Guess which expenditure has the US media and the right wing screaming in protest?

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My man (?) IOZ offers his take on the nature vs. nurture debate (and I happen to agree!):

But sexuality isn’t the same as race (well, even race isn’t the same as race), and though it, like all human behaviors, has genetic and hormonal antecedents, it is not mere biological determinism that causes me to suck cock. Predilection is not identity. Human sexuality does exist on a spectrum; its characteristics and emphases change even within the individual over the course of a lifetime. Some people have very stable sexual interests; others “oscillate wildly,” as goes the title of The Smiths’ song. The fight against discrimination based on sexual identity is categorically confused: sexuality doesn’t constitute an identity. It constitutes a portion of the totality of each autonomous individual identity, and the reason not to discriminate against those whose sexual tastes and practices diverge from your own is not that minority sexualities constitute a protected class, that like the color of one’s skin, the angle of one’s wrist is genetic and, goddamnit, queers are people too. It’s simply that fucking is none of your fucking business.

From the always-inspiring publication Defense Systems:

Homeland Security Strategies, of New Rochelle, N.Y., will offer facial-recognition technology for its Icarus Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Platform. Originally designed to detect roadside bombs and landmines, Icarus can now perform tasks such as aerial observation and countermeasures against improvised explosive devices, buried-object detection, facial recognition, and laser targeting of hostile personnel.

Totally awesome! And definitely a great marketing strategy to name your flying machine after the mythical figure whose hubris led him to flaunt his limits and self-destruct! Genius!!

More detail, from the manufacturer’s sales page:

The Icarus Microdrone is able to hover over an area under surveillance with near silent lift propulsion. This enables the remotely operated aerial vehicle to function in urban environments without alerting those under surveillance to its presence.

Keep an eye on the sky!

Today Glenn Greenwald gives us the chilling story of an “adult film” producer from California who has been tried and convicted of violating obscenity laws, because the films he produced (using consensual adult actors) included scenes of violence, humiliation, and degradation:

So, to recap, in the Land of the Free: if you’re an adult who produces a film using other consenting adults, for the entertainment of still other consenting adults, which merely depicts fictional acts of humiliation and degradation, the DOJ will prosecute you and send you to prison for years. The claim that no real pain was inflicted will be rejected; mere humiliation is enough to make you a criminal. But if government officials actually subject helpless detainees in their custody to extreme mental abuse, degradation, humiliation and even mock executions long considered “torture” in the entire civilized world, the DOJ will argue that they have acted with perfect legality and, just to be sure, Congress will hand them retroactive immunity for their conduct. That’s how we prioritize criminality and arrange our value system.

Do we really have to suffer through this administration for another fifteen weeks? I honestly wonder if anything resembling our nation will emerge on the other side of the Bush years.

John McCain has a very timely article in this month’s issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Because, really, what could possibly go wrong in a market with vigorous nationwide competition, like banking?

(h/t to Professor Krugman)

…when Dick Cheney is smiling:

I won’t even bother going into the details of the disastrous FISA legislation that was passed this week. Cheney’s smirk tells you everything you need to know.

Georgetown Law professor Marty Lederman sums it up thusly:

The new statute permits the NSA to intercept phone calls and e-mails between the U.S. and a foreign location, without making any showing to a court and without judicial oversight, whether or not the communication has anything to do with al Qaeda — indeed, even if there is no evidence that the communication has anything to do with terrorism, or any threat to national security.

If you want all the details, Glenn Greenwald has them, as usual.

The U. S. State Department sharply criticized the state of “freedom” in Russia in its 2001 annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices:

Authorities continued to infringe on citizens’ privacy rights. Government technical regulations that require Internet service providers and telecommunications companies to invest in equipment that enables the FSB [successor to the KGB –ed.] to monitor Internet traffic, telephone calls, and pagers without judicial approval caused serious concern. However, in response to a challenge by a St. Petersburg journalist, the Supreme Court ruled in September that the FSB is required to obtain and show court approval to telecommunications companies before it can proceed to initiate surveillance. Past practices raised questions among many observers about whether the FSB would abide by this ruling.

Well, at least somebody’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government can’t eavesdrop on telecommunications without a warrant!

Here in the Land of the Free, our Congress is busily trying to write retroactive laws that will protect the telecom companies that spied on U. S. citizens without judicial approval, at the behest of Dear Leader, of course.

(h/t: Glenn Greenwald, a.k.a. Glenzilla. See particularly this post about retroactive immunity.)

We’ve all heard of “evidence based medicine”. Well, the field of urban design is working to develop approaches to their work that use the same concepts: design spaces using an evidence based understanding of the environment and needs (as opposed to unfounded assumptions or purely political pressures).

Space Syntax is one of the world leaders in urban planning. Space Syntax takes an evidence-based approach to the planning and design of buildings and cities, using advanced computer modeling technologies.

Our good friend, world-class genius, and US Director of Space Syntax, Noah Raford, recently spoke to RUDI (the Resource for Urban Design Information) on the “real time data collection methods, parametric modelling at the urban scale, and future possibilities of ‘remote control urbanism’”. Noah predicts both the cool and creepy possibilities that are developing as a result of emerging technologies.

Find out what “spime” is HERE (20 Min Video Lecture)

The CIA just released documents re: their use of torture in interrogations. In this revealing document we learn all the details the CIA feels comfortable releasing. Everything is blacked out except: “These enhanced techniques include:” and then farther down the page, “waterboard.”

via boing boing