Obama administration backs state secrets defense of extraordinary rendition and torture

So much for change.

ABC News:

The Obama Administration today announced that it would keep the same position as the Bush Administration in the lawsuit Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.

The case involves five men who claim to have been victims of extraordinary rendition — including current Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, another plaintiff in jail in Egypt, one in jail in Morocco, and two now free. They sued a San Jose Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Dataplan, accusing the flight-planning company of aiding the CIA in flying them to other countries and secret CIA camps where they were tortured.

New York Times:

During the campaign, Mr. Obama harshly criticized the Bush administration’s treatment of detainees, and he has broken with that administration on questions like whether to keep open the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But a government lawyer, Douglas N. Letter, made the same state-secrets argument on Monday, startling several judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

“Is there anything material that has happened” that might have caused the Justice Department to shift its views, asked Judge Mary M. Schroeder, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, coyly referring to the recent election.

“No, your honor,” Mr. Letter replied.

Judge Schroeder asked, “The change in administration has no bearing?”

Once more, he said, “No, Your Honor.” The position he was taking in court on behalf of the government had been “thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration,” and “these are the authorized positions,” he said.

The Telegraph:

Mr Mohamed, 30, an Ethiopian, was granted refugee status in Britain in 1994. He was picked up in Pakistan in 2002 on suspicion of involvement in terrorism, rendered to Morocco and Afghanistan, tortured and then sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2004. All terror charges against him were dropped last year.

Two High Court judges last week said they wanted to release the full contents of a CIA file on his treatment but they held back seven paragraphs of information after David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, argued that it could compromise intelligence sharing with the US.

A British official, who is regularly briefed on intelligence operations, said: "The concern was that the document revealed that intelligence from the British agencies was used by the Americans and that there were British questions asked while Binyam Mohamed was being tortured.

"Miliband is being pushed hard by the intelligence agencies to protect the identity of those involved."

The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed's genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, "is very far down the list of things they did," the official said.

(Via the Volokh Conspiracy).

Glenn Greenwald writes of this that "Obama fails his first test on civil liberties and accountability--resoundingly and disgracefully."

The two religious conversions of George W. Bush

Russ Baker's new book, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, The Powerful Forces that Put it in Power, and What Their Influence Means for America, states that George W. Bush's conversion to evangelical Christianity was staged as a way to wipe the slate clean of his past record of misbehavior. It further makes the case that his story of a conversion after a visit from Billy Graham was his *second* conversion, the first coming a year earlier after a meeting with evangelist Arthur Blessit, who was determined to be too controversial for the story Bush wanted to convey:

... what was a starchy, Episcopalian heir to a blue-blooded Yankee political pedigree to do? And what of his reckless, apparently non-religious, playboy son? These were the intertwined questions faced by Vice President Bush and George W. in the 1980s as they planned Poppy Bush's run for president in 1988--and W.'s political future.

Baker's chapter titled "The Conversion" features startling revelations that challenge the well-known narratives of the Bush family's religious history-- including the way they crafted a strategy for winning over the religious right, and the creation of a conversion legend for George W. Bush. The purpose of the latter was not only to position him as a religious and political man of his time, but to neutralize the many issues from his past that threatened to undermine his future in politics (and possibly that of his father as well). The plan probably worked far better than anyone could have hoped. "I'm still amazed," Doug Wead, a key architect of the Bush family's evangelical outreach strategy told Baker, "how naïve so many journalists are who have covered politics all of their life."

Under [Doug] Wead's tutelage, Poppy would learn the ins and outs of the evangelical world. But Poppy and W. had a problem in common. Baker writes that they knew that W.'s "behavior before becoming governor [of Texas in 1994] his partying, his womanizing, and in particular his military service problems--posed a serious threat to his presidential ambitions. Their solution was to wipe the slate clean--through religious transformation."

A Tale of Two Conversions

For this to work they needed "a credible conversion experience and a presentable spiritual guide." And so the legend goes that none other than Billy Graham paid a visit to his longtime friends at the Bush family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine. This led to the famous walk on the beach that George W. Bush says "planted a mustard seed in my soul," and to his supposed rebirth as an evangelical Christian. That was the accepted narrative in the media and throughout the evangelical world for years. But Graham later told a journalist that he does not remember the encounter; and to another said he does remember a walk on the beach--but not, apparently, any kind of spiritually meaningful conversation. Whatever the facts of the Graham episode, there are actually two conversion stories. The second was deep-sixed in favor of the Graham story, and only emerged after George W. was elected president.

The itinerant evangelist Arthur Blessitt, famous for dragging (mostly on wheels) a 12-foot cross around the world, posted the story on his Web site in October 2001, noting that he met with George W. Bush a full year earlier than Graham. "Mr. George W. Bush," wrote Blessitt, "a Midland oilman, listened to the radio broadcast and asked one of his friends `Can you arrange for me to meet Arthur Blessitt and talk to him about Jesus?' And so it came to pass."

Wead, Baker reports, "had warned the Bushes that they had to be careful how they couched their conversion story. It couldn't be seen as something too radical or too tacky. Preachers who performed stunts with giant crosses would not do. Billy Graham, `spiritual counselor to presidents,' would do perfectly." And that was the story that speechwriter Karen Hughes wove into Bush's 1999 campaign book, A Charge to Keep. There was no mention of Blessitt.

(Via Frederick Clarkson at Talk2Action.)

I'm not sure how credible Baker's book is. The link I've just given also includes a quote from the book claiming that Bush helped a Texas girlfriend procure an illegal abortion prior to Roe v. Wade, and I think this is the book that I've heard suggests George H.W. Bush and the CIA had involvement in the JFK assassination, which I find wildly implausible.

How Chase Bank's inflexibility is costing it money

My mortgage has been purchased by Chase Bank a couple of times (after the first time, I refinanced with another bank and then Chase bought my mortgage from them), and they're my current lender. I pay extra principal with every payment, usually about 30% more. For my February payment, I decided to reduce the extra principal a bit, for various reasons including keeping a bit more cash on hand in current economic conditions.

Unfortunately, I made a $100 error in my payment. Rather than paying an extra $40.37, I underpaid the monthly payment by $59.63. I learned my mistake when I received my mortgage statement, indicating that my entire payment was in "suspense funds received" and had not been applied to my mortgage at all.

I immediately called Chase. Even though it was an hour before their call center closed, I was unable to get to a human being. Instead, after being told I was being transferred to customer service, I got an automated message saying that my call could not by completed. I looked for online options for payment, but the Chase website referred me instead to their phone-based "FastPay" system. The "FastPay" system by phone charges a $15 fee (which the phone system says can be avoided by using the online payment system) and only allows making a full payment.

I tried again the next morning, and got through to Tonja, a customer service rep who told me that I could only make a full payment through the phone (not the $100 I wanted to pay), but said if I connected an external bank account online, I could make the payment that way, and as soon as the extra $100 was received, the payment would be applied as normal. I'm also well within the 15-day grace period for a payment, so I don't have to worry about late fees.

Online, I searched through some counter-intuitive menu options--within the mortgage account, payment options send you to the page about FastPay over the phone--I finally found that from the front page I could get to an option to connect an external account. I started the process, and learned that my bank could not be connected instantly by putting in my online banking authentication information, but had to use a method of verification where Chase puts two small deposits in my account and I come back later and input those amounts back to Chase to prove that it's my account (or at least that I have access to it). It then allowed me to attempt the instant verification method, despite its previous claim that my bank didn't accept it, but that failed (and I probably shouldn't have tried--Chase shouldn't have my authentication credentials to another bank). It then said it would take up to two business days for these deposits to go through.

The next day, my bank showed me that there were two pending deposits from Chase (yet another cost Chase is incurring), so I went back to the verification page and entered those amounts. Chase's website informed me that because those deposits had not been made yet, I was not allowed to verify the amounts yet. Dumb design. I tried again later in the evening, and my verification was accepted. Now I went to the page to make a payment, only to find that once again, the only option is to make an entire payment. Contrary to what Tonja told me, I cannot pay just an additional $100, because there is an outstanding payment that hasn't been made, and my $1100 sitting in "suspense funds" doesn't count and can't be used.

Well, I've got the money in savings, so I decided that if Chase is going to make things so difficult, I'm going to go ahead and make a full extra payment and deprive them of a little more interest over the life of my loan, in addition to the overhead costs they've incurred through this episode. The website told me it would take two business days to process, so it will be applied on February 11--still during the grace period. But now I still am not sure that the $1100 will be applied to principal reduction, so I called in again and spoke with Kim. I explained what has happened, and pointed out to her that Chase is losing money from its inflexibility, and she offered to move $100 from my January extra payment to February so that I could cancel the additional payment. I thanked her for the option (which I would have needed to take if I didn't have the money to spare), but declined, since that would result in an increase in interest. I asked if she could verify that the $1100 would be applied correctly, and she suggested that I call in again after I see online that the new payment is applied--which will incur yet further costs to Chase.

This is a nice demonstration of how an inflexible payment system doesn't deal well with partial payments can cost a company money and customer goodwill.

Our second stray of 2009

As we prepared to take our dogs for a walk this evening, we found this guy in our yard. He has a collar, but no tags. We've put his photo up on Pets911.com, and he'll spend the night here and get a pound pickup tomorrow.

UPDATE (February 7, 2009): This black lab (mix?) isn't happy-go-lucky like our first stray of the year--he was quite fearful, but did relax a bit when we got him on leash. He was interested in our dog Fred, which we used to catch him. Once on leash and after receiving some attention, he warmed up, and he would then come back after being let off leash.

He was terrified to come in the house, and didn't seem to want to walk on the wood floor of the kitchen, but we did eventually get him into the spare bedroom, where I stayed with him overnight. He ended up sleeping peacefully at the foot of the bed.

This morning, I had the same challenge getting him out of the bedroom that I had getting in--so I ended up letting him straight out to the side patio, and he's now back out in the front yard.

UPDATE: The same animal control officer who picked up our first stray just picked up this dog, and gave us some good news--the first stray we turned in was successfully adopted, and is now named Truman!

UPDATE: We got our first call today about our Pets911.com listing for the above dog, which includes a photo and a description. The call went like this:

ME: Hello?

CALLER: Uh. Did you find a lost dog?

ME: Yes, we did.

CALLER: What did it look like?

ME: It's a black lab mix, young ...

CALLER: Oh, that can't be our dog. Our dog is white.

Every phone call save one that we've received as a result of our found dog notices online has been from someone whose dog could not possibly have been confused with the dog in the description. (The one exception was one where the dog was returned to his rightful owner.) By contrast, when we've put up posters there's been no similar mistake. I suspect the Internet information is being passed on to the callers by friends or family, but apparently people who look at lost dog information on the Internet do not know how to communicate basic information about color or breed. Or perhaps this caller has a computer infected by a virus that replaces all images with photographic negatives?

Heartland Institute mistakes parody for reality

Just as Conservapedia is often edited with parodies that even the real conservatives there can't distinguish from conservatism (let alone everyone else), the global warming-denying Heartland Institute has mistaken a parody video for a real one, and briefly posted it on their site until they realized they'd been had. It was probably the traffic from Tim Lambert's Deltoid blog that tipped them off.

This is a problem faced by ideological groups that search for evidence to support their established positions rather than trying to honestly evaluate the evidence. This isn't the first time the Heartland Institute has demonstrated that this is how they operate, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

Not-pology from Holocaust-denying bishop reinstated by the Pope

Orac at Respectful Insolence shows the deception from Bishop Richard Williamson, the formerly excommunicated Holocaust-denying Catholic bishop who was recently reinstated by Pope Benedict XVI. Williamson created a recent media firestorm because of his Holocaust denial, and has now apologized--not for his Holocaust denial, but for the fact that there was a media reaction to it. It's a not-pology.

Orac debunks some of Williamson's falsehoods about the Holocaust, and points to some of the best sites for responding to Holocaust denial: Nizkor, The Holocaust History Project, and Holocaust Denial on Trial.

What Michael Phelps should have said

At The Agitator blog, Radley Balko writes what Michael Phelps should have said when a photograph of him taking a bong hit was published in a tabloid:

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

Read the rest at The Agitator.

Our first stray of 2009

We found this dog at Circle K Park while walking our dogs. He is a friendly pit bull mixed with something big and shaggy (perhaps Bernese Mountain Dog), with a partly brindle coat. He was easy to capture on leash--he came right up to Kat. We brought him home and he eagerly drank a full bowl of water and some food. He raced around our front yard and chased a ball and brought it back. He's just a puppy with perfect teeth and bad habits of jumping up and being overly excited.

We put his picture on Pets911 and took him by the house of a neighbor who said he lost a brindle-coated pit bull a few months ago that had been seen in the vicinity of the park. We had trouble coaxing him into the car, but eventually he crawled in on his own accord. Unfortunately, the man's wife said this wasn't their dog


He seemed to have some kind of allergy, as he had red around his eyes and his gums were bright red, so we gave him a Benadryl. I spent the night with him in our spare bedroom, and he couldn't seem to sit still or stop breathing hard (or stop wanting attention) until the Benadryl kicked in, and he had a couple of decently long periods of sleep and rest. When he got up this morning, his eyes and gums looked much better, and he again enjoyed racing around the front yard and playing fetch.

Animal Care and Control picked him up just a few minutes ago, and he was shaking in the kennel on the truck. I don't think he's one who is going to do well in a kennel situation. We got his case number, in case someone calls us as a result of the Pets911 ad, but unfortunately, that rarely happens.

UPDATE (February 7, 2009): When the animal control officer picked up our second stray of 2009, he let us know that this good boy was quickly adopted, and is now known as Truman.

Congratulations, Truman!

2009: A Year for Chinese Dissidents

June 4 will be the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. March 10 is the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising that led to the Dalai Lama's exile. July 22 is the 10th anniversary of the banning of the Falun Gong cult in China. And October 1 is the celebration of 60 years of Communist rule in China.

Chinese leaders worry that the first three anniversaries may cause issues for the last, and they are right to worry. This looks like it will be a year for dissidents in China to come forward, and it has already begun with an online petition issued in December called Charter 08 at the 60th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Charter 08 (in English here) was named after Charter 77, a human rights manifesto issued by Czechoslovakian dissidents in 1977. Charter 08, which has been signed by more than two thousand Chinese citizens, calls for recognition of "basic universal values":

Freedom. Freedom is at the core of universal human values. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom in where to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to protest, among others, are the forms that freedom takes. Without freedom, China will always remain far from civilized ideals.

Human rights. Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in China's recent history is a direct consequence of the ruling regime's disregard for human rights.

Equality. The integrity, dignity, and freedom of every person—regardless of social station, occupation, sex, economic condition, ethnicity, skin color, religion, or political belief—are the same as those of any other. Principles of equality before the law and equality of social, economic, cultural, civil, and political rights must be upheld.

Republicanism. Republicanism, which holds that power should be balanced among different branches of government and competing interests should be served, resembles the traditional Chinese political ideal of "fairness in all under heaven." It allows different interest groups and social assemblies, and people with a variety of cultures and beliefs, to exercise democratic self-government and to deliberate in order to reach peaceful resolution of public questions on a basis of equal access to government and free and fair competition.

Democracy. The most fundamental principles of democracy are that the people are sovereign and the people select their government. Democracy has these characteristics: (1) Political power begins with the people and the legitimacy of a regime derives from the people. (2) Political power is exercised through choices that the people make. (3) The holders of major official posts in government at all levels are determined through periodic competitive elections. (4) While honoring the will of the majority, the fundamental dignity, freedom, and human rights of minorities are protected. In short, democracy is a modern means for achieving government truly "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

Constitutional rule. Constitutional rule is rule through a legal system and legal regulations to implement principles that are spelled out in a constitution. It means protecting the freedom and the rights of citizens, limiting and defining the scope of legitimate government power, and providing the administrative apparatus necessary to serve these ends.

More concretely, Charter 08 offers the following 19 more-specific recommendations:

1. A New Constitution. We should recast our present constitution, rescinding its provisions that contradict the principle that sovereignty resides with the people and turning it into a document that genuinely guarantees human rights, authorizes the exercise of public power, and serves as the legal underpinning of China's democratization. The constitution must be the highest law in the land, beyond violation by any individual, group, or political party.

2. Separation of Powers. We should construct a modern government in which the separation of legislative, judicial, and executive power is guaranteed. We need an Administrative Law that defines the scope of government responsibility and prevents abuse of administrative power. Government should be responsible to taxpayers. Division of power between provincial governments and the central government should adhere to the principle that central powers are only those specifically granted by the constitution and all other powers belong to the local governments.

3. Legislative Democracy. Members of legislative bodies at all levels should be chosen by direct election, and legislative democracy should observe just and impartial principles.

4. An Independent Judiciary. The rule of law must be above the interests of any particular political party and judges must be independent. We need to establish a constitutional supreme court and institute procedures for constitutional review. As soon as possible, we should abolish all of the Committees on Political and Legal Affairs that now allow Communist Party officials at every level to decide politically sensitive cases in advance and out of court. We should strictly forbid the use of public offices for private purposes.

5. Public Control of Public Servants. The military should be made answerable to the national government, not to a political party, and should be made more professional. Military personnel should swear allegiance to the constitution and remain nonpartisan. Political party organizations must be prohibited in the military. All public officials including police should serve as nonpartisans, and the current practice of favoring one political party in the hiring of public servants must end.

6. Guarantee of Human Rights. There must be strict guarantees of human rights and respect for human dignity. There should be a Human Rights Committee, responsible to the highest legislative body, that will prevent the government from abusing public power in violation of human rights. A democratic and constitutional China especially must guarantee the personal freedom of citizens. No one should suffer illegal arrest, detention, arraignment, interrogation, or punishment. The system of "Reeducation through Labor" must be abolished.

7. Election of Public Officials. There should be a comprehensive system of democratic elections based on "one person, one vote." The direct election of administrative heads at the levels of county, city, province, and nation should be systematically implemented. The rights to hold periodic free elections and to participate in them as a citizen are inalienable.

8. Rural–Urban Equality. The two-tier household registry system must be abolished. This system favors urban residents and harms rural residents. We should establish instead a system that gives every citizen the same constitutional rights and the same freedom to choose where to live.

9. Freedom to Form Groups. The right of citizens to form groups must be guaranteed. The current system for registering nongovernment groups, which requires a group to be "approved," should be replaced by a system in which a group simply registers itself. The formation of political parties should be governed by the constitution and the laws, which means that we must abolish the special privilege of one party to monopolize power and must guarantee principles of free and fair competition among political parties.

10. Freedom to Assemble. The constitution provides that peaceful assembly, demonstration, protest, and freedom of expression are fundamental rights of a citizen. The ruling party and the government must not be permitted to subject these to illegal interference or unconstitutional obstruction.

11. Freedom of Expression. We should make freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and academic freedom universal, thereby guaranteeing that citizens can be informed and can exercise their right of political supervision. These freedoms should be upheld by a Press Law that abolishes political restrictions on the press. The provision in the current Criminal Law that refers to "the crime of incitement to subvert state power" must be abolished. We should end the practice of viewing words as crimes.

12. Freedom of Religion. We must guarantee freedom of religion and belief, and institute a separation of religion and state. There must be no governmental interference in peaceful religious activities. We should abolish any laws, regulations, or local rules that limit or suppress the religious freedom of citizens. We should abolish the current system that requires religious groups (and their places of worship) to get official approval in advance and substitute for it a system in which registry is optional and, for those who choose to register, automatic.

13. Civic Education. In our schools we should abolish political curriculums and examinations that are designed to indoctrinate students in state ideology and to instill support for the rule of one party. We should replace them with civic education that advances universal values and citizens' rights, fosters civic consciousness, and promotes civic virtues that serve society.

14. Protection of Private Property. We should establish and protect the right to private property and promote an economic system of free and fair markets. We should do away with government monopolies in commerce and industry and guarantee the freedom to start new enterprises. We should establish a Committee on State-Owned Property, reporting to the national legislature, that will monitor the transfer of state-owned enterprises to private ownership in a fair, competitive, and orderly manner. We should institute a land reform that promotes private ownership of land, guarantees the right to buy and sell land, and allows the true value of private property to be adequately reflected in the market.

15. Financial and Tax Reform. We should establish a democratically regulated and accountable system of public finance that ensures the protection of taxpayer rights and that operates through legal procedures. We need a system by which public revenues that belong to a certain level of government—central, provincial, county or local—are controlled at that level. We need major tax reform that will abolish any unfair taxes, simplify the tax system, and spread the tax burden fairly. Government officials should not be able to raise taxes, or institute new ones, without public deliberation and the approval of a democratic assembly. We should reform the ownership system in order to encourage competition among a wider variety of market participants.

16. Social Security. We should establish a fair and adequate social security system that covers all citizens and ensures basic access to education, health care, retirement security, and employment.

17. Protection of the Environment. We need to protect the natural environment and to promote development in a way that is sustainable and responsible to our descendants and to the rest of humanity. This means insisting that the state and its officials at all levels not only do what they must do to achieve these goals, but also accept the supervision and participation of nongovernmental organizations.

18. A Federated Republic. A democratic China should seek to act as a responsible major power contributing toward peace and development in the Asian Pacific region by approaching others in a spirit of equality and fairness. In Hong Kong and Macao, we should support the freedoms that already exist. With respect to Taiwan, we should declare our commitment to the principles of freedom and democracy and then, negotiating as equals and ready to compromise, seek a formula for peaceful unification. We should approach disputes in the national-minority areas of China with an open mind, seeking ways to find a workable framework within which all ethnic and religious groups can flourish. We should aim ultimately at a federation of democratic communities of China.

19. Truth in Reconciliation. We should restore the reputations of all people, including their family members, who suffered political stigma in the political campaigns of the past or who have been labeled as criminals because of their thought, speech, or faith. The state should pay reparations to these people. All political prisoners and prisoners of conscience must be released. There should be a Truth Investigation Commission charged with finding the facts about past injustices and atrocities, determining responsibility for them, upholding justice, and, on these bases, seeking social reconciliation.

The Chinese government's response has been to detain Charter 08's chief organizer, Liu Xiaobo, question or threaten signers of the document, shut down websites that contain or discuss the document, and require Google to return no results for searches on Charter 08, but instead produce a warning that "according to local laws, regulations and policies, some results have not been displayed."

More on Charter 08:

"The year of living dissidently," The Economist, January 17, 2009, pp. 42-43.

Happiness, charity, religiosity, and liberals vs. conservatives

In a recent paper, Jamie Napier and John Jost argue that the reason conservatives are happier than liberals is that they are, for ideological reasons, not pained by observing high levels of income inequality. They draw this conclusion on the basis of responses to a survey item about attitudes about meritocracy that ranges from a scale of "hard work generally doesn't bring success--it's more a matter of luck" to "hard work pays," which Will Wilkinson shows cannot do the job of supporting their explanation:

I strongly agree that success, understood as a significant upward move on a valued status dimension, is largely a matter of luck. But I also strongly agree that hard work (in a society with decent institutions) usually brings a better life. It’s possible to work hard and achieve a better life without ever winning anything you’d count as success. So I haven’t a clue how I’d answer this question. Do I believe in meritocracy or not?

He observes that there's also a much better explanation for the answers to that question than assuming a blindness or lack of care about inequality:

If one wants to see a meritocratic bent as a common cause of conservative leanings and higher happiness, here’s a less tendentious explanation. (1) Those with a greater sense of the efficacy of their behavior — with a greater sense of being in control — will tend to (a) think hard work brings a better life, (b) be happier, (c) see policies that seem to penalize hard work as unjust. (2) People likely to see high taxes as an unjust penalty on hard work tend to identify as “conservative.”

And a further problem about attributing a blindness to inequality to conservatives is that conservatives give more to charity than liberals, as Wilkinson's commenter John Thacker points out (and I've previously observed at this blog). Thacker attributes the difference to religiosity; again, I've previously pointed out that he is apparently correct on this point (also see this post and the previous reference on conservatives vs. liberals), that the religious give far more to charity than the secular, even if you don't count donations to churches. (But apparently Christians are well-known in the service industry as lousy tippers.)

The same Napier and Jost paper is discussed at Marginal Revolution, where commenter DocMerlin points out that:

A rather simple answer follows with (A) and (B) being true statements that result in the same statistics without the rediculious "conservatives are happy with evil" result that the study got.
1)
A) Women are much more likely to self report depression and unhappiness than men are.
B) Men are more conservative than women.

2)
A) Divorced/unmarried women are on average more liberal than married women
B) Married people are happier.

3)
A) Conservatives are more likely to attend church regularly
B) People who attend church regularly are found to be happier and healthier than those who don't (on average).

4)
A) Liberals feel guilty for their own success.
B) Conservatives don't feel guilty for their own success.

Another possible explanation is that liberals and the secular value truth over happiness, but it seems to me that the Napier and Jost paper is an example of trying to explain away an unpalatable truth. It's better to dig deeper to understand the causes of these differences before offering public policy prescriptions (or even arguments for what is individually better to do). Wilkinson, who has done extensive review of the literature on happiness and proposed public policy prescriptions, seems to me to have the better psychological explanation for the happiness difference in terms of sense of control over outcomes. That explanation also comports well with a charitability difference--if you don't feel that your contribution could make much difference, you're probably less likely to make a contribution.

D.C. and the inauguration

Kat and I made arrangements to travel to D.C. for the inauguration a few months before the election. Our plan was to attend regardless of who was elected president, but we preferred Obama over McCain and his winning the election solidified our plans. We flew to D.C. on U.S. Airways Flight 44 to see the 44th president inaugurated, leaving 72-degree weather in Phoenix and arriving to 26-degree weather in D.C. We had prepared with layered clothing, but I found that my toes were still freezing in my shoes with two layers of socks, so we visited a mall near our hotel and found evidence of massive price deflation in coats and boots. I picked up a nice pair of Dupont "thinsulate" insulated boots, and Kat bought a full-length padded coat, each of which were only $20. We saw some further evidence of price deflation in goods at the Smithsonian gift shop in the National Museum of the American Indian, where T-shirt prices had been lowered from $20 last time we visited to $16 this trip. Food prices, however, seemed to be about the same, and the price of a 7-day Metro pass had climbed from $20 to $26.40 (no doubt still a subsidized price).


On Saturday, we visited the newly-reopened National Museum of American History, where there were special events going on with actors portraying figures from American history such as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. We paid a visit to the American flag from Fort McHenry (the star-spangled banner), the First Ladies' dresses collection, the pop culture exhibit, "The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden," musical instruments, the Gunboat Philadelphia, and a few other exhibits. We followed this up with lunch at the National Museum of the American Indian, then checked out the new Capitol visitors' center and took a look at the setup for the inauguration. We then walked over by the Newseum, passing the Canadian Embassy and its huge banners welcoming President Obama.

The theme of pending change was everywhere--not only the expected political banners, but in commercial advertising (e.g., Metro ads from Pepsi and Ikea), religious advertising (the Seventh-Day Adventists were handing out a magazine with Obama's photograph on the front), and even by the homeless begging for "change I can believe in."


On Sunday we went to the Columbia Heights Metro station and were amazed at how much the area has changed. We visited an apartment building in the area where Kat used to live in the 1990s, finding it boarded up and for sale (last sold 10/16/2008 for $1.1M). Next was Adams-Morgan, where there was a kiosk to "Tell the President ... tell him what you think! tell him what you want!" by sticking up handwritten notes. A few examples: "TAKE A STAND 4 PALESTINE," "WE ARE HUMANS NOT MACHINES," "GAY MARRIAGE," "Make Weed Legal," "fix our schools," "NO MORE LIES PLEASE," "Respect our privacy! Stop USA spying on Americans!," and "MAKE LOVE TO ME."

We visited a friend's clothing store (Redeem, on 14th St. south of S), walked past the Church of Scientology near Dupont Circle that was in the act by offering free "touch assists" for D.C. visitors, and approached as close as we could to the White House, which was to walk on Pennsylvania Ave. near the president's inaugural parade viewing stand. From there we could hear U2 playing at the "We Are One" concert on the Mall, which we chose not to brave the crowds to see.


Monday we spent time with family in the early afternoon, and spent the rest of our afternoon paying a visit to the American Humanist Society's MLK Day open house. In the evening, we went back to Dupont Circle, where a giant inflatable George W. Bush with a giant nose labeled "GIVE BUSH THE BOOT" was available to throw shoes at.


Tuesday morning, we got up at 5:30 a.m. and got to the Silver Spring Metro Station by 6:40 a.m. The station was packed, and we squeezed into a very crowded train. We got out at Gallery Place and walked towards the Mall, where we ran into an immense crowd at 7th and E that was waiting to go through security screening to the inaugural parade seats. We hung out there for a while, where several people from Meetup.com were handing out nametags and pens, and then walked around the security perimeter to the west to get to the Mall. This required us to go back north to I St., and west to 19th St. (we could have gone down 18th, but 19th was less crowded). We went through no security and had no trouble getting to the Mall.

We walked east past the Washington Monument, but U.S. Army soldiers suddenly closed the road at 15th St. and so we went back and found a good spot in front of the Jumbotron just northeast of the Monument. The crowd continued to build, and the Jumbotron showed a replay of the "We are One" concert from Sunday (which would might have been annoying if we had already seen it).

At long last, the Jumbotrons switched to a live (with audio slightly delayed) feed, with a live mike somewhere in the expensive seats that seemed unintentional. We got to hear one side of multiple conversations, including Sen. Joe Lieberman telling someone, "I love your mother!" The captioning was a little behind the already-delayed audio, and occasionally bizarrely off. When Aretha Franklin sang, one caption at the end of her song said "THREAT RING."

I thought that Pastor Rick Warren's invocation was awful--it was sectarian and it was blatantly hypocritical (cf. Matthew 6:5-7), and I considered it, along with the cold, to be the low-light of the swearing-in ceremony.

George W. Bush attracted some mild booing, and we almost (but not quite) felt sorry for him. But the crowd was ecstatic at Obama's being sworn in (and at Bush's helicopter leaving).

Obama's inaugural speech seemed to mostly be fairly generic new-politician-in-office platitudes, but there were a few standout positive points for me. First, his acknowledgement that some Americans are nonbelievers and we have a stake and a voice in this country was a breath of fresh air. I cheered that line, and several people near by looked at me and smiled. His affirmation that science must be "restore[d] ... to its rightful place" was another good one, as was his statement that we cannot give up the Constitution for safety.


It is a pleasure to again have a president who can speak in complete English sentences and not make me cringe every time I hear him.


After the swearing-in ceremony was over, it took us well over an hour to leave the Mall. People were packed in trying to leave, and at one point we saw the crowd knock down a barricade on the north side of the Mall, and a second barricade just north of that, to get access to Constitution. We moved in the opposite direction, which proved to be the right move to get to a flowing stream of people moving towards the actual exit. Police showed up at the downed barricades after about ten minutes, and put them back in place.


On Wednesday, we visited the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Catholic church in North America, on the grounds of Catholic University of America. It was interesting to see the different ethnic versions of Mary, Mother of Jesus in the Shrine, including Our Mother of Africa, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Our Lady of La Vang (Vietnam). We did a little shopping for Obama swag at Union Station.

On Thursday, our last day in D.C., we visited Battleground National Cemetery on Georgia Ave., a little-known burial ground of Union soldiers killed at the battle of Fort Stevens, the only Civil War battle that occurred in D.C. We also visited Fort Stevens itself, which has a monument where President Lincoln stood on the rampart and was told to "Get down, you fool" as he was likely to be killed by attacking Confederate soldiers there. Finally, we visited the recently restored Lincoln Cottage at the Old Soldier's Home, just north of Catholic University of America, where Lincoln spent about a quarter of his presidential term, made many of his decisions, and drafted and finalized the Emancipation Proclamation.

ApostAZ podcast #13

The latest ApostAZ podcast is now available:

Episode 013 Atheism and Shit-Free Thought in Phoenix! Go to meetup.com/phoenix-atheists for group events! All Music from Greydon Square- CPT Theorem, Ten Things the Pope Hates About Reality, Some Obama Topics, Family Planning and Stem Cell Research, REBT: Self-Downing.

Jan. 31: Filming for ArizonaCOR welcome video (happened today).
Feb. 13: Phoenix Atheists meetup new member welcome at Baby Kay's.
Feb. 15: SMOCA 10th anniversary, Phoenix Atheists will attend.
Feb. 18: Daniel Dennett speaking at ASU on "Darwin's Strange Inversion of Reasoning." Phoenix Atheists will attend.

Comments on this episode:

I don't think the difference between a religion and a cult is just the number of members, though growing large enough certainly tends to change social perception. As I've written previously at this blog, I think the characteristics that make a group a cult are something like Steve Hassan's BITE model (Behavior control, Information control, Thought control, Emotional control) or better yet (since it doesn't depend on questionable notions of mind control), Isaac Bonewits' Advanced Bonewits' Cult Danger Evaluation Frame (ABCDEF).

Bart Simpson shilling for Scientology

Via the Village Voice, a prerecord call promoting a Scientology event by Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson (and a Scientologist):

Obama odds and ends

Obama's inauguration speech was censored in China. They didn't like these two sentences:

"Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions." The words "and communism" were removed from the Chinese translation by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history." That whole sentence was removed from the Chinese translation.

Rick Warren's invocation speech was the low point in the career of a U.S. Army officer who gave in to pressure to conform when his commanding officer expected everyone to applaud, saying "God Bless him for having the courage to pray for all of the lost souls in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ!"

On Obama's first day in office, he issued executive orders to suspend military commissions for 120 days, close Guantanamo Bay in the next year, require all government agency interrogations to comply with the U.S. Army Field Manual on Interrogation, freeze salaries for the 100 top executive branch officials, reverse George W. Bush's executive order allowing former presidents and their relatives to keep presidential materials out of the National Archives beyond the 12-year statutory limit, close all CIA secret prisons, and call for a review of all U.S. government detention procedures.

The Obameter is tracking Obama's campaign promises. So far he's kept five, compromised on one, stalled on one, taken no action on 488, and broken none. He will need to delay, if not break, some of his spending promises...

UPDATE (February 17, 2009): So far, it appears that Obama has no intention of keeping his promise to post all bills to the web for five days of public comment prior to signing them. He's broken that promise repeatedly already.

Petwalk donations plea!

This Sunday, January 25th is the first annual Petwalk. Fred and I are participating and need your help in the form of a donation. Sure the economy looks bad right now, but if you can spare just $5 for a great cause, I'd really appreciate it. To learn more, please visit my donation page.

NY conference on the religious-secular divide

A conference on "The Religious-Secular Divide: The U.S. Case" will be held on March 5-6, 2009 at The New School in New York City. The conference will:

explore the tension between religion and secularity in the United States, which is long-standing, widespread, and increasingly intense. This is evident in contemporary debates over such issues as evolution and intelligent design, the importance of religion in political decision-making, and in spiritual or faith-based philanthropy. These issues will be addressed from the perspectives of religious studies, legal studies, political science, sociology, and philosophy. Charles Taylor will deliver the keynote address on March 5th at 6:00pm.

The conference website may be found here. The current speaker list is:

Richard J. Bernstein
Jose Casanova
David L. Chappell
William E. Connolly
James Davison Hunter
Daniel Dennett
Noah Feldman
Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad
Susan F. Harding
George Kateb
Mark Lilla
David Martin
Michael W. McConnell
James A. Morone
John T. Noonan, Jr.
Ann Pellegrini
Winnifred Sullivan
Charles Taylor
Peter van der Veer

Big Brother, meet Little Sis

The Sunlight Foundation, promoting transparency in government, has issued an invitation to check out the beta of Little Sis, a wiki described as "an involuntary Facebook of powerful Americans," created by the Public Accountability Initiative.

You can sign up for an account to edit the wiki at http://www.littlesis.org/join, or just check out the site at http://www.littlesis.org.

What Does It Take for a Police Officer to Get Fired?

Radley Balko, guest-blogging at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, describes three police officers, asking whether each has engaged in egregious enough conduct to be fired:

One,

Shoving a 71-year-old Walmart greeter to the ground and, when another customer came to assist, shoving that customer through a glass door?

Two,

How about three DWI incidents within a one-year span, including one in which the officer ran a roadblock, then had to be tasered, pepper-sprayed, and wrestled to the ground; another in which he hit another car, then left the scene of the accident; and another in which he fell asleep in his cruiser in front of a school, while in drive, with his foot resting on the brake?

Three,

How about an officer with an otherwise stellar record, who has a reputation in the department for honesty, but who became an outspoken critic of the war on drugs, and on one occasion declined to arrest a man after finding a single marijuana plant growing outside the man's home?

Can you guess which of these officers lost their jobs for the described conduct? Read Balko's post to find out.

ApostAZ podcast #12

The latest ApostAZ podcast is now available:

Episode 012 Atheism and Nonsense-Free Thought in Phoenix! Go to meetup.com/phoenix-atheists for group events! Solstice Party Wrap Up, January Events, UK Atheist Bus, Papua New Guinea Witch Burning... In This Century! Yeah! Jeremy's Funeral Proselytization, REBT: Unconditional Other Acceptance.

Comments:

The "penis panics" (also known as "koro" or "genital retraction syndrome") are typically in Nigeria, Ghana, and Benin, but have also appeared in parts of Asia such as China and Singapore.

Jeremy's funeral proselytization story is unfortunate. I've attended a few too many funeral services of late (six so far this century), of which four have been religious and two have been completely secular. All of the religious ones had a tone to them that occasionally seemed to assume that everyone present was Christian, but none had a hellfire component or a call to Jesus that I remember--they were focused on remembering the person who was gone and addressing the loss of the people present. I have heard of churches that emphasize the hellfire component, and in 2003 a priest at the funeral service of Ben Martinez in Chama, NM, said that the deceased was a lukewarm Catholic who now burns in hell. The family filed a lawsuit over it.

Shannon and Noel, congratulations on your engagement!

Re: Jeremy's godfather story--you should say sure, you'll be happy to tell the kid all about their faith, thinking to yourself, "including that most of what you believe is not true."

Job creation by president

The creation of jobs in the economy is neither the president's responsibility nor within his power to do anything other than influence through policy, but it's still interesting to look at the record of job creation under the last eleven presidents (Truman to Bush Jr.), as presented at Barry Ritholtz's blog (from the Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics):

Welcome, Pharyngulites!

The photo P.Z. linked here with was taken in Phoenix, Arizona in February 1999, near the intersection of 19th Ave. and Campbell. The post at this blog which links to it is this one.

While you're here, here's an index of some of my better posts.

Utah Sen. Chris Buttars' Mormon Gulag

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars points out an account of a 15-year-old kidnapped from his grandmother's house at the request of his parents, and taken to the Utah Boys Ranch, then run by Utah Senator Chris Buttars. Apparently the mind-control treatment didn't take, and he started the Utah Boys Ranch Network to expose the abuse.

CC-licensed NIN album is Amazon's #1 MP3 seller for 2008

The record labels and the RIAA have insisted that peer-to-peer filesharing is cannibalizing the music industry and that aggressive lawsuits and copy protection are necessary to protect the industry. But Nine Inch Nails released Ghosts I-IV under a Creative Commons license which allowed free redistribution from its initial release, while also selling it in MP3 format from its website and via Amazon.com, with no copy protection. The result--it's the #1 selling MP3 album on Amazon.com for 2008 and generated $1.6 million in revenue for the band in its first week, with no cut to a record label.

Looks like record labels are now superfluous for established artists, who no longer need to see their revenue cannibalized by middlemen.

Scientology vs. the Internet history lesson

Jeff Jacobsen and Mark Bunker are hosting a 90-minute Internet radio show on the battle between Scientology and the Internet that took place before Anonymous, and it's about to start now (4 p.m. Arizona time, 3 p.m. PST, 6 p.m. EST). A number of old-timers from alt.religion.scientology will likely be calling in.

It's on blogtalkradio, show title is "Old-Timers give a history lesson."

First guest: Modemac, skeptic, SubGenius, and author of an Introduction to Scientology website, on the early history of alt.religion.scientology.

Second guest: Paulette Cooper, author of The Scandal of Scientology, an early major book-length criticism of Scientology, who was the victim of dirty tricks including framing her for a bomb threat and filing 19 lawsuits against her.

Third guest: Ron Newman, author of the Church of Scientology vs. the Net web pages and alt.religion.scientology regular.

Fourth guest: Yours truly.

UPDATE (January 5, 2009): A few clarifications and additional links:

The "Miss Bloodybutt" story Modemac referred to is described in the article Jeff and I wrote in Skeptic magazine, which includes dates. The -AB- posting didn't predate the event and included information from the police report. I interviewed Tom Klemesrud and Linda Woolard as part of my research for that story.

I was taken out to lunch by Scientology's Mesa Org OSA Director, Ginny Leeson, who asked what they could do to stop the criticism and pickets. My reply was that if they stopped suing people and trying to stop criticism, the pickets would probably stop. Ginny Leeson was soon replaced by a new OSA Director, Leslie Duhrman, who was a lot more hostile and aggressive--she went after picketer Bruce Pettycrew with legal action. I have received legal threats from Scientology and a DMCA notice, but nothing ever came of them; I periodically see Church of Scientology IP addresses visiting my web sites (also here).

My Scientology private investigators page is still online, though woefully out-of-date.

I wasn't the one who first called for coordinated international pickets, that was Jeff Jacobsen. I did issue (on behalf of the "Ad Hoc Committee Against Internet Censorship") the first coordinated press release about why the picketing was occurring, in response to Scientology's "Cancelbunny" that was issuing cancellations of Usenet posts containing their secrets.

There was a Salon.com article in 1999 about Susan Mullaney ("xenubat")'s posted audio files of L. Ron Hubbard saying embarrassing things, which Scientology used the DMCA to shut down. She issued a counter-notice and the material came back online. Some of those clips were used in very funny Scientology-critical songs by "Enturbulator 009" or the "El Queso All-Stars."

I've previously posted a "Scientology sampler" of my history of Scientology criticism and some posts about the "Anonymous" protests. This blog has a "Scientology" label you can click to find all my Scientology-related posts.

Facing the Fire: creationist video

The creationist video I was filmed for, Creation Ministries International's "Facing the Fire," a documentary about the 1988 creation/evolution debate between Ian Plimer and Duane Gish, is available on YouTube in four parts (and embedded below). I first appear around 4:34 in the first segment, at 1:06 in the second, at 1:04 in the third, and at the very beginning of the fourth segment.

I described my experience being filmed and reasons for appearing in this documentary here, my reaction to the result here (which includes links to critiques of Gish), and you can find the articles I refer to in the documentary here:

"Some Failures of Organized Skepticism," The Arizona Skeptic vol. 3, no. 1, January 1990, pp. 2-5.
"How Not to Argue with Creationists," Creation/Evolution vol. 11, issue XXIX, Winter 1991-92, pp. 9-21.
"How Not to Respond to Criticism: Barry Price Compounds His Errors," talkorigins.org FAQ, 1993.
"Criticisms from an Obscure Corner of the World," review of Plimer's Telling Lies for God.


Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


Part 4:

Literary hoaxes

Now that Berkley Books has just cancelled Herman Rosenblat's Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived after the core story about how he met his wife while in a concentration camp was proven false, ABC News has put together a slide show of some other famous literary hoaxes.

The list includes, in addition to Rosenblat:

James Frey
JT Leroy
Norma Khouri
Margaret B. Jones
Misha Defonseca
Nasdijj
Anthony Godby Johnson
Lauren Stratford
Clifford Irving
Araki Yususada
Jayson Blair
Binjamin Wilkomirski
Forrest Carter
Kaavya Viswanathan
Tom Carew
Janet Cooke
The Hitler Diaries
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

There are a few others they could have covered--there are entire genres of hoaxes, like Christian conversion stories of fake Illuminati, witches, Satanists, Jesuits, and terrorists, stories of fake undercover agents and spies, stories of mind-controlled sex slaves, and so on. The Christian conversion stories are the ones I'm most familiar with, many of which have been promoted by Jack T. Chick of Chick tract fame, or have involved film producer David Balsiger (see especially footnote 7 of the linked article).

Anchoring and credit card minimum payments

"Anchoring" is the psychological effect that, when presented with a sample number prior to being asked to estimate some quantity, people tend to stick closer to that sample number than they would if no number were mentioned, even if the number is completely irrelevant to what's being estimated.

A study by Neil Stewart at Warwick University suggests that minimum payment amounts on credit card bills cause people to pay less on their credit cards per month than they otherwise would, since the minimum payment tends to be extremely low. While it has no effect on those who intend to pay off the full monthly amount (the only reasonable way to use credit cards, in my opinion), Stewart's work suggests that those who pay less than the full amount pay 43% less on average than they would if no minimum payment were specified.

While this might be interpreted as counter to the intent of a minimum payment, I suspect it's exactly the intended effect from the credit card companies--to drag out payments over the longest possible time and accumulate the most interest.

Books Read in 2008

Once again, here's my annual list of books I've read in the last year. I did somewhat worse than last year in finishing books I started, and I found last year disappointing. The piles of started but unfinished books are growing--but perhaps I can match last year's total by the end of the year (I'm only threetwo short at the moment). I've not done a good job of writing Amazon.com reviews of any of these, though I've put a few short comments on Facebook's Visual Bookshelf for a few of these. I owe Guy Harrison an Amazon.com review/blog review/etc. for his excellent book, which I recommend as a nice (and less threatening) companion piece to Julian Baggini's Atheism: A Very Short Introduction as an introduction to atheism.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

Matthew Chapman, 40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania

Anderson Cooper, Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival

Cory Doctorow, Little Brother

Cory Doctorow, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

Joseph Finder, Paranoia

Guy P. Harrison, 50 reasons people give for believing in a god

Gene Healy, The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Presidential Power

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War

Susan Jacoby, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism

Robert A. Levy and William Mellor, The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom

Maureen McCormick, Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice

Mary Roach, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

William C. Speidel, Sons of the Profits

Jim Steinmeyer, Art & Artifice and Other Essays on Illusion

Jim Steinmeyer, Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented the Supernatural

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Carl Zimmer, Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--And How It Changed the World

Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It

(Previously: 2007, 2006, 2005.)

Looking for donations, again!

I am once again asking for donations. I will be walking January 25, 2009 in the 1st annual PetSmart PetWalk to help raise funds for R.E.S.C.U.E.

Please visit my donations page and help out if you can, as always, donations are tax deductible.

Happy holidays!

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that the United States is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Disclaimer: No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

(From mlaw.org; a repost from 2006.)

The Hound of Mons

In the January 2009 issue of Fortean Times, Theo Paijmans reports the following story of "The Hound of Mons," quoted from the Ada Evening News, Ada, Oklahoma, 11 August 1919:

That weird legend of No Man's Land, the gruesome epice of the "hound of Mons," has, according to F.J. Newhouse, a returned Canadian veteran, been vindicated throughout Europe as fact and not fiction. For four years civilian skeptics laughed at the soldiers' tale of a giant, skulking hound, which stalked among the corpses and shell holes of No Man's Land and dragged down British soldiers to their death. An apparition of fear-crazed minds, they said. But to the soldiers it was a reality and one of the most fearful things of the world war.

"The death of Dr. Gottlieb Hochmuller in the recent Spartacan riots in Berlin," said Capt. Newhouse, "has brought to light facts concerning the fiendish application of this German scientist's skill that have astounded Europe. For the hound of Mons was not an accident, a phantom, or an hallucination--it was the deliberate result of one of the strangest and most repulsive scientific experiments the world has ever known.

Teeth Marks in Throats.
What was the hound of Mons? According to the soldiers, the legend started in the terrible days of the defense of Mons. On the night of November 14, 1914, Capt. Yeskes and four men of the London Fusiliers entered No Man's Land on patrol. The last living trace of them was when they started into the darkness between the lines. Several days afterward their dead bodies were found--just as they had been dragged down--with teeth marks at the throats.

Several nights later a weird, blood-curdling howl was heard from the darkness toward which the British trenches faced. It was the howl of the hound of Mons. From then on this phantom hound became the terror of the men who faced death by bullets with a smile. It was the old fear of the unknown.

Howl is Heard.
Patrol after patrol, during two years of warefare, ventured out only to be found days later with the telltale marks at their throats. The ghastly howl continued to echo through No Man's Land. Several times sentries declared that they saw a lean, grey wraith flit past the barbed wire--the form of a gigantic hound running silently. But civilian Europe always doubted the story.

Then after two years, while many brave men lost their lives with only those teeth marks at the throat to show, the hound of Mons disappeared. From then on the Germans never had another important success.

"And now," says Captain Newhouse, "secret papers have been taken from the residence of the late Dr. Hochmuller which prove that the hound of Mons was a terrible living reality, a giant hound with the brain of a human madman."

Hound Had Human Brain.
Captain Newhouse says that the papers show that this hound was the only successful issue of a series of experiments by which Dr. Hochmller hoped to end the war in Germany's favor. The scientist had gone about the wards of the German hospitals until he found a man gone mad as the result of his insane hatred of England. Hochmuller, with the sanction of the German government, operated upon him and removed his brain, taking in particular the parts which dominated hatred and frenzy.

At the same time a like operation was performed on a giant Siberian wolfhound. Its brain was taken out and the brain of the madman inserted. By careful nursing the dog lived. The man was permitted to die.

The dog rapidly grew stronger and, after careful training in fiendishness, wa taken to the firing line and released in No Man's Land. There for two years it became the terror of outposts and patrols.

Back before the Internet, the local newspapers met our needs for fabulous hoaxes, and many of them applied, at least periodically, the journalistic standards of the Weekly World News--you only need one source.

UPDATE (April 25, 2009): Fortean Times reader Alistair Moffatt writes in a letter in the May 2009 issue (p. 73) to point out that while F.J. Newhouse did exist, there was no Captain Yeskes of the London Fusiliers and Yeskes is an American or Canadian name, not a British one, suggesting a local origin for the above tale. He also notes that the Battle of Mons took place in August 1914, not November. He suggests that the tale may have originated from a propagandized and heavily distorted account of Captain Max von Stephanitz's breeding of the German Shepherd.

How to get on an atheist's good side

Greta Christina writes a list of "nine tips for believers who want to reach out" to atheists:

1: Familiarize yourself with the common myths and misconceptions about atheists -- and don't perpetuate them.
2: Familiarize yourself with what it's like to be an atheist, both in the U.S. and in the rest of the world.
3: Find common ground.
4: Speak out against anti-atheist bigotry and other forms of religious intolerance.
5: Be inclusive of atheists.
6: Don't divide and conquer, and don't try to take away our anger.
8: Do not -- repeat, DO NOT -- talk about "fundamentalist atheists."
9: Be aware of how religious belief gives you a place of mainstream and privilege.

Read her article for the details.

Rick Warren caught lying

Last Sunday, Rick Warren recorded a video for his congregation in which he denies ever comparing gay marriages to incest or pedophilia:

I have been accused of equating gay partnerships with incest and pedophila. Now, of course as members of Saddleback Church, you know I believe no such thing, I never have. You've never once heard me in thirty years talk that way about that.

But Rachel Maddow shows that he made exactly that comparison:

I'm opposed to having a brother and sister be together and call that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

Q. Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?

Oh, I do!

Rick Warren has been caught lying, in addition to being anti-gay and anti-evolution. He should ask to be taken off the agenda for the inauguration, and if he doesn't, Barack Obama should just withdraw his invitation to speak.