual scrutiny.

Patterico wrote: "The key to credibility is not failing to make mistakes, but correcting them when you do." I couldn't agree more.

Facts vs. the LA Times

2006-08-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

The LA Times keeps screwing up the most basic facts of the city it covers. And no one has been more zealous in exposing its mistakes than Brady Westwater. Writing as "LA Cowboy,", Westwater regularly pounds the Times for indisputable, glaring factual errors.

The latest: an opinion piece that falsely claimed Skid Row homeless were hosed off the streets in cleanup work. Westwater, who does a lot of work with the homeless, knew this was bogus the instant he saw it a few weeks ago. He began demanding answers. He's pieced together a good account, detailing how the Times gave false information to a British instructor (who has rarely visited Los Angeles), which he then used as a basis for his piece. The LA Downtown News found the instructor's identity and how he came to be hired for the piece.

The instructor, Tom Slater, reportedly wrote these mortifiying words when he found out he had been misled by the Times:

"You and your organisation have every reason to be angry. The Times completely misinformed me about what had happened with regard to the street cleaning - I was led to believe by the newspaper that "homeless people were literally swept and hosed out of their makeshift encampments", and I was asked to write an article situating these events within the broader context of gentrification. I was mortified to learn that sentence was factually inaccurate, and would like to apologise for this error. My mistake was that I trusted a respected newspaper; I should have checked the facts."

The correction that got printed was much more restrained, and less informative. Whle accusations of media bias are troublesome and get most of the attention from media critics, basic, howling errors of fact are far more dangerous to media credibility. I think ex-Timesman Ken Reich is correct that the artless Chicago-based Tribune Co. has sapped the Times of its historical knowledge of the city. I disagree with Reich on one point: He thinks its jealousy, while I think it's incompetence.

Read it all

Hat tip to Patterico and Kevin Roderick

The Conservative Choice for Prez

2006-08-11T04:37:00.000-07:00

Stephen Bainbridge, an erudite, reality-based conservative law professor, has announced his choice for president in 2008. An inspired choice, I must say. One that people of all political persuasions can unite behind. He (it?) would be the ultimate no-nonsense leader. I can't imagine the Iraqi insurgents lasting one minute against his call. However, I'm not fond of having the capital moved to R'lyeh, becasue the climate is even worse than D.C.'s.

Considering how insane American politics has become, I've got a suggestion for the ultimate running-mate.

Wireless joy -- The LG VX9800

2006-08-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Pleasanter subject matter than yesterday: my newest gadget. It's the LG VX9800 cell/camera/video/e-mail/Web/MP3 player/organizer phone. I've left out a few goodies. I reviewed this amazingly full-featured "kitchen sink" phone last year, and finally got one of my own from Verizon Wireless.

While the buzz is about Verizon's new "chocolate phone"; the VX 9800 is what I've wanted for months. Here's just one example of its usefulness: I bookmark the North County Times' traffic report pages, so I can quickly check conditions before heading to work or home. I can get that info anywhere without needing to be at a computer.

The chocolate phone has some nice additional features, such as video recording time of up to one hour, (versus 15 seconds), but I have no regrets about getting the VX9800, which has gotten very positive reviews from the geek community. It is simply a well-engineered, solid piece of gadgetry. But Verizon hid one of its best features, the MP3 player, so you'll have to find it by yourself. More about this phone later.

Jason Leopold responds

2006-08-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

Jason Leopold didn't like my statements calling him a "fabulist", and supposedly accusing him of fabricating stories. (I merely meant to say his stories were wildly wrong and irresponsible, not that he was making stuff up.) Leopold sent me a couple of e-mails over the weekend threatening legal action. Here are some excerpts.

"It has come to my attention that you published comments accusing me of fabricating stories and of being a fabulist, which is defamatory and libelous on its face. . . However, I imagine that once I take action agains you, should have no problem rounding up these people and the evidence to support your libelous and defamatory commentary. . . But I take your written claims against me very seriously, and I intend to pursue a civil action against you unless you either provide hard documented proof to back up your published allegations that I am a "fabulist". or you either immediately retract your statements in writing or send me an apology letter."

Here's my response. I have no evidence to prove that Jason Leopold has deliberately fabricated any stories. I retract any previous statement that he has deliberately published any falsehoods, or that implication in the use of the word "fabulist." Apologies, Jason. I won't publish such uncorroborated statements about you again.

As far as the word "fabulist" goes, one of its dictionary meanings is "liar." Leopold has admitted to lying in the pursuit of stories, and thinks it's just fine. (See below) Since Leopold hates being called a fabulist, I'll just say he's an admitted liar and leave it at that.

What do we know about Jason Leopold? We know that Jason Leopold has a history of writing unproven stories. This includes his Salon piece charging among other things that former Enron executive Thomas White had sent an e-mail ordering Enron losses to be covered up. Salon said it removed the story because it could not confirm the e-mail's existence.

Salon's statement on removing Leopold's story also mentioned his plagiarism of the Financial Times: "Whatever its basis, this sort of plagiarism is a serious breach of journalistic trust, and caused us to go back over every detail and aspect of the original article. Our review led us to take this latest step."

And there is his recent unproven "scoop" that Karl Rove has been indicted, which months after the fact has not been substantiated. Add to that the strange story of his interactions with Joe Lauria.

"Most mainstream news organizations have dismissed the Leopold story as egregiously wrong. But even if he had gotten it right and scooped the world on a major story, his methods would still raise a huge question: What value does journalism have if it exposes unethical behavior unethically? Leopold seems to assume, as does much of the public, that all journalists practice deception to land a story. But that's not true. I know dozens of reporters, but Leopold is only the second one I've known (the first did it privately) to admit to doing something illegal or unethical on the job."

If Leopold's stories about White and Rove turn out to be true after all, he'd redeem himself as an accurate journalist. I'm not holding my breath. Until then, we can just chalk up Jason Leopold as an admitted liar and felon who writes sensational stories that don't deliver what they claim to. Jason Leopold is a pathetic caricature of a journalist best heeded as an example of what not to do.

Too long . . .

2006-07-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

without an update. I'm chilling (literally, given the heat) at the new home of my pal Rich Graham. We'll be touring University CityWalk tonight. Rich lives in the hip enclave of Toluca Lake, bringing greater distinction than just living in the teeming petri dish of Los Angeles.

Beautiful day for sailing . . .

2006-05-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

. . . Which is what I'll be doing in a couple of hours. Yesterday was Geek Day, installing Xandros Linux on an unused hard drive for my ThinkPad. I've got three hard drives, one running Win XP, one running Win 2K, and now one running Xandros. But the configuration isn't complete, as Xandros doesn't recognize PC cards. That makes it difficult to use WiFi. So I must search for the proper drivers for the PC card slot. But this afternoon, it's nothing but blue waters and blue sky.

Selling my soul

2006-05-24T08:34:00.000-07:00

I've entirely moved away from Microsoft Windows on my home desktop computers. But I've clung to my legacy Windows on my IBM ThinkPad, because there are some programs that need Windows, and partly out of concern a Linux install might not work on my old (2000) notebook PC.

But at least I wouldn't buy Windows again. After all, I had two copies, one each on the hard drives of the two Thinkpads I own. (Since only one ThinkPad works, I swap out the hard drives on the good machine - one with Windows 98 and one with Windows XP -- like floppies.) I would just migrate to Linux on my notebook when the time came.

Until last night, when I violated my rule and bought Windows XP. That was to get to solve incompatibility problems with Windows 98 on my good Thinkpad. The two are almost identical, but some hardware differences prevented the PC card slot from operating - the system would freeze when I'd insert a card. My attempts to upgrade the drivers didn't solve anything.

So installing Windows XP to replace Windows 98 would give me the full use of that hard drive, allowing me to connect wirelessly with a WiFi card and my Verizon Wireless EVDO card.

So I went to Fry's last night after work, and sold my soul to Bill Gates to get the Windows XP upgrade. And with Bill, you're the one who pays!

Despite my Linux inclinations, I must admit the Windows XP install went smoothly, if tediously. Windows installations take far longer than Linux installations. But before I went to bed last night, I blearily surveyed the success -- a hard drive upgraded, allowing my PC wireless cards to work on the ThinkPad. And even with a 500MHz processer and 256MB memory, XP is quite responsive. Give the Microsoft folks some credit.

It looks as if I will have a foot in the Windows camp for some time to come.

The Joys of EVDO and Wireless Lust

2006-05-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I used Verizon Wireless' EVDO service, which I subscribe to. Troubles with my ancient ThinkPad were to blame. Well, I buckled down over the weekend and fixed those minor problems (software, not hardware), and am up and running again. Now if I can get the WiFi connection to work . . .

Anyway, I've rediscovered that rush of excitement that high-speed wireless brings. I've clocked this puppy at more than 500kpbs in my office. At home, I couldn't get over 120 kpbs -- apparently this is not EVDO territory and it defaults back to the slower 1XRTT. Of course, I've already got an Internet connection at home, through Cox Communications.

And Palm has added EVDO to its latest Treo.

"You can use the Treo 700p as a wireless modem for your laptop or desktop computer. Palm now includes an easy to setup DUN (dial up networking) connection that can be used over Bluetooth or with the USB cable. The included USB cable will now also trickle charge the device so you don't have to worry about draining the battery when using it in DUN mode. Not all carriers may support this feature, and some might even require you to purchase a additional DUN data plan."

Drool.

Jason Leopold accused of sock puppetry

2006-05-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

A discredited politicized hack on his way to the Weekly World News, investigative fabulist Jason Leopold apparently has taken to promoting himself under pseudonyms. The industrious Patterico links to two accounts of sock puppet evidence. It's the usual story -- favorable comments supposedly made by another person were sent from IP addresses used by Leopold.

The Daily Kos commentator Patterico linked to showed the right amount of concern and sympathy. Concern that Leopold's many deceptions and inaccuracies will make those who believe him look foolish. Sympathy that Leopold has suffered from mental illness and substance abuse. The trouble, is, Leopold has not fully admitted everything he's done. He's glossed over his fabrications and blamed those such as Salon.com who he hurt with his unsubstantiated stories. Leopold is still trying to manipulate people, has not come to terms with reality, so his self-destructive behavior continues.

Leopold's train wreck of a career should have warned those at Truthout.org, the liberal political site, to be skeptical. As long as Leopold holds to his absurd conspiracy theories about how Salon and the New York Times, among others, treated him badly, he should not be trusted. Leopold is responsible for his own fall. Leopold's posturing in his new book "News Junkie" as performing acts of journalistic heroism are sad delusions:

"In NEWS JUNKIE, the cutthroat worlds of journalism, politics, and high finance are laid bare by Jason Leopold, whose addictive tendencies led him from a life of drug abuse and petty crime to become an award-winning investigative journalist who exposed some of the biggest corporate and political scandals in recent American history."

(self-congratulatory blather omitted)

"In the end, News Junkie shows how a man once fueled by raging fear and self-hatred transforms his life, regenerated by love, sobriety and a new, harmonious career with the independent media."

Reality: Jason Leopold has discredited himself with the mainstream media, so he hooked up with a bunch of lefty types who value political correctness over accuracy. Leopold hasn't been transformed at all. He's not regenerated, he's degenerated, and has yet to touch bottom.

I was harsh on Michael Hiltzik, the LA Times writer who confessed to sock puppetry. But compared to Jason Leopold, Hiltzik is the second coming of Edward R. Murrow.

Wise Words on Blogging

2006-05-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

. . . from Matthew Yglesias, subbing for Joshua Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo:

"One of the most neglected aspects of the blogosphere, in my opinion, is that precisely because it's (mostly) composed of people who aren't professional journalists, it's composed of people who are professional doers of something else and know a great deal about what it is they "really" do. Consequently, the overall network of blogs contains a great deal of embedded knowledge. The consensus that emerges from that process can, of course, be mistaken but even though the most prominent people expressing that consensus may not be experts in the subject at hand (the most prominent bloggers tend to be generalists), the consensus will almost always be grounded in some kind of well-informed opinions. If you want to push back on that, in other words, you'd better know what you're talking about and not treat your audience like a pack of mewling children."

Calbio conference

2006-05-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

I was plumb wrote out Thursday, and that writing fatigue explains the paucity of my postings. A day getting one's head crammed with bio-talk and writing tends to produce neuronal fatigue.

If you want to know more, read my North County Times story on the Calbio biotech conference in San Diego yesterday.

Arnold was pumped up, as well he might be with swelling state coffers (even if this is probably the result of one-time gains in income tax receipts). The audience of biotech types was happy to hear his words of encouragement, ending with his tradmark line, "I'll be back."

Biotech Thursday

2006-05-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

I'm at the Calbio biotech conference today in downtown San Diego. More biotechy stuff TK.

Ode to ignorance in the LA Times

2006-05-17T19:19:00.000-07:00

Wednesday's LA Times runs a nearly uncritical article-- advertisement would be closer to the truth -- about the wondrous claims of a peddler of something called "peanut milk."

"The drink, which does not contain milk, is made from peanuts, grains, herbs and spices. Fans say it strengthens patients with AIDS and cancer, reverses baldness, heals wounds faster, prevents colds, reduces symptoms of menopause and soothes psoriasis. It's also said to be a hangover cure. Some drink it at bedtime to help them sleep; others choose it as an alternative to caffeine."

There's not a shred of scientific evidence any of this is true, a fact briefly noted amid the raves of fans, who say they don't need no stinkin' science to know it works. The article quotes one scientist -- paid by the company to examine the ingredients -- who vaguely speculates it "may help alter the immune system."

"William Garcia Ganz, 58, who suffers from HIV and cancer, is another regular customer. One day, Chang noticed how sickly Ganz looked and began pushing him to drink peanut milk. Chang told Ganz that his older brother died from complications of AIDS in San Francisco in 1990.

Ganz, a musician and conductor, was unable to pay, so Chang gave him a free daily quart. During his exhausting chemotherapy, Ganz said, he lived solely on peanut milk, gaining weight, before his cancer went into remission.

"I don't know if it was a miracle, but this drink definitely tided me over during those awful months," he said."

Did the LA Times writer bother to verify if this guy really has AIDS? Did he talk to the guy's doctor? The article doesn't say. Judging from the absence of this information, probably not.

The ode to ignorance concludes with these three depressing paragraphs:

Justin Jackson, a regional grocery coordinator for Whole Foods, said if Chang could back up claims with test results, "peanut milk will really take off."

But fans say they don't need scientific confirmation.

"People don't know how aspirin works," said Reginald Legba, who credits the drink with helping to restore his hair. "I don't know how my car works, but when I get in and turn the key, I know it starts up every time. I also can't explain peanut milk. But every time you need it to work, it works."

Actually, people do know how aspirin works.

In a piece of research for which he was awarded both a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1982 and a knighthood, John Robert Vane, who was then employed by the Royal College of Surgeons in London, showed in 1971 that aspirin suppresses the production of prostaglandins and thromboxanes. This happens because cyclooxygenase, an enzyme that participates in the production of prostaglandins and thromboxanes, is irreversibly inhibited when aspirin acetylates it. This makes aspirin different from other NSAIDS (such as diclofenac and ibuprofen), which are reversible inhibitors.

Prostaglandins are local hormones (paracrine) produced in the body and have diverse effects in the body, including but not limited to transmission of pain information to the brain, modulation of the hypothalamic thermostat, and inflammation.

But why let the facts -- and the harm that glorification of unproven health rumors can do -- get in the way of a good story?

Jeff Jarvis' Revenge

2006-05-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

It takes a lot to move a sluggish giant corporation. Computer maker Dell Inc. has been remarkably slothlike in waking up to the dissatisfaction of consumers about its product quality and (insert joke here) technical support.

Uberblogger Jeff Jarvis mordibly fascinated me some time back with his horror stories of Dell Hell. Jarvis raised hell, but Dell wouldn't listen. As late as this January, CEO Michael Dell was shrugging off the implications of his company's bad reputation in the blogosphere.

A little economic pain, namely Dell's poor quarterly performance, is a wonderful antidote to that surreal obliviousness.

Jarvis predicted Dell's hubris would turn to humiliation. You get my crystal ball award, Jeff.

UPDATE:
To get an idea of how clueless Dell is about blogs, PC curmudgeon John Dvorak pointed out on St. Patrick's Day that Dell's dull Linux blog hadn't been updated since 2005. A few hours after Dvorak's column was posted, the Dell Linux blog posted this scintillating item:

"The following Linux related papers were published in Dell Power Solutions Quaterly for February 2006:

* Building Clustered Enterprise Applications with JBoss Application Server on the Dell PowerEdge 1855 Blade Server

* VMware ESX Server Performance on Dell PowerEdge 2850 and PowerEdge 6850 Servers

* Configuring a Highly Available Linux Cluster for SAP Services

* OS Deployment Using Dell OpenManage Server Assistant and Preboot Execution Environment"

The next item, dated March 25, begins:

"In conjunction with the Linux team and OpenManage Install team, we are pleased to announce an unofficial, publicly-available up2date/yum repository containing the Q3 2005 release of OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA), version 4.5. We would like to encourage anybody who uses OMSA on Linux to give this setup a try and let us know what you think. We intend to keep this repository up-to-date with the latest consolidated version of OMSA."

The next item, dated May 9, reads in its entirety:

"Dell Linux Software Architect Matt Domsch has been named as a community member to the Fedora Project Board."

The term shovelware comes to mind.

Either Dell hasn't a clue what blogs are, or is trying to bore readers to death so it won't have to do anything serious about Linux. Perhaps both.

This 'n' That

2006-05-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

JournalSpace is finally up, after an Internet eternity offline. Well, the company kept its word about being up on Tuesday. The question is, how many people are going to trust JS after this debacle?

* * *

Well, another Jason Leopold "scoop" has failed to materialize. Leopold wrote over the weekend at Truthout.org that Bush advisor Karl Rove had been indicted. The report in Truthout was flat-out denied by Rove's attorney. The whole thing looks now like another phony story by the discredited "journalist" writing in a left-wingnut site.

The Wall Street Journal (paid subscribers only) writes about the meltdown of the story. Part of it focuses on the role of those bloggers in spreading misinformation.

"Mainstream news organizations say bloggers can say something is going to happen every day for months and then claim to be ahead of the pack when it does -- or forget about it when it doesn't. Bloggers complain that traditional reporters don't credit them for scoops when they are proved right."

That's true. And the Journal article does note that Leopold had "worked for a number of mainstream news organizations." It doesn't mention, perhaps out of shame, that one of those organizations was Dow Jones Newswires, a sister news outlet.

Much of the blogging community was skeptical of Leopold's latest fizzled exclusive. It only gained traction among the loony lefters, who are willing to believe anything bad about the Bush Administration. The WSJ story should have pointed that out.

Cathy Seipp's new Web home

2006-05-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

Given the continuing meltdown of JournalSpace, Cathy did the only reasonable thing -- set up a new blog elsewhere. Even if JournalSpace goes up again, she shouldn't go back, IMO. Four or five days is unforgivably long for such an outage.

JournalSpace back on Tuesday?

2006-05-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

That's the day JournalSpace says it plans to have its blog service back online. That's an "estimate," though, not a firm target.

"We are making upgrades to help ensure that this problem does not happen again. The process of upgrading the hardware and restoring the data is, by necessity, a long and complex one." JournalSpace wrote on its vestigial home page.

We'll see.