The Disneyfication of Devo: DEV2.O

This is just too horrifying for words--four teenage kids doing Devo covers, with the blessing of the band.

"I'm honored to be the new Mark Mothersbaugh!" declared Nicole!

says a press release. But I guess it is just the next step in devolution...

They don't do "Mongoloid."

Pushing spyware through search

Ben Edelman points out how Google is a major player in the distribution of spyware by accepting paid advertising from companies that distribute it. The data is now easily available, thanks to SiteAdvisor.com, about which sites are distributing this crap, and if Google really wants to not be evil, they should start refusing the money of these sleazy companies.

This is a parallel situation to Internet providers who provide connectivity to known spammers. I am pleased to work for a company that has a strict acceptable use policy (which I helped write, and which my organization is responsible for enforcing), which allows us to take appropriate steps to keep spammers off our network and quickly terminate contracts and access of those who manage to make it on. But too many are unwilling to say no to the money, and look the other way when their contracts are violated, which unfortunately includes the big guys (SBC, which is now part of AT&T, and MCI, which is now part of Verizon, are two of the very worst offenders out there).

Goldwater Institute: Confused priorities

In today's release from the Goldwater Institute, "The Nanny State Comes to My Mailbox," Andrea Woodmansee complains about the fact that a birthday card from Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano contained the statement "One of your most important roles as a parent is to make sure your baby is immunized."

I find it more objectionable that the state spends money to send out cards for all births instead of on more useful things (or did Ms. Woodmansee get special treatment as a result of her proximity to power?) than I am that the card contains an accurate statement about the importance of immunization.

This state contains numerous anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists who put the rest of us as well as their own children at risk by not having them vaccinated.

Failing to have children vaccinated is arguably a form of child abuse--failing to take reasonable steps to give the child proper medical treatment.

I can't bring myself to be exercised about Janet Napolitano promoting vaccination when we have a President who doesn't respect Constitutional limits on his power.

Does anyone doubt that Barry Goldwater would have prioritized George Bush's abuses of power over Janet Napolitano's birthday card promotion of vaccination as a subject of critical attention?

Kudos to James Frey for coming clean

Now that Frey has confessed that The Smoking Gun's expose is quite accurate and his book was filled with fabrications, Oprah has also admitted that she was mistaken to continue supporting him and give "the impression that the truth does not matter."

It's more satisfying to everyone when liars confess than when they continue lying, and when those who make mistakes admit them rather than cover them up.

How you can tell the Discovery Institute isn't doing science

Mike Dunford compares their PR output to their scientific output at The Questionable Authority. They put out a press release at a rate of 0.44 per day, but scientific papers at a rate of 0.0046/day. Another way of looking at it is that it took them over 20 years to generate the 34 papers on their list, but their last 34 press releases have come in the last 77 days (since November 10, 2005).

Stop Badware!

In addition to SiteAdvisor.com, Google, Lenovo, and Sun have backed a project by the Berkman Center at the Harvard Law School, the Oxford Internet Institute, and Consumer Reports WebWatch to create a "hall of shame" for purveyors of spyware and adware, at www.stopbadware.org.

StopBadWare and SiteAdvisor.com should team up, if they haven't already (Ben Edelman was formerly a student fellow at the Berkman Center and an advisor to SiteAdvisor.com and has already created his own hall of shame list for affiliate programs)--the latter's data should be quite useful to the former, and is available under Creative Commons license.

Turning mental institutions into condos

CNNMoney.com's grand-prize winner for dumbest moment of 2005 goes to a plan to convert the creepy Danvers State Hospital into high-end apartments and condos. This mental institution was an example of the architecture known as the "Kirkbride Plan," similar to other Gothic Revival masterpieces like the H.H. Richardson-designed Buffalo State Hospital.

Danvers was the setting of the 2001 film "Session 9."

New Internet consumer protection tool--SiteAdvisor.com

I've been using the Firefox plugin from SiteAdvisor.com for a few days, and I think it's a great idea. They've searched the web, downloaded content, and submitted unique email addresses on signup forms everywhere they find them, to see what happens. They then rate each site for malicious content and the extent to which it generates spam in response to a signup. This database is then used by their browser plugin to display icons next to Google and Yahoo search results indicating whether that site is green, yellow, or red regarding the type of content downloaded, the amount of email you can expect to receive from signing up at the site, and whether it links to other sites that are problematic.

Their privacy policy is good--they don't keep a record of who goes to what site. One feature I'd like to see them add is the ability to not make queries for certain domains (such as Intranet web pages--their current design allows them to map out internal corporate web structures which they should not be able to get).

Their advisory board includes Avi Rubin, a well-known security researcher at Johns Hopkins University (and formerly at AT&T) who has done significant work on e-voting security, and Ben Edelman, formerly of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, who is well-known for his research on Internet subjects such as domain name usage and China's web filtering, as well as his lawsuit against web filtering company N2H2 to defend his right to research its blocking list.

SiteAdvisor has a blog, too (though as of this moment it doesn't have a valid RSS feed, according to Thunderbird).

Cory Doctorow talk at Nature on copyright, SF, online publication, etc.

Cory Doctorow visited the offices of Nature and gave an interesting talk. (Link via Pharyngula.)

Skeptics using Intelligent Design for fundraising

The two major skeptical organizations in the U.S.--Michael Shermer's Skeptics Society and Paul Kurtz's Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) (or, actually, its parent organization, the Center for Inquiry)--have both decided to use combatting the threat of Intelligent Design as a major platform of their most recent fundraising campaigns.

The Skeptics Society sent out a card-sized folded mailing with a photo of Darwin on the front with the caption "Help us keep religion out of the science classroom!" The inside reported on recent events, such as Cardinal Schonborn's New York Times piece that the Discovery Institute and their PR agency, Creative Response Concepts, helped arrange. It continues with facts about the amount of funding the Discovery Institute receives, quotes from Phillip Johnson, William Dembski, and Jonathan Wells, Harris and Pew poll results showing the general public's ignorance on evolution. So how will collected funds be used to combat Intelligent Design? Apparently Shermer has a new book coming out this year titled Why Darwin Matters: Evolution, Design, and the Battle for Science and Religion (Henry Holt/Times Books), copies of which will be sent "to every Congressman, Senator, and Governor in America, along with the relevant state boards of education, and state legislative bodies contemplating passing pro-creationist legislation." That doesn't strike me as a particularly productive way to combat ID--I suspect most of the recipients will not read the book.

There are other bullet items listed--publication of "a special volume of essays on evolution and Intelligent Design creationism collected from the pages of Skeptic magazine, to be published by the Skeptics Society and widely distributed to science teachers throughout America to give them the intellectual tools they need to deal with ID and creationism." Another is to "distribute free copies to teachers" of the existing booklet How to Debate a Creationist. That sounds much more worthwhile, though I think that it would be more productive to give teachers tools like Eugenie Scott's Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction and Mark Isaak's Counter-Creationism Handbook (the online version of which is here--some of the best teacher and student resources are already free and online).

The bonuses for contributors include a free book from a selection of six for $100 "Supporters" (In Darwin's Shadow by Tim Callahan is the only one that appears directly relevant to the topic). $500 "sponsors" get a free 3-year subscription to Skeptic; $1000 "benefactors" get two free tickets to the 2006 Skeptics Society conference on "The Environmental Wars"; and $5000 "patrons" get dinner with Shermer and "a world-renowned scientist (to be announced)" and a private tour of Mt. Wilson's 100-inch telescope and use of the 60-inch telescope, along with the gifts the other levels get.

The Center for Inquiry sent out a more elaborate package, including a DVD presentation promoting the "New Future Fund," a campaign to raise $26.6 million, "the largest sum ever raised in the name of humanism, skepticism, and scientific naturalism." The four major goals for the use of the money are "Legal Activism," "Opposing Creationism/Intelligent Design," "Transnational Development," and "Outreach and Education." The second item, "Opposing Creationism/Intelligent Design," discusses Intelligent Design, and says that "CSICOP is fighting back, mobilizing grassroots outreach and expert scientists when ID proposals threaten. We're especially aggressive online, publishing a stable of online columnists and a dynamic new website, Creation & Intelligent Design Watch." The website has a pretty substantial amount of content, with the November/December Skeptical Inquirer (a special issue on "Evolution and the ID Wars") as the centerpiece (along with other CSICOP-related articles, including many of Chris Mooney's Doubt and About articles), links to items appropriate for classroom use on the left side, and links to current news stories on the right side.

Now, I'm all in favor of a diversity of approaches to promote critical thinking and combat Intelligent Design's political actions, but everyone should keep in mind that the two organizations actually doing the most in this arena are the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), which is the only organization devoted entirely to fighting creationism and promoting accurate teaching about evolution, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has provided the legal support for every major creation/evolution courtroom battle. By all means support the Skeptics Society and Center for Inquiry's programs, but if Intelligent Design is a concern, please be sure to support the NCSE and ACLU.