On the Plain, Wily Buffalo Outfox Indians. A herd of 32 bison, abandoned by a rancher in trouble with the law, are running wild in Oregon, and frustrating efforts to trap them. By Sarah Kershaw. [New York Times: Science]

Well, they are only outfoxing the Indians because they Indians are trying to capture ALL the buffalo humanely, rather than just shooting them all. They should be praised for taking a lot of time and expending a lot of effort instead of taking the easiest route.  11:22:08 PM    

Our Lapdog Media. OUR LAPDOG MEDIA....Patrick Nielsen Hayden has a good post about the difference between the American media and the British media when it comes to interviewing politicians. Short version: their reporters insist that politicians actually answer their questions, ours just accept... [CalPundit]

And Patrick Nielsen Hayden also provides this comment, that I believe is right on target:

I think Claude Munsey nails it: The British system requires ministers, including the Prime Minister, to regularly and publicly face hostile questioning from the opposition. As a result, the ability to handle one's self under such a barrage isn't just desirable; it's something that ambitious politicians go out of their way to flaunt. When Tony Blair goes on TV to be grilled by a Dimbleby, he isn't saying 'I recognize that I owe a debt of accountability to the citizenry.' (Indeed, accountability isn't really one of Blair's strong suits.) Rather, what he's saying is 'I am now going to remind all of you that I am one tough son of a bitch.'

10:59:30 PM    

No More Torture. NO MORE TORTURE....The Bush administration has officially renounced the use of torture:"All interrogations, wherever they may occur," must be conducted without the use of cruel and inhuman tactics, the Pentagon's senior lawyer wrote after members of Congress and human rights... [CalPundit]

I am glad that we are finally going the final mile and offcially renouncing torture. I would not want to live in a country that used torture as an approved government policy.  10:57:35 PM    

""revisionist history"" [Daypop Top 40]

Internet fact-checking. But the major media never put this sort of thing on. Embarassing the Speaker of the House is not a good career move.  10:27:28 PM    

Bush Decides Who Deserves Due Process. Jacob Sullem of Reason has written " Know Thy Enemy Combatant." Nat Hentoff's new Village Voice column is up, Is... [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]

I am constantly amazed how upfront and callous the government can be about this. Ashcroft says that the Executive can take any American citizen, declare them an enemy combatant in a secret proceeding and hold them without any benefit of the Bill of Rights for as long as they want. Read this other article from The Village Voice where an aide, when asked what insurance an American citizen had against secret arrest and detention, replied:

Well, I guess his family could speak out if he's missing, and if that creates a political furor, then the President would be accountable at the next election.

  

College Student Raises Money For Piracy Fine Online. Jesse Jordan, one of the four students who built a search engine (not file sharing software) for his university network and was forced to settle with the RIAA, has happily announced that, via online donations he has raised the $12,000 necessary to pay the settlement fees. Jesse, however, appears to not be backing down (good for him). He put his search engine back online, and the RIAA tried to rescind the settlement and sue him again. Jesse continued to stand up for his right to create and use a search engine. It appears that the RIAA finally backed down, after a judge told them it wouldn't be wise for them to reopen the case. It's unfortunate that people just needed to dump an extra $12,000 into the hands of the RIAA when nothing illegal occurred. [Techdirt]

I think that it is a uniquely modern solution for the Internet to be used to raise money for someone who was dragged through the justice system by lawyers with nothing really important to do. The RIAA is busily alienating its own customers, making the 18-32 year olds absolutely hate them. And the RIAA responds by threatening to sue anyone who has copyrighted material it does not approve of. Not very smart. But then no one said the RIAA was really very smart or far sighted.  9:42:36 PM    

More on the Sabo bill....Catherine Zandonella repo .... More on the Sabo bill....Catherine Zandonella reports the story in today's issue of The Scientist. Excerpt: "Rep. Sabo drafted and introduced the bill after the PLoS approached him and explained that while federal tax dollars support research, access to the results is limited to scientists whose libraries can afford high subscription fees and to those lay people lucky enough to live near a public institutional library. 'Most people are shocked when they find out they cannot access the results of studies that their tax dollars paid for,' said Sabo's legislative assistant Lisa Tomlinson, who was involved in writing the bill....Without copyright, journals would still be able to publish articles much as they do now, but they would not be able to control the distribution or republishing of the articles. Publishers say they need copyright in order to control a publication's quality....Advocates of open access say that publishers should not own the copyright because the amount of work that the journal does?procuring peer review, editing, and laying out the article on the page?does not justify ownership. 'Their [the publisher's] contribution to the finished product pales in comparison to contributions from scientists and the general public,' said Michael Eisen, cofounder of PLoS and a geneticist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley." [FOS News]

It will be interesting to see how far this bill gets. I expect the Media Cartel to stomp it out. I hope I am wrong. I really hated having to turn over my roghts to the publisher in order to get a paper published. It meant that I could not include a copy of my paper on my own web site. This needs to change.  9:27:19 PM    

Starbucks: Just Getting Started. Seattle's other big monopoly is swallowing the competition on its way to grinding out greater global dominance. [AlterNet]

I'm sorry but Starbucks is not a monopoly. The article itself says it only has 7% of the market for coffee. Starbucks energized the coffee bar and the whole idea of a good cup of coffee. Simply because a company is big does not make them bad. As far as I know, Starbucks has no more abused its market position than any other coffee company. It spends a tremendous amount of effort on its customers. Somehow we are supposed to be upset simply because there are a lot of stores, some right across the street from each other. If people did not use them, they would not be there. WHy get upset about capitalism at work? Oh, right. Capitalism is bad.This sorts of articles just about write themselves and all follow the same template. Just once I would like to read something actually surprising.  9:21:47 PM    

Andrew Sullivan Is Wrong Again!!.

Andrew Sullivan calls me a "...classic example of the arrogant liberal. He supports affirmative action and believes that individuals in 2003 bear a direct responsibility for those people who enacted slavery and made life a living hell for many black Americans in decades and centuries past." But he's wrong. On this issue the arguments that convince me are not liberal but conservative ones--Burkean ones, to be exact.

A liberal sees society as a result of a social contract implicitly made between all of us alive today: we agree to live by rules and laws that we then have a chance to rethink, remake, and reform. It's important that this social contract be fair to us. From this perspective, the questions "Why should recent Korean immigrants bear any responsibility for repairing the damage left by the marks of slavery and Jim Crow?" and "Why should African-Americans find their own capabilities and potential accomplishments still limited by the marks of slavery and Jim Crow?" are both very good ones. (Somehow Andrew Sullivan only asks the first, and never thinks to ask the second. But thinking about why would take us far afield.)...

*Andrew Northrup-suggested ediut.

[Semi-Daily Journal]

Read the entire article. Brad discusses some very important aspects of being a citizen in a republic, what is required and what is expected. Great reading.  8:29:51 PM    

Inequality by Race.

A correspondent asks:

...do you support AA for... upper-class blacks whose families have been wealthy for four or more generations?

It seems worth pointing out that that is almost the empty set. There are (virtually) no African-Americans whose families have been wealthy for four or more generations. There are (damn few) African-Americans whose families have been wealthy for two generations.

Tom Hertz has a sample of 2,389 African-Americans born between 1950 and 1970s. How many of them had parents whose incomes put them in the top 5% of nationwide incomes? Not 120 (which would be the case if African-Americans a generation ago had the same income distribution as whites). Not 60 (which would be the case if African-Americans a generation ago had half the chance of being in the top 5% of the nationwide income distribution as whites). But 3. Three. THREE.

The incomes of the so-called "Black Bourgeosie" were, by the standards of rich white guys, no great shakes...

[Semi-Daily Journal]

Wealthy minorities are a recent phenomenon. Let's see what the answer would be in anoher 40 years to see if AA needs to be dropped.  6:43:35 PM