conflux
LA Times: Newspapers Improvise With Web Editions and Blogs
LA Times
Newspapers Improvise With Web Editions and Blogs
"The crisis at the Times-Picayune exemplified the challenges facing the media throughout the region being lashed and flooded by Hurricane Katrina. The newspaper was among several news outlets that moved into temporary workspace outside the flood zone and struggled to communicate with reporters, who were bedeviled by spotty phone service."
""I have been in this business a long time and we have covered a lot of stories, but this must be the most difficult," said Fred Young, a 40-year television veteran and senior vice president for news with Hearst-Argyle."
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"The Times-Picayune, whose daily circulation is 270,000, put out only an electronic edition yesterday with a one-word headline summing up the impact of Hurricane Katrina: "Catastrophic.""
"The Internet, as a decentralized communications network, can be more resilient than traditional media when natural disasters occur. "Owning broadcast towers and printing presses were useless," said Jeff Jarvis, a consultant to online media companies. "The Web proved to be a better media in a case like this.""
"Lee Ann Schlatter, a spokeswoman for Knight Ridder, the publishing company that owns both the Gulfport and Columbus papers, said the company was sending in dozens of additional journalists from other papers as well as supplies.
"We're trying to get food and water in there," she said. "It's real basic survival needs to make it possible for these people to do the job."
With most regular telephones and cell phones rendered useless after the storm, Miss Schlatter said, the company was sending in satellite phones -- the same piece of equipment used by many reporters covering the war in Iraq. "
"During disasters such as the London bombings in July, citizen journalists posted voluminous on-the-scene photos and witness accounts at Web sites and blogs. But by its nature, Hurricane Katrina was so powerful that it hampered citizen journalism by knocking out power and communications lines and limiting their movements. Instead, established news outlets have been offering community forums and missing-persons bulletin boards.
"We take it for granted that the Internet is as susceptible as anything to outage,'' said Michael Tippett, founder of NowPublic, a Web site devoted to news by citizen reporters. NowPublic put up a missing-persons board. Although many hurricane sites mentioned it, only a dozen queries had been posted by Tuesday night, including Misra's."
""People are concentrating on surviving right now," Tippett added. ``We'll see the aftermath of it online later.''"
11:37 PM
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The New York Times: Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much
The New York Times
Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much
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"Dr. Miller, 63, a political scientist who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at the medical school, studies how much Americans know about science and what they think about it. His findings are not encouraging.
While scientific literacy has doubled over the past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are "scientifically savvy and alert," he said in an interview. Most of the rest "don't have a clue." At a time when science permeates debates on everything from global warming to stem cell research, he said, people's inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process."
"Dr. Miller's data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century."
"Nearly all U.S. states have set new standards for academic achievement in their schools. To help ensure that "no child is left behind," states now periodically test students to see if they meet these standards. Most kids are not amused. What are today's kids expected to know? Get a hint by taking this sample of the Illinois State Board of Education's math test for 8th-graders. We promise you won't have to repeat a grade."
"Few Americans understand the scientific process and many believe in mysterious psychic powers and may be quick to accept phony science reports, according to a national survey.
The survey, part of the National Science Foundation's biennial report on the state of science understanding, research, education and investment, found that the belief in ``pseudoscience'' is common in America. The study found that science literacy has improved only slightly since the previous survey and that 70 percent of American adults do not understand the scientific process."
"Many a late-night channel surfer has been numbed to sleep by endless infomercials hawking ab machines, penis enlargers, psychic readings and baldness cures. But how about a 30-minute faux talk show featuring a slick "expert author" who promises natural cures for cancer, diabetes and chronic fatigue syndrome and who claims that the FDA, drug companies and food industry have withheld such cures from the public in order to keep making bigger and bigger profits?
Step right up folks, and tune in to the paranoid world of master huckster Kevin Trudeau, whose book "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About" climbed to the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list for advice titles last weekend. The Federal Trade Commission virtually banned Trudeau from the airwaves last year in an attempt to "shut down an infomercial empire that has misled American consumers for years." But by shifting his business model from selling supposed cure-all products to peddling books, which are protected by the First Amendment, Trudeau has been able to slip past federal regulators and continue to sell snake oil to the masses -- first through his infomercial and now via mainstream book retailers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. "
"A leading medical journal has made a damning attack on homeopathy, saying it is no better than dummy drugs.
The Lancet says the time for more studies is over and doctors should be bold and honest with patients about homeopathy's "lack of benefit"."
"So who is right and who is wrong in this debate? Both sides have valid points. Greenfield and other scientists are right when they assert that science literacy does make a difference in public estimations of science and technology, but it is by no means the only solution in assuaging public fears about new technologies such as genetic engineering. Yet, Turney and others are also correct when they emphasis the impacts of public trust, "public efficacy," (the feeling of being listened to, and being able to make a difference in science-related decision-making), and institutionalized forms of public deliberation.
In fact, it's possible that the current debate relative to science can draw upon valuable research focused on why people participate in politics generally, and why people trust (or distrust) various government institutions. This research shows that knowledge, trust, efficacy, and deliberation are all closely related. Enhanced knowledge of politics leads to an increased belief among individuals that they can make a difference in politics, and also leads to increased trust in political institutions. Deliberating or discussing politics with others enhances knowledge, but also gets people involved. "
6:49 PM
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MSN Money: Greenspan warns on dangers in US housing market
MSN Money
Greenspan warns on dangers in US housing market
"Alan Greenspan sounded his clearest warning yet on the dangers of an over-heated US housing market, raising the prospect of falling prices when the boom comes to an end and arguing that it was hard to predict the impact on consumer spending.
Speaking at the end of the Federal Reserve's weekend symposium in Jackson Hole, the Fed chairman said: "The housing boom will inevitably simmer down. As part of that process, house turnover will decline from currently historic levels while home price increases will slow and prices could even decrease.""
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"But as recently as last October Mr. Greenspan dismissed talk of a housing bubble: "While local economies may experience significant speculative price imbalances, a national severe price distortion seems most unlikely."
Wait, it gets worse. These days Mr. Greenspan expresses concern about the financial risks created by "the prevalence of interest-only loans and the introduction of more-exotic forms of adjustable-rate mortgages." But last year he encouraged families to take on those very risks, touting the advantages of adjustable-rate mortgages and declaring that "American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage."
If Mr. Greenspan had said two years ago what he's saying now, people might have borrowed less and bought more wisely. But he didn't, and now it's too late."
redux [08.22.04]
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"Today, nine years after his lunch with Mr. Greenspan and five years after the markets finally did crash, Mr. Shiller is sounding the same warning for real estate that he did for stocks. In speeches, in television and radio interviews and in a second edition of his prophetic 2000 book, "Irrational Exuberance," he is arguing that the housing craze is another bubble destined to end badly, just as every other real-estate boom on record has.
These, in short, are his second 15 minutes of gloom. He predicts that prices could fall 40 percent in inflation-adjusted terms over the next generation and that the end of the bubble will probably cause a recession at some point."
"Single-family home prices are "extremely overvalued" in 53 cities that make up nearly a third of the overall U.S. housing market, putting them at high risk of price declines, according to a study released today."
"The highest-risk markets are in California; Southern Florida; parts of the Boston area; the Long Island, N.Y., counties of Nassau and Suffolk; and Ocean City, N.J."
""For the U.S. as a whole, I expect we're going to have an orderly correction. But that doesn't mean it's going to be equally orderly in all places," DeKaser says."
"But this time something important is different: Interest rates are inching up. It was the Federal Reserve-engineered decline in rates that inflated the housing bubble. But starting with a quarter-point increase in the funds rate on June 30, the Fed has begun what promises to be a prolonged tightening cycle. Even if the Fed's hikes are measured, higher mortgage rates will inevitably make houses less affordable. If 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rise just one percentage point, to 7.2% from their current 6.2% -- well within the range of forecasts -- house prices would have to fall 11% to keep new buyers' monthly mortgage payments from rising. If fixed rates went to 8%, prices would need to fall 20% to keep payments level.
Rising rates will hurt more than in the past because the market is more dependent on heavily leveraged buyers."
"These data indicate that the housing bubble has even affected the lower-income homes. While the price declines may be smaller than for higher cost housing, many lower-income homebuyers may still see the price of their homes fall by 20 to 30 percent when the housing bubble bursts. This could mean, for example, that a home bought today for $160,000 sells for $120,000 to $130,000 in two or three years, if the housing bubble bursts.
Price declines of this magnitude will be devastating for families who have struggled to afford the homes they purchase. While some homeowners may live in their houses long enough for inflation to eventually restore home prices to current levels, few would be happy to sell their house in twenty years for the price they paid today."
"NEVER before have real house prices risen so fast, for so long, in so many countries. Property markets have been frothing from America, Britain and Australia to France, Spain and China. Rising property prices helped to prop up the world economy after the stockmarket bubble burst in 2000. What if the housing boom now turns to bust?
According to estimates by The Economist, the total value of residential property in developed economies rose by more than $30 trillion over the past five years, to over $70 trillion, an increase equivalent to 100% of those countries' combined GDPs. Not only does this dwarf any previous house-price boom, it is larger than the global stockmarket bubble in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of 80% of GDP) or America's stockmarket bubble in the late 1920s (55% of GDP). In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history."
5:43 PM
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Popular Science: Can This Fruit Be Saved?
Popular Science
Can This Fruit Be Saved?
"That sameness is the banana’s paradox. After 15,000 years of human cultivation, the banana is too perfect, lacking the genetic diversity that is key to species health. What can ail one banana can ail all. A fungus or bacterial disease that infects one plantation could march around the globe and destroy millions of bunches, leaving supermarket shelves empty.
A wild scenario? Not when you consider that there’s already been one banana apocalypse.""
"A global effort is now under way to save the fruit—an effort defined by two opposing visions of how best to address the looming crisis. On one side are traditional banana growers, like Aguilar, who raise experimental breeds in the fields, trying to create a replacement plant that looks and tastes so similar to the Cavendish that consumers won’t notice the difference. On the other side are bioengineers like Rony Swennen, who, armed with a largely decoded banana genome, are manipulating the plant’s chromosomes, sometimes crossing them with DNA from other species, with the goal of inventing a tougher Cavendish that will resist Panama disease and other ailments."
"Prior to 1960, the export trade was based almost entirely on the susceptible clultivar ‘Gros Michel.’ This reliance on Gros Michel and the common practice of using infected rhizomes to establish new plantations resulted in widespread and severe losses, especially in the western tropics. In the Ulua Valley of Honduras alone, 30,000 hectares were lost between 1940 and 1960. Damage occurred more rapidly in areas such as Suriname, where an entire operation of 4,000 hectares was out of production within 8 years, and the Quepos area in Costa Rica, where it took 12 years for 6,000 hectares to be destroyed. Because it cost between $2,000 and $5,000 to establish a hectare of plantation at the time, direct losses during the Gros Michel era reached many millions of dollars.
By the mid-1900s, the export trade was forced to convert to resistant cultivars in the Cavendish subgroup. These cultivars continue to perform well in the western tropics and remain the clones on which the trades are based."
"This essay seeks to explain why the major fruit companies operating in Central America and the Caribbean delayed in converting to Panama disease-resistant varieties for nearly fifty years. I argue that the industry's response to the epidemic is best understood by focusing on the interactions between the banana's biology, the agroecology of tropical monocultures, and the structures, actors, and discourses that shaped international mass markets. In order to do so, I utilize an analytical framework inspired by two distinct yet complementary approaches to doing environmental history: agroecology and the study of commodity flows."
"We westerners love bananas, but we won't go hungry if they disappear. They taste good in daiquiris and smashed into a baby's mush. The most profitable export fruit in the world, bananas earn $12 billion for Chiquita, Dole and other companies growing crops in South America and Africa.
For the poor in developing nations, however -- more than 400 million people, from Honduras and Cuba to Uganda, Ethiopia and the Philippines -- the banana and plantain are major food staples. They consume 9 of 10 bananas and plantains, 90 million metric tons annually."
For the poor in developing nations, however -- more than 400 million people, from Honduras and Cuba to Uganda, Ethiopia and the Philippines -- the banana and plantain are major food staples. They consume 9 of 10 bananas and plantains, 90 million metric tons annually."
"An excellent source of carbohydrate, fibre, vitamins and minerals, bananas are the fourth most valuable food in developing countries after rice, wheat and milk. Indeed in Uganda, where bananas are consumed in the largest quantities, the local word 'matooke' means 'food'. In exports, it also ranks fourth amongst all agricultural commodities and is traded in greater quantities than any other fruit at a total of $2.5 billion annually. And yet, only 10% of global production is destined for international markets - the rest is consumed at local or national level. In recent years, pests and disease have plagued bananas. Black Sigatoka disease is renowned for the damage it is has done and it is controlled only in commercial plantations by frequent application of fungicides. But other pests and diseases also impact on this curvaceous commodity. In January 2003, New Scientist reported that 'the world's favourite fruit is about to disappear'. In response, New Agriculturist, asked those connected with the crop, for their Points of View on the future of bananas."
"Once again, the ecological doomsday bell has been set to tolling, this time by folks fearful of the imminent demise of our favorite fruit, the banana. In January 2003, a report in New Scientist suggested bananas could well disappear within ten years thanks to two blights: black Sigatoka, a leaf fungus, and Panama disease, a soil fungus which attacks the roots of the plant. Those claims have since been disputed.
Banana aren't about to be swept from the face of the earth by a deadly pestilence poised to wipe them out. There are about 300 varieties of the fruit, and the current fear applies to only one of them, the Cavendish. Granted, the Cavendish is our banana of choice, but it isn't the only banana out there. Even if the Cavendish were lost to us, we would still not be singing "Yes, We Have No Bananas.""
12:22 PM
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The Economist: Fast food's yummy secret
The Economist
Fast food's yummy secret
"IT IS one of the biggest companies in one of the biggest industries in America. Its brand names litter the highways and high streets of the world. From its modest base in Louisville, Kentucky, it oversees the opening of three new restaurants, one of them in China, every day. Last year it earned pre-tax profits of $1 billion on sales of $9 billion. Yet few of its customers have ever heard of it.
But if they know KFC (previously Kentucky Fried Chicken), or Pizza Hut, or Taco Bell, then they know Yum! Brands. The parent of those three fast-food chains, it has 34,000 (mostly franchised) restaurants around the world, 2,000 more than McDonald's. At home in America it accounts for about 4% of all restaurant-industry sales, behind only McDonald's at 6.5%. With 1,378 KFC restaurants in China, and 201 Pizza Huts at mid-2005, Yum! owns two of the best-known brand names in the world's most populous market. Not bad going, you might say, for a company that Pepsi-Cola got rid of in 1997 because, in the words of one PepsiCo executive, “restaurants weren't our schtick”."
"This spring, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a small farm laborers' group, won a surprising victory against the world's second-largest fast-food company.
After a four-year boycott, tomato pickers in Immokalee, Fla., got Yum Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, to agree to pay them higher wages and -- perhaps more significantly -- to lead a push for more protections for migrant workers.
Insana: How long can you open 1,000 stores a year?
Novak: A long, long time. We have a tremendous opportunity to open stores all around the world. China is just huge. When you look at just its urban customer; there are 500 million. There are only 290 million people in the U.S. There are close to a billion people in India, where Pizza Hut was just named the most trusted restaurant brand. We've got so much more runway it's unbelievable.
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"Companies say multibranding also helps increase revenue from a single location. Since Taco Bell gets most of its business at lunchtime and KFC gets most of its at dinnertime, combining the restaurants creates a steady flow of business throughout the day, said Amy Sherwood, a spokeswoman for Yum Brands. Similarly, Mr. Bertini of Wendy's said that having customers go to Tim Hortons for coffee, doughnuts and other breakfast items gives the company morning traffic it would not otherwise have.
While Yum's multibranded restaurants are only slightly larger than individual sites in square footage, their sales are between $250,000 and $300,000 a year higher than stand-alone stores, said Mr. Deno. "There are a lot of places that would be too cost-prohibitive for us to add another stand-alone KFC or Taco Bell, like high-cost urban centers or low-density rural areas," said Mr. Deno. "But as a combination, we can do it.""
11:44 AM
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MSNBC: China a staging ground for computer attacks
MSNBC
China a staging ground for computer attacks
"Web sites in China are being used heavily to target computer networks in the Defense Department and other U.S. agencies, successfully breaching hundreds of unclassified networks, according to several U.S. officials."
"Whether the attacks constitute a coordinated Chinese government campaign to penetrate U.S. networks and spy on government databanks has divided U.S. analysts. Some in the Pentagon are said to be convinced of official Chinese involvement; others see the electronic probing as the work of other hackers simply using Chinese networks to disguise the origins of the attacks."
redux [02.26.04]
""I wouldn't say that the critical infrastructure is fully protected at this point by a long stretch," Stanco says. While the government can protect its own Web sites and servers, protecting its section of the infrastructure won't make that much difference unless the banks, electrical companies, and other major corporations match the government's efforts, he notes.
"I'm not sure private industry's going to do it by itself," Stanco adds."
redux [11.14.03]
""The goal of terrorism is to change society through the use of force or violence, resulting in fear," he explained. "I want to put this cyberterrorism thing to rest. It's a theory, it's not a fact.""
Even though there were examples of attacks that have physical consequences--such as the case of Vitek Boden, sentenced to two years in prison for releasing up to 1 million liters of sewage into the river and coastal waters of the town of Maroochydore, in Queensland, Australia, in 2001--they could not be described as terrorist acts, Mogull explained. To a large extent, it comes down to motive, he said."
"Verton criticized the IT security community for what he called appeasement, accepting unacceptable levels of risk and focusing on past threats rather than future dangers.
"This is going to be one of the primary battlefields of the future," he said. "We need to have a discussion of cybervulnerabilities today, before the next failure occurs.""
redux [09.03.03]
Nearly half of all Americans surveyed say they are worried that terrorists could launch attacks through the networks connecting home computers and powerful utilities, a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.
Some industry analysts consider this level of concern a triumph of sorts, signifying that their lobbying efforts and public awareness campaigns have had an effect."
redux [08.17.03]
"The bigger risk is a digital attack. Richard Clarke, former cyberspace security czar in the Bush Administration, thinks an attack on the electricity- generating system is more likely to come from computer hackers than bombers. "The power grid is controlled by software, so the question is, Is there a way you can get into the control system?" Clarke asks. "And, yeah, there is."
A skilled hacker could disable a network of several plants without ever entering a facility by seizing digital controls at the point where computers meet the infrastructure they run."
redux [08.01.03]
""Based on what we knew at the time, the most likely scenario was an attack from cyberspace, not airliners slamming into buildings," said Sachs, in an interview after his keynote."
"While he stops short of saying that Washington's cyber terror obsession was a blunder, Sachs acknowledges that, in hindsight, the effort was misdirected. "We had spent a lot of time preparing for a cyber attack, not a physical attack," says Sachs. "Our priorities had to change a little bit.""
redux [06.20.03]
"The threat of cyberterrorism is causing much alarm these days. We have been told to expect attacks since 9/11; that cyberterrorists would try to cripple our power system, disable air traffic control and emergency services, open dams, or disrupt banking and communications. But so far, nothing's happened. Even during the war in Iraq, which was supposed to increase the risk dramatically, nothing happened. The impending cyberwar was a big dud. Don't congratulate our vigilant security, though; the alarm was caused by a misunderstanding of both the attackers and the attacks."
redux [04.09.03]
"In his first appearance on Capitol Hill since leaving the White House in February, Richard A. Clarke warned lawmakers against the "dangerous" tendency to dismiss the consequences of an attack on the nation's computer networks.
"For many, the cyberthreat is hard to understand: No one has died in a cyberattack, after all. There has never been a smoking ruin for cameras to see," said Clarke, now a security consultant. "It is the kind of thinking that said we never had a major foreign terrorist attack in the United States, so we never would; al Qaeda has just been a nuisance, so it never will be more than that.""
redux [03.14.03]
"The threat posed by cyber-terrorism has been overhyped and the net is unlikely to become a launch pad for terror attacks.
That was the conclusion of a panel of security and technology experts brought together at the CeBIT technology fair to consider the threat posed by net attacks on businesses and consumers."
""The hype is coming from the US Government and I don't know why," [Bruce Schneier] said."
redux [03.04.03]
"How else to explain the credulity with which the Bush administration's National Strategy To Secure Cyberspace was greeted last month? The 76-page document is chock full of what computer-security experts term "FUD"--geek shorthand for spreading bogus "fear, uncertainty, and doubt." Never mind that the hype over alleged "cyberterrorism" has been thoroughly debunked, time and time again. The government's information technology sages still trot out dubious stats in support of a looming "cyberwar," claiming that hostile nations possess legions of computer-savvy shock troops ready to knock out New York's electricity, zap the nation's phone lines, or open up the Hoover Dam.
Yet here we are in 2003, and the cyberterrorism casualty list is still barren. Sure, some Serb hackers slowed down the NATO Web site during the Kosovo conflict, and a couple of Chinese hackers defaced sites in the wake of their country's embassy being bombed. But, honestly, did either incident get you quaking in your Keds?"
redux [02.28.03]
"We can say with some certainty, al Qaeda loves the Internet. When the latter first appeared, it was hailed as an integrator of cultures and a medium for businesses, consumers, and governments to communicate with one another. It appeared to offer unparalleled opportunities for the creation of a "global village." Today the Internet still offers that promise, but it also has proven in some respects to be a digital menace. Its use by al Qaeda is only one example. It also has provided a virtual battlefield for peacetime hostilities between Taiwan and China, Israel and Palestine, Pakistan and India, and China and the United States (during both the war over Kosovo and in the aftermath of the collision between the Navy EP-3 aircraft and Chinese MiG). In times of actual conflict, the Internet was used as a virtual battleground between NATO's coalition forces and elements of the Serbian population. These real tensions from a virtual interface involved not only nation-states but also non-state individuals and groups either aligned with one side or the other, or acting independently."
redux [02.18.02]
"The retirement of Richard Clarke is appropriate to the reality of the war on terror. Years ago, Clarke bet his national security career on the idea that electronic war was going to be real war. He lost, because as al Qaeda and Iraq have shown, real action is still of the blood and guts kind.
In happier times prior to 9/11, Clarke -- as Bill Clinton's counter-terror point man in the National Security Council -- devoted great effort to convincing national movers and shakers that cyberattack was the coming thing. While ostensibly involved in preparations for bioterrorism and trying to sound alarms about Osama bin Laden, Clarke was most often seen in the news predicting ways in which electronic attacks were going to change everything and rewrite the calculus of conflict.
redux [12.20.02]
"To all those Chicken Littles clucking frantically about the imminent threat of a terrorist attack on U.S. computer networks, a new report says: Knock it off."
""The idea that hackers are going to bring the nation to its knees is too far-fetched a scenario to be taken seriously," said Jim Lewis, a 16-year veteran of the State and Commerce Departments."
""Nations are more robust than the early analysts of cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare give them credit for," Lewis wrote in the report. "Infrastructure systems (are) more flexible and responsive in restoring service than the early analysts realized, in part because they have to deal with failure on a routine basis.""
redux [10.29.02]
"Politically motivated hack attacks are rising "sharply," London-based computer security firm mi2g said Tuesday, citing in particular the rise of what it called "Islamic interest hacking groups." And while political hacks account for just a fraction of all hacking activity, security experts worry that may soon change."
"October, mi2g said, has already qualified as the worst month for overt digital attacks since its records began in 1995, with an estimated 16,559 attacks carried out on systems and Web sites."
redux [09.18.02]
"CSIS analyst Arnaud de Borchgrave, a former editor-in-chief of the Washington Times and United Press International, warned that a "cyberattack" was just around the corner.
"It is later than we think. The next generation of transnational terrorists understands that a hand on a mouse can be more lethal than a finger on the trigger," said de Borchgrave, who co-authored a report that concluded: "Cyberattacks now arise whenever disputes occur anywhere in the world...Can cyberterrorism and cyberwar be far behind?""
redux [08.14.02]
"THE FIRST THOUGHT that comes to my mind when people mention cyberwar is: What kind of attack are they really talking about? We've seen Web page defacements traded between Palestinian and Israeli cyberactivists. The Yaha worm, thought to have originated in India, recently caused a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Pakistani government's main Web site. In the grand scheme of things, however these are relatively minor inconveniences compared with a major military ground or air attack."
"No one has ever made it clear to me exactly what a cyberwar would entail--and I'm betting I'm not the only one who's confused here. "
"A mock cyberwar enacted by faculty of the US Naval War College and analysts from Gartner does not appear to have fulfilled the Clancyesque predictions of mass devastation envisioned by the leading security paranoiacs of the Clinton and Bush Administrations.
The exercise, named "Digital Pearl Harbor," apparently in tribute to US CyberSecurity Czar and Chief Alarmist Richard Clarke, brought together a team of experts in several areas related to critical infrastructure for a three-day hackfest."
redux [10.04.01]
"Netwar is an emerging mode of conflict in which the protagonists - ranging from terrorist and criminal organizations on the dark side, to militant social activists on the bright side - use network forms of organization, doctrine, strategy, and technology attuned to the information age. The practice of netwar is well ahead of theory, as both civil and uncivil society actors are increasingly engaging in this new way of fighting. We suggest how the theory of netwar may be improved by drawing on academic perspectives on networks, especially those about organizational network analysis. As for practice, strategists and policymakers in Washington and elsewhere have begun to discern the dark side of the network phenomenon - especially in the wake of the "attack on America" perpetrated apparently by Osama bin Laden's terror network. But they still have much work to do to begin harnessing the bright side, by formulating strategies that will enable state and civil-society actors to work together better."
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""People aren't going to be killing us with computers," Mr. Hunker said, "but our life may be hell because of computer attacks."
The likeliest use of the technology, he said, would be to complicate matters further after a real-world attack, a tactic he describes with the military phrase "force multiplier." That could involve planting false information on the Web to create a panic or taking down crucial computers in the financial or communications sectors."
redux [08.19.01]
""Taiwan has one of the world's largest computer software and hardware manufacturing bases," said D.K. Matai, managing director of the British-based Mi2. "The computer software programmers in Taiwan are world class. Our view is that getting involved in any kind of conflict with Taiwan, given the kind of intellectual capacity the country has, may prove detrimental."
The Chinese government has been quite open about its future strategic military objective. In paper appearing in the spring issue of China Military Science journal, a member of the Chinese Committee of Science, Technology and Industry of the System Engineering Institute, wrote: "We are in the midst of a new technology in which electronic information technology is the central technology. The technology provides unprecedented applications for the development of new weaponry...Military battles during the 21st century will unfold around the use of information for military and political goals.""
redux [09.06.00]
"The thesis of this think piece is that the information revolution will cause shifts both in how societies may come into conflict, and how their armed forces may wage war. We offer a distinction between what we call "netwar" -- societal-level ideational conflicts waged in part through internetted modes of communication -- and "cyberwar" at the military level. These terms are admittedly novel, and better ones may yet be devised. But for now they illuminate a useful distinction and identify the breadth of ways in which the information revolution may alter the nature of conflict short of war, as well as the context and the conduct of warfare.
While both netwar and cyberwar revolve around information and communications matters, at a deeper level they are forms of war about "knowledge" -- about who knows what, when, where, and why, and about how secure a society or military is regarding its knowledge of itself and its adversaries."
redux [01.04.01]
"Scenes of street violence are played out day after day in Palestinian towns across Gaza and the West Bank. But another modern-day arena for battle between the Palestinians and the Israelis is growing ever more heated, so much so that the Internet war waged by computer-savvy political activists is being dubbed an "e-Jihad.""
redux [03.22.00]
"A group of Pakistani hackers has used the conflict in Kashmir as a reason to deface almost 600 Web sites in India and take control of several Indian government and private computer systems, according to the group."
"Unlike the majority of Web vandals, the MOS members say they secretly take control of a server, then deface the site only when they "have no more use" for the data or the server itself.
"The servers we control range from harmless mail and Web services to 'heavy duty' government servers," says the MOS representative. "The data is only being categorically archived for later use if deemed necessary."
"Take the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade several weeks ago. Rage spread across China and hackers from the mainland attacked the Web sites of the US Departments of Energy and the Interior, and the National Park Service. A subsequent attack brought down the White House Web site for three days. The attacks generated headlines across the country.
What the news media didn't report was that the US government had known for a long time that someone had been in its computer systems - they just didn't know who. Then, in a fit of anger, the Chinese hackers caused some real damage - and gave away the hidden "location" of several "backdoors" they had built in US government networks."
"The US Government Accounting Office estimates 120 groups or countries have or are developing information-warfare systems. According to a report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 23 nations have cyber-targeted the US."
10:46 PM
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New York Times: In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash
New York Times
In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash
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"Mainstream scientists say that intelligent design represents a more sophisticated - and thus more seductive - attack on evolution. Unlike creationists, design proponents accept many of the conclusions of modern science. They agree with cosmologists that the age of the universe is 13.6 billion years, not fewer than 10,000 years, as a literal reading of the Bible would suggest. They accept that mutation and natural selection, the central mechanisms of evolution, have acted on the natural world in small ways, for example, leading to the decay of eyes in certain salamanders that live underground.
Some intelligent design advocates even accept common descent, the notion that all species came from a common ancestor, a central tenet of evolution."
"Nonetheless, many scientists regard intelligent design as little more than creationism dressed up in pseudoscientific clothing. Despite its use of scientific language and the fact that some design advocates are scientists, they say, the design approach has so far offered only philosophical objections to evolution, not any positive evidence for the intervention of a designer."
redux [08.10.05]
"In some ways, evolutionary theory is more compatible with conservative ideas than with leftist ones. Indeed, proponents of applying evolutionary theory to human social structures tend to be viewed by the left with suspicion, particularly on biological explanations for sex roles. As several commentators have pointed out, it's conservatives who reject the notion that complex organization requires deliberate central planning -- in economics. Why should biology be different?
Is evolutionary theory a vehicle for anti-God ideas? One of the more extreme ''theo-conservatives," National Review writer David Klinghoffer, has even argued that evolution should be regarded as a doctrine of the ''religion" of secularism. But this is nonsense; plenty of people who follow traditional religions do accept evolution. Yes, some champions of evolution such as British scientist Richard Dawkins are militant atheists, but there were militant atheists long before Darwin."
"To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it."
redux [07.29.05]
"The [ intelligent design ] people argue that the world is just too complex to have come about through blind law — intelligence must have intervened. However, evo-devo [ evolutionary development ] today is starting to fill in the gaps — the gaps that, in the opinion of Michael Behe and his friends, demand miracles. Existence is a miracle and life is a miracle, but increasingly it seems that the gaps do not need special miracles. Regular science can do the job.
More generally, I would go back to where I came in. The best of all arguments against the critics of science is the wonderful world that the best science reveals and explains. Offense is the best defense. Richard Dawkins is surely right when he argues against the cramped little medieval world of Genesis taken literally, and for the wonderful land of evolutionary studies. Sean Carroll’s book on evo-devo is a great passport to that land. "
"To sum up, developmental geneticists have found that the genes that seem to be most important in development are remarkably similar in many different types of animals, from worms to fruit flies to mammals.
Initially, this was regarded as evidence for genetic programs controlling development. But biologists are now realizing that it actually constitutes a paradox: if genes control development, why do similar genes produce such different animals? Why does a caterpillar turn into a butterfly instead of a barracuda?
If evo devo actually resolved the problems raised by these questions, then more power to it. Yet the real problem here is that Darwinian biologists like Carroll and Darwinian philosophers of biology like Ruse are pretending that evo devo has resolved fundamental problems of evolutionary biology when in fact it hasn’t.
"Earlier this year, the State Board of Education in Kansas reignited an old debate – whether or not creationism should be taught in public schools – and shone the spotlight on a new theory, intelligent design. While many in the scientific community may question why this issue has been raised again, a new national survey shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) agree with the basic tenet of creationism, that "human beings were created directly by God."
At the same time, approximately one-fifth (22%) of adults believe "human beings evolved from earlier species" (evolution) and 10 percent subscribe to the theory that "human beings are so complex that they required a powerful force or intelligent being to help create them" (intelligent design). Moreover, a majority (55%) believe that all three of these theories should be taught in public schools, while 23 percent support teaching creationism only, 12 percent evolution only, and four percent intelligent design only."
redux [03.17.04]
"The new lesson plan will serve to help students analyze the theory of evolution, supporters say. Critics -- including the Ohio Academy of Science, the National Academy of Sciences and the faculty senate of Case Western Reserve University -- said the lesson plan includes elements of intelligent design, a theory that life is so complex that a higher being must have created it. The lesson plan refers students to printed materials and Web sites on the intelligent design concept."
""I've been teaching 32 years, and in all those years we have pretty much taken the stance that the kids have to understand there is more than one theory, but we are qualified, because of our training in the scientific method, to teach scientific theories," said Brandon, a biology teacher and department chairwoman at Norwood High School. "If they want to know about non-scientific theories, I advise them to go to their rabbi, their minister or their priest."
redux [02.03.04]
"NPR's Ari Shapiro in Atlanta reports that Georgia is considering whether its public school science instruction would drop any mention of evolution. Instead students would hear the term "biological changes over time." That's brought a torrent of criticism that the plan would offer an inferior education that would cost the state economically."
redux [04.15.03]
"As prescient observers of the events north of Atlanta last year realised, these aren't the old wars of science versus religion. The new assaults on the conventional wisdom frame themselves, without exception, as scientific theories, no less deserving of a hearing than any other. Proponents of [ Intelligent Design ] - using a strategy previously unheard of among anti-Darwinists - grant almost all the premises of evolution (the idea that species develop; that the world wasn't necessarily created in seven days) in order to better attack it.
"It's not that I don't think Darwinian evolution can't explain anything," says Professor Michael Behe of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, the movement's foremost academic advocate, when asked how he accounts for the very visible evolution of, say, viruses. "It's just that I don't think it can explain everything. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example, is one of the things it can explain.""
"Treadway said he had reservations about the approach to the theory of evolution in the three texts. He said he does not want people to believe he is against evolution, but wants it to be taught as a theory along with creationism.
"With the overwhelming references to evolution, I don't feel comfortable with (adopting these texts),'' Treadway said."
"Kent Hovind, a creation scientist from Pensacola, Fla. is coming to the Polymer Science building room 101 April 3 from 6 to 9 p.m. to speak about creation, evolution, and dinosaurs. There might be a debate, but probably not. I mean, who would want to defend the idea that we came from a rock? After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session.
This is not religion versus science. They must both be accepted by faith. Although they are both only theories, one is right and the other is wrong. While you must decide for yourself which view is correct, you should first learn what the creationist worldview is, before passing judgment."
redux [06.27.02]
"When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.
Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy."
redux [04.13.02]
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"Before we get to the scientific arguments of the neo-creos, a word should be said about their motivation. Just what do they have against Darwinism? Unlike the old-fashioned creationists, they are not especially worried about evolution conflicting with a literal reading of Genesis. Then why can't they join with the mainstream religions, which have made their peace with Darwinism? In 1996, for example, Pope John Paul II said that the theory of evolution had been ''proved true'' and asserted its consistency with Roman Catholic doctrine. Stephen Jay Gould, though agnostic himself, salutes the wisdom of this papal pronouncement, arguing that science and religion are ''nonoverlapping magisteria.'' But the neo-creos aren't buying this. They think that belief in Darwinism and belief in God are fundamentally incompatible. Here, ironically, they are in agreement with their more radical Darwinian opponents. Both extremes concur that evolution is, in the words of Phillip Johnson, ''a purposeless and undirected process that produced mankind accidentally'' and, as such, must be at odds with the idea of a purposeful Creator."
redux [09.23.01]
"Intelligent design awkwardly embraces two clashing deities - one a glutton for praise and a dispenser of wrath, absolution, and grace, the other a curiously inept cobbler of species that need to be periodically revised and that keep getting snuffed out by the very conditions he provided for them. Why, we must wonder, would the shaper of the universe have frittered away thirteen billion years, turning out quadrillions of useless stars, before getting around to the one thing he really cared about, seeing to it that a minuscule minority of earthling vertebrates are washed clean of sin and guaranteed an eternal place in his company? And should the God of love and mercy be given credit for the anopheles mosquito, the schistosomiasis parasite, anthrax, smallpox, bubonic plague...? By purporting to detect the divine signature on every molecule while nevertheless conceding that natural selection does account for variations, the champions of intelligent design have made a conceptual mess that leaves the ancient dilemmas of theodicy harder than ever to resolve."
redux [02.05.00]
Steven Pinker: "Warm rooms are a goal of thermostats, thermostats a goal of people, people a goal of their genes. Darwin, and then Dawkins, made it scientifically respectable to talk about genes as having goals, because natural selection makes them act as if they do. But natural selection itself, being a product not of a teleological process but of the physics and mathematics of replicating systems, has no right to have a goal in the way that genes or people or thermostats do."
Robert Wright: " A system can be entirely mechanical, complying with the laws of physics and mathematics, yet be teleological, designed to realize a purpose. In fact, that seems to be true of all teleological systems I know of, including genes and people and thermostats."
redux [09.05.01]
"The one thing we've learned from the last three decades of research is that science is socially and culturally embedded and thus biased. Still, it's the best system we have for understanding causality in all realms, in all fields. So despite the fact that it's loaded with biases, there is a real world out there that we can know and the best way to know it is through science. The reason for that is because there's at least a method, an attempt to corroborate one's own subjective perceptions. There's a way to find out if you and I are seeing the same colors when we see red. There's actually a way to test these things, or at least try to get at them. That's what separates science from everything else."
redux [09.13.00]
"Kuhn wrote: "The very existence of science depends upon vesting the power to choose between paradigms in the members of a special kind of community." Fuller has confidence in the intelligent good sense of ordinary folks and properly calls for "the right to be wrong." But do statements such as "the universe is light-years wide," "the earth is billions of years old," "all life is related by common descent," "organisms are composed of cells that contain double-helix DNA," and so on really have no greater claim on "reality" than the Genesis stories of creationists or the popular consolations of astrology? If the answer is no, as Fuller comes dangerously close to asserting, then most scientists would throw in the towel and get jobs flipping burgers.
Fuller underestimates the highly evolved "fitness" of the methodologies, sociologies and conceptual paradigms of normal science. The deprofessionalization of science and the establishment of a citizen marketplace of ideas are not likely to happen without the sociopolitical equivalent of an asteroid impact, and no such potential upheaval looms on our intellectual radar screens. Certainly, science studies lacks the weight to do it."
11:55 PM
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The Independent: New drug developed which can reverse the effects of tiredness
The Independent
New drug developed which can reverse the effects of tiredness
"A new drug that can reverse the effects of tiredness in the brain has been discovered by US scientists.
Research in monkeys suggests the drug can temporarily boost mental performance by targeting chemical receptors.
Scientists hope the drug could prove invaluable to shift workers such as doctors and soldiers."
"Lifestyle drugs—medicines that treat conditions associated with lifestyle such as weight-loss tablets, anti-smoking agents, impotence therapies and hair restorers—are now a major research and development area for the pharmaceutical industry. In fact, companies have invested over $20 billion in research into such drugs since the 1990s. The reason why is clear: the market lifestyle for drugs is forecast to rise to over $29 billion by 2007 from its current $20 billion.
The market is driven predominantly by Western countries, where an image-conscious, aging society is prepared to pay high prices for compounds that promise to slow the aging process, improve mental agility, reduce weight gain and rejuvenate sexual function."
"Where to draw the line between lifestyle purposes and legitimate medical use is debated vigorously. Lifestyle drugs are intended or come to be used for conditions that currently lie at the socially constructed boundary between lifestyle wishes and health needs. A lifestyle wish often becomes a health problem when a biomedical cause (for example, a biochemical or genetic factor) or a treatment is found for the "problem." Lifestyle wishes are then portrayed as amenable to health care--medical intervention that can remove responsibility or control from the individual or society. Healthcare professionals may then "claim" the condition by defining the need for treatment at the level of collective policy making and at the individual doctor-patient level.
As the availability of a treatment can convert a lifestyle wish into a health need, the pharmaceutical industry then becomes a key player in the process of medicalisation."
" At the heart of it, this is a conversation about rationing disguised as a conversation about lifestyle drugs. I don't know anyone who thinks the government should pay for hair replacement drugs, nail fungus treatments, or cosmetic surgery. But what exactly is a lifestyle drug? Is there a difference between medicine that enhances our ''lifestyle" and our ''quality of life," and our life itself?
King said Medicare and Medicaid are only for life-saving drugs. But where do we draw that line? A drug that reduces the nausea from chemo doesn't save lives. Reconstructive breast surgery after a mastectomy doesn't save a life. A nose job to meet beauty standards may be a lifestyle choice, but what about a nose job after a car accident? When is a cataract operation lifesaving and when is it ''merely" life-enhancing?
While we are on the subject, if you lose your sense of taste, should the public pay for a cure? How is that pleasure different from sexual pleasure? Bioethicist Art Caplan calls the debate about Grandpa and Viagra "Puritanism masquerading as medicine.""
10:43 PM
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New York Times: Be Warned: Mr. Bubble's Worried Again
New York Times
Be Warned: Mr. Bubble's Worried Again
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"Today, nine years after his lunch with Mr. Greenspan and five years after the markets finally did crash, Mr. Shiller is sounding the same warning for real estate that he did for stocks. In speeches, in television and radio interviews and in a second edition of his prophetic 2000 book, "Irrational Exuberance," he is arguing that the housing craze is another bubble destined to end badly, just as every other real-estate boom on record has.
These, in short, are his second 15 minutes of gloom. He predicts that prices could fall 40 percent in inflation-adjusted terms over the next generation and that the end of the bubble will probably cause a recession at some point."