The Reporter Giving déjà vu a second look

"Déjà vu has developed to such an extent that he had stopped watching TV - even the news - because it seemed to be a repeat, and even believed he could hear the same bird singing the same song in the same tree every time he went out. Chronic déjà vu sufferers are not only overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity for new experiences, they can provide plausible and complex justifications to support this. “When this particular patient’s wife asked what was going to happen next on a TV programme he’d claimed to have already seen, he said ‘how should I know? I have a memory problem!’” Dr Moulin said.

For the first time, those who suffer chronic déjà vu can help provide sustained research into the problem. “So far we’ve completed the natural history side of this condition - we’ve found ways of testing for it and the right clinical questions to ask. The next step is obviously to find ways to reduce the problem,” he said."

redux [11.29.05]
The Wall Street Journal Turkey, Talk, Family: One More Reason It All Seems Familiar

"It was just a lampshade, in your line of vision as you settled in for the predinner olives and celery, but it unleashed a powerful feeling of déjà vu. Even though this was your first Thanksgiving at this relative's home, you were sure you had been there before. Or, it was a phrase spoken when a tablemate passed the creamed onions. Even though she was a new in-law, you were positive you had celebrated Thanksgiving with her in years past.

About two-thirds of people experience at least one déjà vu in their lifetime, and if you have had one you are likely to have more. For reasons unknown, the incidence of déjà vu decreases with age, rises with education and income, and is more common among people who recall their dreams, who travel, and who hold liberal political and religious beliefs."

"Past lives and precognition have failed to gain traction as explanations for déjà vu. But other approaches are doing better. Studies on memory and attention, says psychology researcher Alan S. Brown of Southern Methodist University, Dallas, are pointing to the neurological stumbles that produce déjà vu."

The Chronicle of Higher Education The Tease of Memory

"Most academic psychologists, however, have ignored the topic since around 1890, when there was a brief flurry of interest. The phenomenon seems at once too rare and too ephemeral to capture in a laboratory. And even if it were as common as sneezing, déjà vu would still be difficult to study because it produces no measurable external behaviors. Researchers must trust their subjects' personal descriptions of what is going on inside their minds, and few people are as eloquent as Hawthorne. Psychology has generally filed déjà vu away in a drawer marked "Interesting but Insoluble."

During the past two decades, however, a few hardy souls have reopened the scientific study of déjà vu. They hope to nail down a persuasive explanation of the phenomenon, as well as shed light on some fundamental elements of memory and cognition."

The New York Times Déjà Vu: If It All Seems Familiar, There May Be a Reason
[requires 'free' registration]

"Several people in e-mail contact with Dr. Brown say they experience déjà vu frequently, many times in a year. One of them, Suketu Naik, 26, a graduate student in Utah, has kept a diary of the sensations.

In one entry, Mr. Naik writes of attending a birthday party for a friend at a restaurant: "Everything, the conversation, the position of people, position of tables, plates were extraordinarily 'in place.' Most remarkable of all events. Very intense. Lasted for a long time. Which is odd - usually intensity and time are reciprocal. I could predict every single future event in this time period to utmost precision. Felt extraordinarily weird after this one. I sat there for the next minute to come back to reality."

But the evolving understanding of memory suggests he never really left."

International Herald Tribune Exxon adds it all up: $36 billion

"Exxon Mobil, the largest U.S. energy company, posted Monday the highest profit in U.S. corporate history, amplifying concerns over the good fortune of oil companies while soaring energy prices pressure consumers.

"This might be the best macroeconomic environment ever for oil," said Dave Pursell, a partner at Pickering Energy Partners, Houston-based research firm."

"Exxon's performance last year allowed it to surpass Wal-Mart as the largest company in United States, and by some measures Exxon became richer than some of world's largest oil-producing nations. For instance, its revenue of $371 billion surpassed the gross domestic product of $245 billion of Indonesia, an OPEC member and the world's fourth most populous country with 242 million people."

NPR Exxon Posts $10.7 Billion Profit for Fourth Quarter

"Exxon Mobil Corp. posts one of the largest quarterly profits in American history: $10.7 billion for the fourth quarter of 2005, up from more than $8.4 billion a year ago. Exxon is the latest oil company to post record profits as oil prices continue to rise.

Oil trader Phil Flynn tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that the difficulty of bringing oil to market and a dwindling supply will keep oil companies' profitability very high for years to come."

redux [11.07.05]
National Review Online Gaseous Politics

"Congress is clamoring for an investigation into why it is that when the price of oil spikes, oil companies make higher profits. This shouldn’t be a mystery for anyone with a high-school-level knowledge of economics, but that exalted category apparently doesn’t include much of the Democratic caucus nor Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, all of whom favor a probe. The twin villains of the oil-profits story are easy to identify: One is called “supply,” and the other “demand.”"

"In any case, in a market economy, high profits and high prices are essential. They eliminate scarcity. Investors with visions of dollar signs filling their heads are now rushing into the oil business. That will increase supply. Pinched consumers, meanwhile, are already pulling back on their consumption. Compared with a year ago, gasoline deliveries declined 4 percent in September, the biggest drop in a decade. That will decrease demand. These two trends make for falling prices. Any political interference with this process through price controls or a tax on companies’ “windfall” profits will only preserve the conditions for scarcity."

redux [10.28.05]
The Seattle Times Exxon's quarterly revenue equals $45 million an hour

"More than a billion dollars a day, $45 million an hour, almost $340 for every living American — that's what Exxon Mobil reported in third-quarter revenue Thursday.

For the oil giant, that translated to $9.9 billion in net income.

The financial results drew outrage from politicians and consumer advocates who are suspicious of historically high U.S. gasoline prices.

Others, however, said the company was simply following the rules of free enterprise and reaping a bounty for high-risk investments in oil exploration in often politically unstable regions of the world."

The New York Times Strong Profits Put Oil Giants on Defensive
[requires 'free' registration]

"A sudden interruption in oil supplies sent prices and profits skyrocketing, prompting Exxon's chief executive to call a news conference right after his company announced that it had chalked up record earnings.

"I am not embarrassed," he said. "This is no windfall."

That was January 1974, a few months after Arab oil producers cut back on supplies and imposed their short-lived embargo on exports to the United States. Oil executives, including J. K. Jamieson, Exxon's chief executive at the time, were put on the defensive, forced to justify their soaring profits while the nation was facing its first energy crisis."

Washington Post Oil Doesn't Want Focus on Big Profit

"Grumbling already has begun on Capitol Hill: Last month, one senator proposed a windfall-profit tax on oil conglomerates, and yesterday, House Republicans warned energy companies against price gouging.

To deflect the damage, the energy industry is relying on an ad campaign that was escalating even before hurricanes Katrina and Rita blitzed Gulf Coast petroleum refineries. The print and television ads are designed to educate consumers and lawmakers with a "we're all in this together" tone."

Convenience Store News Oil Refineries' Huge Profits Predate Big Storms

"While gasoline shortages from hurricanes Katrina and Rita have caused some price spikes, DenverPost.com reported refiners' gross profit margins have been climbing steadily for the past year, long before the hurricanes hit. A Denver Post analysis shows that gross profit margins on gasoline at the nation's refineries have more than tripled from about $7 a barrel in September 2004 to $22.77 on Tuesday."

"According to the DenverPost.com , energy analysts and economists say refiners have been able to increase margins for two main reasons: limited refining capacity that can cause spot shortages of gasoline and lack of competition in the refining sector, such as big mergers that brought together companies such as Exxon and Mobil, Chevron and Texaco, and Conoco and Phillips have reduced competition. "

Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy & Environment Program No Competition: Oil Industry Mergers Provide Higher Profits, Leave Consumers with Fewer Choices [2001]

"The five companies with vertically integrated market power enjoyed significantly higher profits in both upstream (exploration and production) and downstream (refining and marketing) domestic operations. Exxon-Mobil enjoyed 2000 income 146% higher in upstream and 171% higher in downstream compared to 1999.A combined Chevron-Texaco merger enjoyed upstream income 220% higher and downstream 23% higher. Phillips-Tosco had upstream income 327% higher and downstream income 227% higher. Marathon had upstream income rise by 126% and downstream income rise 108%. BP Amoco-Arco had global upstream income increase 141% and downstream income increase 166%. Since these companies are enjoying significant income increases in every sector, this indicates that OPEC’s influence is not a major factor in the ability of the top five corporations to affect domestic gasoline prices."

LA Times Vulnerable Hit Hardest by Katrina, Study Says

"Poor African American residents of New Orleans were disproportionately displaced by Hurricane Katrina, a study released Thursday confirmed."

"The study raised questions about who would be able to return to New Orleans as it rebuilds. Examining the social differences among the city's 13 planning districts and 72 neighborhoods, Logan found that New Orleans was at risk of losing as much as 80% of its black population.

"The suffering from the storm certainly cut across racial and class lines," Logan said. "But the odds of living in a damaged area were clearly much greater for blacks, residents who rented their homes and poor people.""

redux [09.05.05]
The New York Times Amid Criticism of Federal Efforts, Charges of Racism Are Lodged
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""Are you telling me we can coordinate a relief effort on the other side of the world and we can't do it here?" I. V. Hilliard, pastor of the New Light Christian Center Church in northern Houston, thundered from the pulpit of his megachurch on Sunday morning. "I'm not saying they didn't care. I'm saying they didn't care enough!"

"I can't help but think that race has something to do with it," he added to a chorus of amens."

"Criticism of the response is coming not only from black members of Congress and national civil rights leaders, but also from prominent local officials and ordinary residents here."

CBS News Rice: Race Not An Issue In Efforts

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended President Bush on Sunday against charges that the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina showed racial insensitivity.

"Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis of race," the administration's highest-ranking black said as she toured damaged parts of her native Alabama.""

The Seattle Times Was rescue a race, class issue?

"Some, including local political and community leaders, were unwilling to call the government's action racist, suggesting it might be more a case of incompetence.

But others compared the government's performance this week to its faster response to the devastating hurricanes that hit South Florida last year. They pointed out that the states in Katrina's path don't have the money and political connections that Florida does. Many were especially critical of President Bush."

"Rosalund Jenkins, executive director of the State Commission on African American Affairs, said: "I'll say it if nobody else is willing. I happen to think if those tens of thousands had been 90 percent white and 10 percent black instead of the other way around, the government's response would've been faster.""

Joel Achenbach Race and Katrina

"There are many types of racism, including the type that says there's no racism in America anymore, and the situation would be precisely the same if the victims all looked like Macauley Culkin. Then there's institutional racism: We have to ask whether the government would have been better prepared for this sort of situation in New Orleans if the most vulnerable communities hadn't been, for the most part, black neighborhoods. (Like, were the levees considered good enough for "the black part of town?") [The Chicago Tribune ran a graphic showing elevation and demographics in New Orleans; to a striking degree the areas below sea level are predominantly African American.]"

Washington Post A Nation's Castaways

"The history of marginalizing black folk in America, especially poor ones, runs so deep that it occurs like second nature. It is one reason, say several prominent black intellectuals, that the response to the devastation of Katrina was so slow.

Racism runs "so deep that the folks who are slow to respond can't see it," says Russell Adams, professor of Afro-American studies at Howard University. "That's the unperceived character of racial behavior, of what I would call hidden racism where you don't know that this situation has a racial character to it, just like fish have trouble defining water.""

Chicago Sun-Times Was race a factor in crisis?

"When 80 percent of the city's population, according to the mayor, evacuated before the hurricane, left behind were those with no cars, no resources, no way out. Twenty-one percent of Orleans Parish households earn less than $10,000 a year. Nearly 27,000 families are below the poverty level. Most of them are black."

"The images of the black poor struggling in New Orleans' chaos should be ''a powerful wake-up call,'' said Dr. Jeff Johnson, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Medicine.

"The message is that these people are in some sense abandoned, and that's why they're so angry," he said, "but that abandonment occurred not just around this storm. They've been abandoned by our society in the last decade."

redux [09.01.05]
The New York Times The Storm After the Storm
[requires 'free' registration]

"Hurricanes come in two waves. First comes the rainstorm, and then comes what the historian John Barry calls the "human storm" - the recriminations, the political conflict and the battle over compensation. Floods wash away the surface of society, the settled way things have been done. They expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities. When you look back over the meteorological turbulence in this nation's history, it's striking how often political turbulence followed."

"We'd like to think that the stories of hurricanes and floods are always stories of people rallying together to give aid and comfort. And, indeed, each of America's great floods has prompted a popular response both generous and inspiring. But floods are also civic examinations. Amid all the stories that recur with every disaster - tales of sudden death and miraculous survival, the displacement and the disease - there is also the testing.

Civic arrangements work or they fail. Leaders are found worthy or wanting. What's happening in New Orleans and Mississippi today is a human tragedy. But take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come."

Wikipedia Great Mississippi Flood

"In the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 the Mississippi River broke out of its levee system in 145 places and flooded 27,000 square miles or about 16,570,627 acres (70,000 km²). The area was inundated up to a depth of 30 feet (10 m). The flood caused over $400 million in damages and killed 246 people in seven states.

By August 1927 the flood subsided. During the disaster 700,000 people were displaced, including 330,000 African-Americans who were moved to 154 relief camps. Many African-Americans were detained and forced to labor at gunpoint during flood relief efforts. The aftermath of the flood was one factor in the Great Migration of African-Americans to northern cities."

American Experience Fatal Flood

"In the spring of 1927, after weeks of incessant rains, the Mississippi River went on a rampage. Racing south from Cairo, Illinois, the river blew away levee after levee, inundating thousands of farms and hundreds of towns, killing as many as a thousand people and leaving nearly a million homeless. By the time it reached New Orleans, the flood had not only altered the landscape of 27,000 square miles-an area the size of four New England States-it had widened the abyss of race relations in the Deep South."

Guardian Unlimited Unrest Intensifies at Superdome Shelter

"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, complaining that he and others were evacuated, taken to the convention hall by bus, dropped off and given nothing."

""I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." He added: "You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."

Slate Lost in the Flood

"I can't say I saw everything that the TV newscasters pumped out about Katrina, but I viewed enough repeated segments to say with 90 percent confidence that broadcasters covering the New Orleans end of the disaster demurred from mentioning two topics that must have occurred to every sentient viewer: race and class."

"When disaster strikes, Americans—especially journalists—like to pretend that no matter who gets hit, no matter what race, color, creed, or socioeconomic level they hail from, we're all in it together."

"But we aren't one united race, we aren't one united class, and Katrina didn't hit all folks equally. By failing to acknowledge upfront that black New Orleanians—and perhaps black Mississippians—suffered more from Katrina than whites, the TV talkers may escape potential accusations that they're racist. But by ignoring race and class, they boot the journalistic opportunity to bring attention to the disenfranchisement of a whole definable segment of the population. What I wouldn't pay to hear a Fox anchor ask, "Say, Bob, why are these African-Americans so poor to begin with?""

Salon "Looting" or "finding"?

" Two photographs of New Orleans residents wading through chest-deep water unleashed a wave of chatter among bloggers Wednesday about whether black people are being treated unfairly in media coverage of post-hurricane looting.

One of the images, shot by photographer Dave Martin for the Associated Press, shows a young black man wading through chest-deep waters after "looting" a grocery store, according to the caption. The young man appears to have a case of Pepsi under one arm and a full garbage bag in tow. In the other, similar shot, taken by photographer Chris Graythen for AFP/Getty Images, a white man and a light-skinned woman are shown wading through chest-deep water after "finding" goods including bread and soda, according to the caption, in a local grocery store."

The Ascent Blog Southern Discomfort & the Arrogance of the Presidency...

"Just weeks ago, this blog placed focus on the grueling level of poverty in New Orleans, LA ("Black Eye in the Big Easy," 8.5.05) while contemplating the political fate of Congressman Jefferson (D-LA) in the face of an FBI probe. It was clearly an issue few cared to discuss at that time, but here we are. Why be surprised? Prior to Katrina, New Orleans was just as devastated by entrenched poverty, racism, political corruption, burgeoning unemployment and environmental waste in disregarded urban communities. Is it any wonder we now find the Big Easy gripped by rampaging bands of that Bad Apple 10 percent of the population that just can't help itself? The collective patience of New Orleans was running thin long before Katrina. It just took a natural disaster to shed light on the enduring plight of the Deep South's poor."

National Post Bird flu's deadly shadows of 1918

"More similarities have been found between the bird flu creeping into Eastern Europe and the 1918 Spanish flu that decimated populations worldwide -- including the discovery of an entirely new way bird flu may kill human cells.

Researchers from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., have found that bird flu viruses carry a gene that can latch onto many crucial proteins inside human cells, presumably disrupting their function and causing far more severe disease than human viruses."

redux [01.06.06]
NPR Seattle at Forefront of Planning for Flu Pandemic

"The researchers provided NPR with numbers showing how the pandemic would unfold in the Seattle area. Eighty thousand people would be sick in the Seattle area within two months of an outbreak, according to the projections. And 1-in-10 of them might need to be hospitalized."

"On day 68 of a pandemic, Seattle-area hospitals might have to take care of 1,900 flu patients."

"Martin's pretty confident the area's hospitals could handle that number of patients. But on Day 78, there might be 6,300 people needing hospital care. And on Day 86 -- the peak -- it could be 9,000, just on that one day alone.

"Clearly, we could not take care of 9,000 patients and support them from a ventilatory standpoint," Martin said of those peak numbers."

redux [12.23.05]
International Herald Tribune Limits found in bird flu drug's use

"The first scientific study of humans with bird flu who have received the anti-viral drug Tamiflu has found that the bird flu virus can rapidly become invulnerable to the medicine.

If the drug is overused, used improperly or even used very widely, the current research suggests that Tamiflu - also known as oseltamivir - will quickly become impotent against the disease, leaving doctors with little else to offer ill patients."

redux [12.05.05]
WorldNetDaily Has feared mutation of avian flu arrived?

"Officials in at least two nations now suspect the avian flu bug has mutated into a virus that is being transmitted from human to human – a development world health authorities have estimated could result in the deaths of tens of millions.

Thai health officials have expressed concern that the country's two latest confirmed victims may be the beginning of the much feared human-to-human transmission."

All Headline News U.S. Prepares Local Governments For Flu Pandemic

"With the threat of the avian bird flu and Europe reeling with the effects of the disease, U.S. policy makers are stepping up their efforts to prepare the nation for a pandemic.

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt met today with senior state and local officials to establish a uniform federal-state influenza-pandemic planning process. Officials from every U.S. state, territory, Puerto Rico and tribal governments participated. The officials were advised to plan broadly."

NPR Grim Scenario Predicted for Pandemic Flu

"A federally financed study used supercomputers to predict what might happen if a virulent and easily spread new strain of flu entered the United States. The study was done by researchers at Emory University and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

They assumed the pandemic virus would leak into the country despite efforts to screen travelers for flu symptoms. If each infected person spread the virus to two others, large outbreaks of flu would occur all over the country within about two months after the virus began to spread. The national epidemic would peak around day 85, with about 4.5 million people falling ill that day. In the end, 122 million Americans may have gotten sick, more than four times the toll in a usual flu season."

The Sunday Times Doctor says bird flu drug is ‘useless’

"A VIETNAMESE doctor who has treated dozens of victims of avian flu claims the drug being stockpiled around the world to combat a pandemic is “useless” against the virus.

“We place no importance on using this drug on our patients,” she said. “Tamiflu is really only meant for treating ordinary type A flu. It was not designed to combat H5N1 . . . (Tamiflu) is useless.”"

"Van, who has also treated patients with Sars, the respiratory condition linked to birds, said avian flu had a frightening effect on its victims and the only way to keep patients alive was to “support” all their vital organs, including the liver and kidneys, with modern technology such as ventilators and dialysis machines."

Chicago Sun-Times Many companies admit no planning for pandemic

"If a super-flu sweeps the globe, who will haul away the garbage? Keep the factories running? Stock and sell groceries? Keep electricity flowing?

Most U.S. companies haven't planned for how to stay in business during a flu pandemic, when their workers might be too sick or scared to show up and their supply chains disappear, a major new survey of some of the nation's largest companies shows."

redux [10.17.05]
The Economist The spreading bird-flu menace reaches Europe

"European countries are introducing emergency measures to contain the spread of a deadly strain of bird flu—which has already led to the deaths of millions of birds and 60 people in Asia—after confirmation that it has arrived inside the EU's borders. The disease is a serious threat to the world’s sizeable poultry industry but its spread round the globe also increases the chances of it mutating into a form that causes a human pandemic.

Guardian Unlimited Bird flu could kill more than 50,000 in UK, warns chief medical officer

"A bird flu pandemic is inevitable but unlikely to strike Britain this winter, the chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, said yesterday in an attempt to talk up the government's preparedness for the infection, but talk down its imminence.

He said contingency planning was based on an estimate that a new strain of flu mutating from infection in the bird population could kill about 50,000 people in the UK, compared with about 12,000 flu-related deaths in a normal winter."

redux [10.10.05]
Times Online America 'faces worst disaster in its history'

"A PLAN drawn up by the Bush Administration to combat a pandemic bird flu outbreak reveals that America is grossly unprepared to deal with what would likely be the worst disaster in US history.

The 381-page draft plan, leaked by health officials who claim that it contains fundamental failures, predicts that a full-scale outbreak could kill as many as 1.9 million Americans and put 8.5 million in hospital at a cost of more than $450 billion (£256 billion)."

The Boston Globe Europe bracing to battle bird flu

"Europe is bracing for bird flu and the potentially catastrophic pandemic the virus might bring.

Public health officials on the continent, spurred by grim warnings from the World Health Organization, are hoping that the disease spreading westward from Asia will afflict only domestic poultry. But as a strain of the avian disease was detected in Europe for the first time over the weekend, governments were seeking ways to cope with a virus that epidemiologists consider likely to transform into a human pathogen that could trigger a global outbreak of deadly influenza similar to one that killed millions in 1918."

USA Today U.S. health secretary warns of future bird flu pandemic

"Leading a multinational team of medical experts to mobilize Southeast Asian nations against bird flu, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said Monday the likelihood of a flu pandemic in the future is "very high."

Leavitt, accompanied by the director of the World Health Organization and other top health professionals, is visiting Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to seek their collaboration in preparing for the anticipated public health emergency."

CNN Bush military bird flu role slammed

"A call by President George W. Bush for Congress to give him the power to use the military in law enforcement roles in the event of a bird flu pandemic has been criticized as akin to introducing martial law.

Bush said aggressive action would be needed to prevent a potentially disastrous U.S. outbreak of the disease that is sweeping through Asian poultry and which experts fear could mutate to pass between humans."

The Boston Globe Bush's risky flu pandemic plan

"Of all these proposals, the use of the military to attempt to contain a flu pandemic on US soil is the most dangerous. Bush says he got the idea by reading John Barry's excellent account of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, ''The Great Influenza." Although quarantine was used successfully in that pandemic, on the island of American Samoa, Barry in his afterword suggests (sensibly) that we need a national plan to deal with a future influenza pandemic."

"Planning makes sense. But planning for ''brutal" or ''extreme" quarantine of large numbers or areas of the United States would create many more problems than it could solve."

The New York Times Danger of Flu Pandemic Is Clear, if Not Present
[requires 'free' registration]

"But scientists say that although the threat from the current avian virus is real, it is probably not immediate.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a bird flu pandemic was unlikely this year."

"Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, chief of the molecular pathology department at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, said, "I would not say it's imminent or inevitable." Dr. Taubenberger said he believes that there will eventually be a pandemic, but that whether it will be bird flu or another type, no one can say."

The New York Times Search Finds Far-Off Planet Akin to Earth
[requires 'free' registration]

"Astronomers say that by virtue of the ceaseless shifting of the billions of stars in the Milky Way and a trick of Einsteinian physics, they have briefly glimpsed the most Earth-like planet yet to be discovered outside the solar system. It is a ball of rock and ice only about 5.5 times as massive as Earth, smaller than any of the 160 previously discovered exoplanets, and is orbiting a dim reddish star 21,000 light-years from here."

"As Dr. Beaulieu explained in an e-mail message, it would have been much easier to see a giant gaseous type of planet. The long odds against detecting so small a planet as the new one argues for its commonness."

The Independent Discovery of Earth-like planet brings hope of finding alien life

""This has huge implications for finding life," said Stephen Kane of the University of Florida, one of the 73 astronomers from the 32 institutions around the world involved in the study, published today in the journal Nature. "The good thing about this is it shows that planets this size might be quite common in habitable zones," Dr Kane said."

"Bohdan Paczynski at Princeton University said: "We may predict with reasonable probability that gravitational microlensing will discover planets with masses like that of Earth at a similar distance from their stars and with comparable surface temperatures.""

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Google agrees to censor results in China

"Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market."

"Google officials characterized the censorship concessions in China as an excruciating decision for a company that adopted "don't be evil" as a motto. But management believes it's a worthwhile sacrifice."

Guardian Unlimited Backlash as Google shores up great firewall of China

"Despite a year of soul-searching, the American company will join Microsoft and Yahoo! in helping the communist government block access to websites containing politically sensitive content, such as references to the Tiananmen Square massacre and criticism of the politburo."

"It acknowledged that this ran contrary to its corporate ethics, but said a greater good was served by providing information in China. "In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on google.cn, in response to local law, regulation or policy. While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission.""

redux [01.13.06]
News.Com Congress looks askance at firms that bow to China

"After hearing reports that American tech giants like Microsoft and Yahoo are abiding by Chinese law mandating Internet censorship, some irritated U.S. politicians are threatening to pass laws restricting such cooperation."

""U.S. companies continue to play an active role in China's Internet censorship, providing hardware, software and content filtering services," the commission said in its 2005 annual report to Congress. "While these interactions between U.S. corporations and China's government may be legitimate commercial decisions, in sum they had the effect of helping to build and legitimize the government's media censorship efforts.""

BusinessWeek The Great Firewall of China

"It's no secret that Western Internet companies have to hew to the party line if they want to do business in China. Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), and scores of other outfits, both domestic and foreign, have made concessions to China's censors. The latest high-profile example: In December, Microsoft's (MSFT) MSN shut down a Chinese blogger's site at the government's request."

"Getting a phone call from the government is one part of the picture. What few Westerners know is the size and scope of China's censorship machine and the process by which multinationals, however reluctantly, censor themselves."

redux [01.03.06]
Rebecca MacKinnon Microsoft takes down Chinese blogger

"Microsoft’s MSN Spaces continues to censor its Chinese language blogs, and has become more aggressive and thorough at censorship since I first checked out MSN’s censorship system last summer. On New Years Eve, MSN Spaces took down the popular blog written by Zhao Jing, aka Michael Anti."

"In the final days of December, Anti became a vocal supporter of journalists at the Beijing Daily News who walked off the job after the top editors were fired for their increasingly daring investigative coverage, including some recent reporting on the recent police shootings of village protestors in the Southern China."

redux [10.26.05]
Red Herring Iran Tightens Web Filters

"Civil liberties advocates voiced concern Monday over Iran’s plans to tighten its grip on Internet use with new technology that allegedly can get around counter-censorship tools.

The country has contracted an Iranian company, Delta Global, to set up a new online censorship system, according to a report by Reporters Without Borders. Delta Global head Rahim Moazemi told the Iranian press that he wanted to end “the anarchy of the Internet Service Providers.”"

"Iran, the group said, is one of several countries that uses SmartFilter software by San Jose, California-based company Secure Computing."

International Herald Tribune Yahoo helped Chinese to prosecute journalist

"The Internet giant Yahoo provided information that helped Chinese state security officials convict a Chinese journalist for leaking state secrets to a foreign Web site, court documents show."

"Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, Cisco and other major Internet service and equipment providers have come under scrutiny for helping China to monitor and censor content available to China's 100 million Internet users."

redux [06.28.04]
The New York Times Despite an Act of Leniency, China Has Its Eye on the Web
[requires 'free' registration]

"Both in China and abroad, some commentators quickly applauded what seemed like an official show of leniency toward the accused man, Du Daobin, a prolific author of online essays on issues of democracy and free speech.

But many among China's rapidly growing group of Internet commentators are warning that what appears to be government magnanimity in this high-profile case conceals a quiet but concerted push to tighten controls of the Internet and surveillance of its users even though China's restrictions on the medium are already among the broadest and most invasive anywhere."

redux [06.08.04]
Wired News Vietnam Orders Net Clampdown

"Vietnam has ordered local governments nationwide to closely monitor Internet use and enforce regulations aimed at cracking down on "bad information" sent or read on the Web, an official said Tuesday.

The move comes after the communist country sentenced several dissidents to long prison terms over the past two years for using the Internet to criticize the government and promote democracy."

redux [07.26.03]
MSNBC Internet booms in Baghdad

" "We need communications with the outside and there are no phones," said Ibrahem al-Samarra'i, general manager of Tina, a computer company and Internet cafe. "We need e-mail.""

""It is freedom, really," said Layth Abed al-Samea, a former computer engineer who left his field to become a graphic designer, as he trawled the Web at the Botan. "I chat with my family, with my cousin in Qatar...I also search for jobs.""

redux [06.13.03]
BBC Kabul's cyber cafe culture

"For a country that has been brutally scarred by a war that has left little standing, the idea of an information revolution takes some getting used to."

""The Taleban banned the use of the internet because they did not want Afghans to be part of the world and see the freedom that people elsewhere were enjoying.

"It's our chance, we have to grasp it.""

redux [02.20.03]
NPR: Talk of the Nation The Internet and Authoritarian Regimes

"It's easy to assume that the Internet is a friend of democracy and a facilitator of the free flow of ideas. Ronald Reagan once said, "The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip." Shanthi Kalathil wasn't so convinced. She and fellow researcher Taylor Boas studied the effect of the Internet on eight authoritarian regimes, and what they found challenges conventional wisdom. Kalathil joins guest host Lynn Neary to discuss their findings."

redux [02.03.03]
The Mercury News Vietnam wrestles with dilemma in Internet growth

"Plans are in motion to quadruple the current number of Internet users to four million by 2005 and the country's fledgling information technology sector will get injections of $100 million over the next two years, an initial investment aimed at harnessing the Internet's economic potential.

Yet even as it encourages Internet industry growth with tax breaks and other IT-friendly policies, Vietnam has tightened control over networked information. Web sites with pornography, violence, and in particular, criticism of Vietnam's communist, one-party system are all deemed ``poisonous and harmful.'' The government blocks access to many."

redux [01.25.03]
The Economist Caught in the net

"IF THE internet will force difficult changes on democracies by handing power to individual citizens, it seems reasonable to believe that it will have a devastating impact on dictatorships. But it is not impossible that instead of undermining repressive regimes, the internet could become the most effective tool of social control that autocratic rulers have ever wielded."

"As more human interactions are conducted and recorded electronically, as the ability to analyse databases grows and as video and other offline surveillance technologies become cheaper and more effective, it will become ever easier for authoritarian governments to set up systems of widespread surveillance. George Orwell's Big Brother of "1984" might yet become a reality, a few decades later than he expected."

redux [01.09.03]
First Monday Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule

"In today's networked, globalized world, many presume that the Internet will pose a grave threat to authoritarian regimes. Such has been the power of this conventional wisdom that it remains for the most part unchallenged, and largely unexamined.

A new book, Open Networks, Closed Regimes, offers the most comprehensive and thought-provoking work on this subject to date. Authors Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas trace Internet use in eight authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries: China, Cuba, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. They discover that authoritarian governments, far from fearing the information age, have chosen to direct Internet development in ways that bolster the state. At the same time, many regimes are struggling to cope with the potent challenges posed by new technologies. The authors encourage policy makers in the U.S. and other industrialized democracies to promote specific Internet-based initiatives that foster political liberalization, rather than perpetuating the myth of the Internet as an unstoppable "virus of freedom.""

redux [09.30.02]
SiliconValley.Com Internet arrives in Iraq

"After resisting the Internet as a freewheeling tool of globalization and political anarchy for a decade, Saddam Hussein's government has cautiously embraced it.

Internet cafes have sprung up all over Baghdad in recent months, and even in smaller cities such as Karbala, a religiously conservative city 75 miles southwest of the capital. Just last month, the government took another major step, permitting some citizens to have Internet connections at home

Iraqis can now surf the Web and send e-mail to their hearts' content -- as long as they do it via www.uruklink.net, the government-controlled service provider monitored by Saddam's agents."

redux [08.29.02]
The New York Times Saudi Censorship of Web Ranges Far Beyond Tenets of Islam, Study Finds
[requires 'free' registration]

"THE Saudi government is censoring public Internet access to a degree that goes significantly but haphazardly beyond its stated central goal of blocking sexually explicit content that violates the values of Islam, according to a recent study by Harvard Law School researchers.

The study's detailed list of blocked sites offers a glimpse into the areas that the Saudi government has deemed most troubling. Among them are sites related to pornography, women's rights, gays and lesbians, non-Islamic religions and criticism of political restrictions. Many humor and entertainment sites have also been blocked."

The device has been the kind of purchase people imagined someone else might enjoy."

redux [06.25.02]
News.Com Russia poised to restrict Net activities

""This version of the bill still allows the ability to prevent Internet activities without any necessity," said Kovalev, a 72-year old civil libertarian and member of the liberal "soyuz peravikh sil" faction.

Kovalev cited the portion of the bill that says it is "forbidden to use computer networks for extremism" and pledges a vague punishment that may "take into consideration" existing Russian criminal laws."

Wired News Egyptians Flock to New Net Plan

"Unlike the less-populated but richer countries Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which only last year overtook Egypt as having the largest Arab Internet population, Egypt is not trying to restrict the Internet.

But security police are monitoring chat rooms and local sites deemed immoral or damaging to the state or religion have been shut down. A few people have been imprisoned for soliciting sex on the Net."

redux [06.06.02]
BBC China loses grip on internet

""Without the internet the story may still have got out," said Mr Zheng. "With so many people killed it would have been hard to keep it a secret for ever, but it would have been much more difficult."

The internet is changing China in subtle but profound ways. Information is now being spread and exchanged in ways unthinkable just a few years ago.

The Chinese state's once total control on information has been broken and hard as it may try it has little hope of regaining that control."

redux [04.16.02]
Online Journalism Review Censorship Wins Out

"A decade or so ago, it was all clear: the Internet was believed to be such a revolutionary new medium, so inherently empowering and democratizing, that old authoritarian regimes would crumble before it. What we've learned in the intervening years is that the Internet does not inevitably lead to democracy any more than it inevitably leads to great wealth.

The idea that the Internet itself is a threat to authoritarian regimes was a bit of delusional post-Cold War optimism."

redux [03.21.02]
Salon Will the Net save China?

"Mao once said, "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun." The entrepreneurs in China Dawn seem to want to change the last phrase to "ISP access."

But their enthusiasm betrays a streak of naivete. As Tiananmen so amply demonstrated, in China today, political power still grows from the barrel of a gun. And the prediction that the rise of the Internet will liberate Chinese from authoritarian rule is far from certain."

South China Morning Post Who let the blogs out?

"One notable loophole in the content watch list are weblogs. Weblogs are content websites maintained by ordinary users that can act as introspective online diaries, soapboxes to rant opinions, and a vehicle guide the horde of Internet users to swarm to other obscure links to be found on the net. They are easy to update, cheap to maintain, and difficult to block because so many new ones appear each day. They utilize a client relationship with a server and can be updated with a simple browser."

The bureaucrats and censors in China who block and monitor websites will be hard pressed to try and control the future flow of weblogs both in and out of China due to the number and diversity of this new information platform. Having met actual Internet content censors from China, they are decent people but come from a different time and different place in terms of technology. They don't really get it yet since weblogs remain a concept difficult for them to understand for now."

redux [08.08.01]
First Monday The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution

"It is widely believed that the Internet poses an insurmountable threat to authoritarian rule. But political science scholarship has provided little support for this conventional wisdom, and a number of case studies from around the world show that authoritarian regimes are finding ways to control and counter the political impact of Internet use. While the long-term political impact of the Internet remains an open question, we argue that these strategies for control may continue to be viable in the short to medium term."

"In this paper we illustrate how two authoritarian regimes, China and Cuba, are maintainng control over the Internet's political impact through different combinations of reactive and proactive strategies. These cases illustrate that, contrary to assumptions, different types of authoritarian regimes may be able to control and profit from the Internet. Examining the experiences of these two countries may help to shed light on other authoritarian regimes' strategies for Internet development, as well as help to develop generalizable conclusions about the impact of the Internet on authoritarian rule."

redux [06.19.01]
Ananova Political heavyweight warns of 'web threat to democracy'

"Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister has warned the internet threatens democracy and people's sense of patriotism.

Lee Hsien Loong says governments must find new ways to build a consensus on national issues and strengthen national identities."

"The internet "opens up societies and helps individuals link up with like-minded souls anywhere in cyberspace," he said.

But it "may weaken the bonds of place and circumstance that have always tied citizens to their home and nation," he added."

redux [10.26.00]
Center for Strategic and International Studies Reinventing Diplomacy in the Information Age

"The world is changing fundamentally. Images and information respect neither time nor borders. Hierarchy is giving way to networking. Openness is crowding out secrecy and exclusivity. Ideas and capital move swiftly and unimpeded across a global network of governments, corporations, and nongovernmental organizations. In this world of instantaneous information, traditional diplomacy struggles to sustain its relevance."

"Nations once connected by foreign ministries and traders are now linked through millions of individuals by fiber optics, satellite, wireless, and cable in a complex network without central control. The Internet, with 100 million users today, will reach one billion people by 2005 and will be available to half the world's population by 2010. The network will become the central nervous system of international relations."

redux [10.10.00]
MediaChannel.Org A Tower Aflame: Media, Metaphor and Revolution

"Metaphors, symbols and sayings are mighty mind-setters. They captivate our minds and focus our attention to one main point, effectively excluding others. Putin used the burning of the Ostankino television tower, once hailed as a symbol of Soviet supremacy, as a metaphor for the desperate economic need of Russia. The global media played along with this tune, once again showcasing images of Russia's decay. But there is another largely untold story to be extracted from Putin's metaphor: TV towers are more than symbols - indeed they are very concrete centers of mind control, distributing the flow of information and entertainment."

"Who chose the crumbling Berlin Wall as the icon and metaphor for the breakdown of communism and the end of the Cold War? Wouldn't a TV tower in flames be more accurate? It wasn't about the free flow of capital. It was about the free flow of information."

Guardian Unlimited Shuttle a deathtrap, says astronaut

"One of America's most experienced astronauts has denounced the space shuttle as a deathtrap and accused US space officials of stifling all concerns raised about its safety.

The revelation comes as America prepares to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. Seven astronauts were killed on 28 January 1986, when their shuttle exploded 73 seconds after take-off.

Veteran astronaut Mike Mullane's outburst therefore comes at a deeply embarrassing time for the Nasa. Apart from dealing with the Challenger anniversary, it is now struggling to save its remaining space shuttles so they can complete the international space station.

redux [08.18.05]
The New York Times Report Faults NASA as Compromising Safety
[requires 'free' registration]

""It is difficult to be objective based on hindsight, but it appears to us that lessons that should have been learned have not been," the minority wrote, in a document appended to the final report of the group.

Even after two and a half years of intense work to make the shuttles safer, NASA managers "lack the crucial ability to accurately evaluate how much or how little risk is associated with their decisions, particularly decisions to sidestep or abbreviate any given procedure or process," wrote the seven panelists, who included a former astronaut and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

Managers and officials, they went on, "must break this cycle of smugness substituting for knowledge.""

Maciej Ceglowski A Rocket To Nowhere

"Future archaeologists trying to understand what the Shuttle was for are going to have a mess on their hands. Why was such a powerful rocket used only to reach very low orbits, where air resistance and debris would limit the useful lifetime of a satellite to a few years? Why was there both a big cargo bay and a big crew compartment? What kind of missions would require people to assist in deploying a large payload? Why was the Shuttle intentionally crippled so that it could not land on autopilot? 1 Why go through all the trouble to give the Shuttle large wings if it has no jet engines and the glide characteristics of a brick? Why build such complex, adjustable main engines and then rely on the equivalent of two giant firecrackers to provide most of the takeoff thrust? Why use a glass thermal protection system, rather than a low-tech ablative shield? And having chosen such a fragile method of heat protection, why on earth mount the orbiter on the side of the rocket, where things will fall on it during launch?

Taken on its own merits, the Shuttle gives the impression of a vehicle designed to be launched repeatedly to near-Earth orbit, tended by five to seven passengers with little concern for their personal safety, and requiring extravagant care and preparation before each flight, with an almost fetishistic emphasis on reuse. Clearly this primitive space plane must have been a sacred artifact, used in religious rituals to deliver sacrifice to a sky god."

redux [07.28.05]
The Telegraph We got it wrong, admits space shuttle chiefs

"The future of the American space shuttle programme was in doubt last night after Nasa suspended further flights while it determines why a large chunk of the shuttle's fuel tank broke away on lift-off."

"Nasa has acknowledged that, after spending more than $1 billion on safety improvements to deal with exactly this type of accident, it still does not know the cause."

""I honestly don't know how hard it is to fix this," said the Nasa administrator Michael Griffin yesterday. "If we had to go over it again, we would do something more than had been done. It was considered good enough to fly. That was an error.""

redux [02.22.03]
Washington Post Engineers' E-mails Warned NASA Downplaying Shuttle Problems

"In one e-mail sent three days before the shuttle's Feb. 1 disintegration as it hit the Earth's atmosphere, a Langley engineer complained that those managing Columbia's flight had chosen not to make simple studies to clarify landing risks and were treating such information "like the plague."

The engineer, Robert Daugherty, also said he understood NASA engineers at flight headquarters in Texas had privately estimated its safety during landing was "survivable but marginal.""

redux [02.01.03]
The New York Times Speed Makes Space Flight Very Risky, Experts Say
[requires 'free' registration]

"A success rate of about 95 percent is more typical of the trade, Dr. Postol said. With two catastrophic failures in 113 flights, for a 98.2 percent success rate, the shuttle program is not looking much different -- for sound physical reasons, he said.

"Capt. Bill Readdy, associate administrator for space flight and a former astronaut, said at a news conference yesterday afternoon: "Today was a very stark reminder that this is a very risky endeavor, pushing back the frontiers in outer space. And after 113 flights, unfortunately, people have a tendency to look at it as something that is more or less routine. Well I can assure you it is not.""

The Guardian Unlimited Nasa chiefs 'repeatedly ignored' safety warnings

"Fears of a catastrophic shuttle accident were raised last summer with the White House by a former Nasa engineer who pleaded for a presidential order to halt all further shuttle flights until safety issues had been addressed.

In a letter to the White House, Don Nelson, who served with Nasa for 36 years until he retired in 1999, wrote to President George W. Bush warning that his 'intervention' was necessary to 'prevent another catastrophic space shuttle accident'."

Richard Feynman Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle

"If a reasonable launch schedule is to be maintained, engineering often cannot be done fast enough to keep up with the expectations of originally conservative certification criteria designed to guarantee a very safe vehicle. In these situations, subtly, and often with apparently logical arguments, the criteria are altered so that flights may still be certified in time. They therefore fly in a relatively unsafe condition, with a chance of failure of the order of a percent (it is difficult to be more accurate).

Official management, on the other hand, claims to believe the probability of failure is a thousand times less. One reason for this may be an attempt to assure the government of NASA perfection and success in order to ensure the supply of funds. The other may be that they sincerely believed it to be true, demonstrating an almost incredible lack of communication between themselves and their working engineers."

redux [02.06.03]
Reason The Limits of Complexity

"The week has brought a painful reminder of the limits of complex systems and human fallibility."

"So there is the crux of the matter, across shuttle, software, and oil truck. At what point does complexity make a system more prone to break, rather than less? Can added cost always justify greater reliability? How do we know when the risk of something going wrong is too great?

If in answering such questions you require or assume perfection, something might go very wrong indeed."

Houston Chronicle 10 years after Challenger, NASA feels shuttle safety never better

"In 1988, SAIC evaluated the launch risk for NASA relying primarily on factors applicable during the shuttle's pre-Challenger era, including the flawed solid rocket booster. The assessment produced a range of risk with a mean probability of a shuttle loss at one in every 78 launches.

The risk mean for a shuttle loss during the liftoff improved to one in every 248 ascents when the assessment was repeated this year and the shuttle's post-Challenger actual track record was factored into the calculations.