And everybody's under surveillance. That has a deep cost, which Idetail in my short essay at www.templetons.com/brad/watched.html. When we become afraid our every activity is watched, we are less free.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 04:31 PM | TrackBack 0

Gads, Tolkein does make a lot more sense if most of the characters in it are gay (or at least Greekly bisexual).

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 01:22 PM | TrackBack 0

As our official system of justice became larded with more and more protections for the accused, actually going through the process of catching, prosecuting, and convicting a criminal the official way became impossibly burdensome. So, the government offered the accused a deal: You get a lighter sentence if you save us the trouble of a trial. Or, to put it in a more sinister way: You get a heavier sentence if you insist on asserting your constitutional rights to a trial, to confront your accusers, to privacy from searches without probable cause, to avoid incriminating yourself, etc.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 09:44 AM | TrackBack 0

"Gleb's finding that this gene was active not only in the lateral nucleus but also in a number of regions that projected into the lateral nucleus was interesting because it suggested that a whole circuit was involved," said Kandel. Shumyatsky next showed that GRP is expressed by excitatory principal neurons and that its receptor, GRPR, is expressed by inhibitory interneurons. The researchers then undertook collaborative studies with co-author Vadim Bolshakov at Harvard Medical School to characterize cells in the amygdala that expressed receptors for GRP. Those studies in mouse brain slices revealed that GRP acts in the amygdala by exciting a population of inhibitory interneurons in the lateral nucleus that provide feedback and inhibit the principal neurons.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 09:37 AM | TrackBack 0

Li's work may not be verified. Like much of the research I saw in China, it's unpublished and might be wrong - in science, it's easy to fool yourself. But the odds of all the stem-cell research in China not producing anything of value are miniscule. And even if only a small percentage works out, so much is happening that China will still shape our medical future. "We also have some interesting stem-cell results with Parkinson's disease," Li says, the light from the video flickering on his face. "I believe many things will happen, and they will happen here." All the while, the miraculous rats climb obliviously around their cage.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 09:07 AM | TrackBack 0

When was the last time a mob of Jews or Christians or Buddhists tore children from cars and burned them to death? A while back, I saw Terrence McNally's ghastly Broadway jerk-off, Corpus Christi, in which a gay Jesus rhapsodizes about the joys of anal intercourse with Judas. The play was an abomination, and deserves all the abuse discriminating theatre-goers can heap upon it. But oddly enough, I didn't feel an urge to slaughter perfect strangers, to ram a schoolbus, drag the little moppets from it, douse them in gasoline, and get my matchbook out.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 07:23 AM | TrackBack 0

University of New Hampshire sociologist Murray Straus has published multiple studies concluding that children who are spanked are less successful as adults. If the link is causal -- that is, if being spanked actually lowers your earnings potential -- and if spanking runs in families, then we have an alternative explanation for Weinberg's numbers: Low-income parents are more likely to spank their children because low-income parents are more likely to have been spanked themselves. Or maybe it's as simple as this: Poverty breeds frustration, and frustrated parents lash out at their kids. Does any reader have a better story?

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 07:19 AM | TrackBack 0

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 07:10 AM | TrackBack 0

While the patent application is aimed mainly at shoppers who do not provide all the relevant delivery information, the patent could also apply to the "wish list" concept, in which consumers complete shopping lists in the hope that other people will buy the products as gifts.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 07:01 AM | TrackBack 0

"To all those who have suffered from my shortcomings and mistakes, I both apologize and from them beg forgiveness."

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 06:55 AM | TrackBack 0

A half-century old computer, called CSIRAC, is still operating in Australia. The computer, which was Australia's first, ran at a blistering 300 kilohertz, had 2 KB RAM, and 2.5 KB storage. It operated from 1951 until 1964, and currently resides in the Melbourne museum.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 06:53 AM | TrackBack 0

Well folks, this is it. A more official goodbye will appear in tomorrow morning's issue of the newsletter, but I want to thank you lot -- our most active and engaged readers -- first. We enjoyed doing this; we'll keep you posted if we ever put the band back together ... again.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 06:46 AM | TrackBack 0

The framers of our Constitution didn't know about the Internet. They had no clue about the opportunity for creativity it would present. But they committed our tradition to a rule that requires that copyright terms be limited. That requirement may not have mattered much for 200 years, since for most of that time, only commercial publishers could produce and distribute creative work. But now that technology has given that power to anyone with a T1, the wisdom in the framers' plan is again becoming obvious. Government-granted monopolies, as the framers called them, make sense when they create incentives. But even the United States Congress can't create incentives in the past. No matter what Congress says, George Gershwin will not create anything more. We should thank and honor him and others for their extraordinary work. But we should also honor our framers' plan -- that terms be limited.

Larry's preaching to the choir here -- he needs to come up with sound business reasons why copyright extensions are bad. Going on about used bookstores and cultural development won't do jack or shit.

Posted by GeeTee at December 13, 2002 06:43 AM | TrackBack 0