Brainport

Here's a nifty little device that sits on your tongue and electrically stimulates it via 144 microelectrodes. Your brain figures out how to "see" patterns on the surface of this device, and:

In testing, blind people found doorways, noticed people walking in front of them and caught balls. A version of the device, expected to be commercially marketed soon, has restored balance to those whose vestibular systems in the inner ear were destroyed by antibiotics.

Tony Snow and creationism

Looks like there's some evidence that Bush's new press secretary, Tony Snow, is an advocate of intelligent design.

Intelligent Design Arguments from the Creationist Literature

Ed Brayton has written an excellent article describing how many major intelligent design arguments come directly from the creationist literature. A similar earlier article by Jason Rosenhouse may be found here.

A serious Da Vinci Code plagiarism case

Author Lewis Perdue wrote a book titled The Da Vinci Legacy which was first published in 1983. That book really does seem to have some very close parallels to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Perdue has a couple of blogs where he has written about his legal case (that began when Random House sued him over his postings on the Internet about the similarities between Brown's book and his). He's pointed out a number of apparent misrepresentations by Brown about his life, as well as another case where a work of Brown's is unaccountably identical with the work of another author.

An overview of Perdue's case is here.

Unlike the Baigent and Leigh lawsuit over Holy Blood, Holy Grail (which purported to be a work of nonfiction), Perdue doesn't allege plagiarism of the general idea, but over a large number of very specific elements that are identical between the books.

Perdue says that anything he wins in court will be donated to charity, and so it's not about the money.

The oddest thing on Perdue's blog is talk about postings from somebody named Ahamedd Saaddoodeen, who Perdue says he's traced to Blythe Brown, Dan Brown's wife.

Talking Points Memo gets it completely wrong on COPE Act

Josh Marshall writes:

The grand ole daddy of special interest giveaways -- Congress to give away the Internet. This is serious. Find out more here.

Sounds like he's saying that Congress is transferring the authority the Department of Commerce currently has over ICANN somewhere, doesn't it? But he links to Art Brodsky on TPM's "Special Guests Blog," who writes:

Congress is going to hand the operation of the Internet over to AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. Democrats are helping. It's a shame.

Don’t look now, but the House Commerce Committee next Wednesday is likely to vote to turn control of the Internet over to AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and what’s left of the telecommunications industry. It will be one of those stories the MSM writes about as “little noticed” because they haven’t covered it.

What's he talking about? He's talking about the COPE Act, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006, which just passed the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, and its failure to include provisions mandating "net neutrality."

This doesn't "give away the Internet"--we have no laws mandating "net neutrality" today. This bill doesn't change the ownership or regulation of the Internet. It does make changes to how cable companies operate (permitting national franchising in addition to local franchising), it mandates that VOIP providers must supply E911 service, and it guarantees the right of municipalities to offer wireless broadband access.

Brodsky and Marshall have grossly misrepresented the effect of this bill in claiming that it "gives away the Internet." What it does do with respect to the FCC's policy statement (PDF) on "net neutrality" is give the FCC the ability to enforce that policy statement with fines of up to $500,000, while denying the FCC the authority to "adopt or implement rules or regulations regarding enforcement of the broadband policy statement and the principles incorporated therein, with the sole exception of the authority to adopt procedures for the adjudication of complaints."

Common Cause, an advocate of codifying specific "net neutrality" rules, opposes the bill (see their reasons and analysis here). But the problem with Common Cause's position is that there are no well-defined notions for how "net neutrality" should operate that would ensure that the result isn't just to freeze the Internet in its current state and stifle new innovations and developments. (Common Cause apparently doesn't understand the Internet well enough to know that spam is bad.)

Common Cause overestimates the ability of the telcos to use their existing networks to control how the Internet will work, and is, I believe, mistaken in its fears of classes of service. The existing broadband policy statement is sufficient to prevent telcos from blocking Google, or (more realistically) blocking access to competing VOIP providers without getting FCC fines. Further, it doesn't make the slightest bit of business sense for a DSL or cable modem provider to block access to services like the most popular search engine in the world.

For more on the subject of net neutrality, the single best analysis to date is the Stifel/Nicolaus report, "Value Chain Tug of War" (PDF). Also see my previous posts on this blog here (for my thoughts), and here (for a good analysis by Martin Geddes of the Telepocalypse blog), along with Geddes' speech at Freedom to Connect here, and Paul Kouroupas of Global Crossing's posts here, here, and here. (Disclosure: Global Crossing is my employer; I manage its network security. Global Crossing would be at risk if the RBOCs and cable companies were able to use their control of last-mile networks within the U.S. in an anti-competitive manner, so my position on this issue isn't based on any loyalty or bias towards those companies--I'd like to see more competition in broadband, but I don't think giving the FCC greater regulatory power over the Internet would have any beneficial effects in that regard.)

Protect 21: Arizona astroturfing

I received a mailing today from the "Protect 21 Coalition" asking me to contact my legislators to tell them to oppose Senate Bill 1276, which it describes as "alcohol deregulation." The bill actually legalizes Internet-based sale of wine by Arizona wineries in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Granholm v. Heald (which was combined with two other cases, including the Institute for Justice's case from NY, Swedenburg v. Kelly), which held that state regulation of Internet-based wine sales must be the same for in-state and out-of-state wineries. A 1982 Arizona law permits only in-state wineries to ship wine to restaurants and retail stores, and so is unconstitutional under that decision.

The Protect 21 website argues for a three-tier model of alcohol distribution (manufacturers, distributors, and retail sales) on the grounds that it is somehow better able to protect communities and prevent underage drinking. Actually, this model is an anti-competitive model held in place by regulations which benefit the middleman, whose role would otherwise disappear.

Their main argument is that allowing wine sales over the Internet will lead to underage drinking, despite the fact that purchases require credit cards and deliveries require a signature and ID verification, same as a retail store purchase. (For more on this argument and discussion, see this Jacob Sullum post at Reason magazine's blog.)

And who would you guess is behind the Protect 21 Coalition?

The two people who testified against Senate Bill 1276 on February 15 were Howard Romm, the president of Republic Beverage Company, and Marcus Osborn, the "Manager of Governmental and Public Affairs" of the Protect 21 Coalition. Actually, Osborn's title is for his position at the Phoenix office of R&R Partners, a Las Vegas-based advertising and lobbying firm. Osborn is a busy lobbyist, who also testified on behalf of the "PACE Coalition" in favor of H.B. 2383, a bill for a "Program for All-inclusive Care for the Elderly" at taxpayer expense, on the same day. He's also lobbied the Arizona legislature for Jack-in-the-Box restaurants and YUM brands. You can see Osborn's lobbyist record with the state of Arizona here.

The protect21.org domain was registered by R&R Partners, and the group's mailing address listed on its website is a commercial postal mailbox at a branch of The UPS Store in downtown Phoenix.

And who is a client of R&R Partners (though not listed on their website)?

Republic Beverage Company, of course.

If you're in Arizona, contact your legislators and let them know that you'd rather not have your tax money spent to funnel money into the pockets of middlemen through archaic regulations, especially not to middlemen who hire lobbying firms to create fake grassroots efforts to promote their positions to the legislature.

In 2004, expenditures by lobbyists had grown by 30% from 2003 to over $3 million, according to a study by the Center for Public Integrity.

Dirty Politician: The Katherine Harris campaign implosion

Apparently she had some staffers leave because she lied about whether Mitchell Wade (the briber in the Duke Cunningham scandal) had bought her a very expensive ($2,800) dinner at a fancy restaurant. She ended an interview last week when the subject came up, after saying that her campaign had "reimbursed" the restaurant (which makes no sense, since Wade paid the bill). Her spokesman called the reporter and asked that the subject not be published. The following day, her campaign released a statement saying that "I have donated to a local Florida charity $100 which will more than adequately compensate for the cost of my beverage and appetizer."

It turns out that the "local Florida charity" is Global Dominion Impact Ministries, a Charismatic Christian group run by Bishop Lewes and Pastor Sandra Jones. The group's website says:

"Pastor Sandra has an inspiring testimony of her deliverance from being sold to devils as an infant. She also shares her miraculous healing from her breast cancer as well as being raised from the dead."

Another wannabe politician with a bogus photo

What is it with people running for office using bogus photos on their websites? First Howard Kaloogian, running for Duke Cunningham's seat, used a photo from Istanbul as a stand-in for Baghdad to support his claim that things are going well in Iraq. (He also lied about endorsements he had received--and came in fourth in the primary.)

Now Kimberly Williamson Butler, running for mayor of New Orleans, has a photo of herself in front of the French Quarter at Disneyland. When Disney's attorneys objected, her response was not to replace it with a photo of herself in the real New Orleans, but to modify the photo to remove the Disneyland garbage can.

U.S. counties by percentage of religious adherents

Arizona doesn't look so bad... (from Pharyngula).

Abu Ghraib whistleblower blacklisted from military contracts

Torin Nelson, who was working as an Army interrogator when he helped document abuses at Abu Ghraib in 2004, has been blacklisted from further work in that role, for fear that he might "cause an adverse circumstance at some point in the future." (More at TPM Muckraker.)