CASTRO LIVES IN SPLENDOR WHILE CUBANS LIVE IN POVERTY: Univision has the tapes:

The life of luxury of Fidel Castro has been revealed in home videotapes smuggled out of Cuba by a former girlfriend of one of his sons.

The videos, which show the communist leader preparing for a sumptuous banquet and lounging on leather sofas in his villa in Havana, give the first peek into the residence which most Cubans have never seen. . . .

The Castro regime has not commented on the tapes but Univision is convinced of their authenticity.

“It can’t be a fake,” said a spokesman for the Los Angeles-based channel. “There are too many recognisable people.”

Why is it that when businesspeople live in luxury while the masses live in poverty it’s a huge injustice, but when people who control governments do the same nobody comments?

DARPA IS WORKING ON A “SELF-AWARE COMPUTER” — well, sort of. I think you could meet these specs without self-awareness, but it would be pretty strong AI:

The “cognitive system” DARPA envisions would reason in a variety of ways, learn from experience and adapt to surprises. It would be aware of its behavior and explain itself. It would be able to anticipate different scenarios and predict and plan for novel futures.

Interesting.

UPDATE: Reader Peter Murray writes:

In cognitive science and philosophy, the term of art for an entity which appears to have consciousness, but in fact lacks it, is a zombie. The philosopher David Chalmers (link) is known for his work on consciousness from a cognitive science perspective. What DARPA is actually building, then, would seem to be a zombie AI: One which appears conscious, but in fact lacks consciousness.

The fact that we in the 21st century can seriously discuss “zombie AI” means that life in the future is far stranger than we thought it would be, circa 1950.

Yes. Though there’s an alarming shortage of flying cars.

PERIODICALLY, SOME OLD-MEDIA TYPE assaults the blogosphere for being full of unedited stuff that could damage people’s reputations unfairly. Paul Musgrave, writing in the Hoosier Review, thinks he’s found such an example.

The only problem is that Musgrave commits all the sins he purports to denounce. He doesn’t interview any of the people he criticizes, he tells only one side of the story, and — though I have nothing to do with the story at all — he drags me in at the end. (Maybe I’m one of the “rabid Zionists” he’s denouncing?)

That’s most likely a troll. So I’m not including a link. But it hardly adds to Musgrave’s credibility, or the Hoosier Review’s.

UPDATE: Okay, I’ve corresponded with Paul Musgrave. He says it wasn’t a troll, and that the email I got from someone else at the Hoosier Review steering me to the piece was unrelated. And he’s agreed that tying me to the story was unfair, so he’s taken the reference out. He also says that he did, in fact, try to contact the people he criticized but received no response. Here’s the link. For what it’s worth, several people pointed me toward the story he writes about, but I didn’t post on it because it just didn’t seem like as big a deal as people were trying to make out of it. That’s one reason why I was so offended to be dragged into it anyway.

LAST UPDATE: Here’s IsraPundit’s response, via email:

In terms of the article on Hoosier Review concerning a post I made:

1) I am not sure how you got pulled into this. I did not do it. . . .

2) Sabry’s phone numbers were displayed on his page so I did not think that it was such a big deal to put them up. I took them down the next day or so though at the suggestion of atlantic blog. I guess the item had already been picked up.

What do you think the proper thing to do was?

3) I do not believe I flamed Sabry. I am not 100% sure what the term means but I did not insult him. I did not refer to him as being anti-Semitic, only tasteless and much of my email was factual.

4) For all the author of the article complains about my methods or those of the blogosphere in contrast to the great ethics of ‘real’ journalism, you think he would have sent Israpundit or the Zionblogster an email. Both addresses are on the israpundit page.

5) The fact that Sabry removed the page after reviewing school policy would seem to indicate that I was correct in substance (perhaps not method).

6) I was also corresponding with a member of the board of trustees who after consulting a lawyer said that this was protected by free speech. I was going to send a reply but now I think the issue is dead. I do not think the university had

to allow him to have this up on their system, but you are the law professor.

Zion Blogster

Israpundit

So there you are. As for the old media versus blogs in terms of harming people’s reputations, as my counterexample I’ll just offer Garrison Keillor’s unfounded accusations about Norm Coleman as a counterexample. It’s true that some publications won’t pick them up. But plenty of others did.

I HEARD NEAL BOORTZ talking about how much he loves gadgets today. Somebody tell him about Gizmodo, Nick Denton’s gadget-related blog.

Here’s more about Gizmodo.

MY DAUGHTER’S DOLL HAS A BLOG. No, really.

CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL BILL LOCKYER has shot himself in the foot by commissioning a study on ballistic “fingerprinting” that says it won’t work — and then deciding not to release it, at least not yet:

Lockyer, a gun-control advocate who supports what could ultimately be a large and costly federal database of the unique markings guns leave on bullets and shell casings after being fired, has emboldened database opponents by commissioning a staff report that concluded such a program probably wouldn’t work.

The development comes at a key moment — as the federal government contemplates a national ballistic fingerprinting mandate. California and several other states, meanwhile, are considering their own programs. And the issue is being debated with renewed urgency in the wake of the sniper shootings in the Washington, D.C., area.

Lockyer’s report, which was supposed to be presented to the Legislature by June 2001, was quietly circulated to the National Rifle Association, forensic experts and other groups interested in the issue, but has yet to be released publicly or to lawmakers.

“It needed peer review,” Lockyer said in an interview last week.

No word on whether he had Michael Bellesiles on the job. . . . Here’s more:

According to those who have seen the report, researchers working on Tulleners’ report tested thousands of rounds of ammunition fired from nearly 800 handguns used by the California Highway Patrol. The researchers concluded that accurate matches were made only 62 percent of the time when the shells all came from the same manufacturer. The rate dropped to 38 percent when casings from different manufacturers were examined.

Jeez, even 99% accuracy would be too low, given the large number of guns that would be involved.

DAVID HOGBERG has a contest involving household products.

TAPPED HAS NOW JOINED IN PRAISING BROWN UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT RUTH SIMMONS for her bold free-speech stance. Having already praised her, I certainly won’t complain.

But it is a bit troubling that we’re excited and happy when university presidents endorse free speech, isn’t it?

VIOLENCE AGAINST AMERICANS IN ZIMBABWE:

BARELY a week after the Zimbabwean police shot dead an American citizen in Mutare, the United States embassy in Harare yesterday revealed that so-called war veterans had beaten up their staff in Melfort going about their normal diplomatic work.

The US government immediately expressed concern over the incident and urged the authorities in Harare to identify and arrest the perpetrators.

Somehow I doubt that this will happen.

HERE’S ANOTHER ARTICLE ON WEBLOGS from the Sydney Morning Herald. It’s actually an Agence France-Presse story.

I totally disagree with Rebecca Blood’s quote at the end, in which she says that people only read weblogs they agree with. And I’ve got the email to prove her wrong. . . .

FRENCH LUDDITE, ANTI-CAPITALIST, AND PALESTINIAN SYMPATHIZER (why do those tend to go together?) Jose Bove has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for destroying genetically modified rice plants in an eco-terrorism incident.

FIRST DONAHUE, NOW STEPHANOPOULOS? This Week isn’t doing very well under Stephanopoulos, according to this report from USA Today. Mitch Berg thinks the host slot should go to George Will.

UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT: The Stanford Daily says that Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan was wrong to deny the title of “Mentor” to terror-sympathizing (and, according to charges she currently faces, terror-assisting) attorney Lynne Stewart:

Stanford’s professors have a range of political views, and the University rightfully allows them to express their views. Stanford even has professors who support the possible war in Iraq, which can be argued endorses the “use of directed violence to achieve social change.” Would Sullivan deny those professors from teaching because of their political beliefs?

(“deny those professors from teaching”? This is an elite school’s newspaper?) Eugene Volokh has already addressed this issue here and here:

People have a constitutional right to support violence against American institutions and American people (just like they have a constitutional right to support the moral propriety of, say, violence against abortion clinics and abortion providers). But Stanford ought not be honoring them, or appointing them as mentors to law students, who will soon be officers of the court, pledged to nonviolent solutions to supposed domestic problems.

As Volokh points out, there’s a pretty significant distinction between “right to speak” and “right to mentor.” I wonder if the Stanford Daily will encourage the Law School to bring in some lawyers who support the murder of abortionists, or the reinstitution of slavery for black people, as evidence of its support for free speech? Or maybe they’ll even support allowing military recruiters on campus, as evidence of support for a “right to recruit?”

WHAT TO DO ABOUT A KILLER ASTEROID: Apparently, the “nuke it!” approach is losing favor.

BRINK LINDSEY writes that the barbarians are back:

We face, now and for the foreseeable future, the threat of a new barbarism. The new barbarians, like those of old, consist of groups in which every member is a potential warrior. Like their predecessors, the new barbarians rely on their ability to outmaneuver their civilized adversaries, to concentrate deadly force at vulnerable spots. But unlike the old steppe nomads, the new barbarians seek neither booty nor conquest. Our new barbarian adversaries pursue a strategy of pure and perfect nihilism: They seek destruction for destruction’s sake. Their strategy, in other words, is terrorism.

Well, we’re hardly weak in this battle. Civilized societies have always won against barbarians ever since the industrial revolution made making things a greater source of power than breaking them.

Civilized societies have found it harder, though, to beat the barbarians without killing all, or nearly all, of them. Were it really to become all-out war of the sort that Osama and his ilk want, the likely result would be genocide — unavoidable, and provoked, perhaps, but genocide nonetheless, akin to what Rome did to Carthage, or to what Americans did to American Indians. That’s what happens when two societies can’t live together, and the weaker one won’t stop fighting — especially when the weaker one targets the civilians and children of the stronger. This is why I think it’s important to pursue a vigorous military strategy now. Because if we don’t, the military strategy we’ll have to follow in five or ten years will be light-years beyond “vigorous.”

UPDATE: A lawyer reader emails:

“The new barbarians, like those of old, consist of groups in which every member is a potential warrior.”

It seems to me that a part of the defense against these “barbarians” is to make every (or least most) members of our society a potential warrior by expanding concealed carry rights and allowing people to carry guns as a matter of course. I say this as a person who cannot be considered a gun nut. I am not a hunter, I’ve never been an NRA member and I have only minimal experience with guns. For a long time I supported gun control, but no longer. Now I am seriously considering purchasing a gun and getting trained to use it properly.

Why would I do this? Consider it my part in the war on terror. In this war, unlike any other, we are all on the front lines. Terrorists have attacked civilians and have announced that attacks on civilians are part of their strategy. Since the terrorists can pick the time and place of attack, the police cannot help us. They can’t be everywhere and can’t respond quickly enough. The only solution is to prepare our citizenry to fight back. We are all soldiers now.

Times have certainly changed when you hear talk like this from bigshot lawyers at big, stuffy law firms. But this guy must be a mind-reader, because my TechCentralStation column for tomorrow has more along these lines.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ken Summers writes:

I have to take issue with use of the term “genocide”. Genocide implies murder because it is the destruction of a group based on their group identity. Destruction of a group because they refuse to quit fighting should be termed “group suicide”, or simply as self-defense.

I had a discussion with ArmedLiberal over the use of the term for the Hiroshima and Nagaski bombings. He applied it to the bombings, recognizing that they were necessary. My biew, though, is that calling such bombings (or destruction of a group that refuses to quit fighting) is akin to using the term “justifiable murder”.

Well, okay.

ANOTHER IVY LEAGUE PRESIDENT DEFENDS FREE SPEECH! This time it’s President Ruth Simmons, of Brown University:

“By entering this university,” she told students, “each of you has also become a guardian of free expression.” Although they might read or hear things profoundly uncomfortable to them, students must realize that this freedom is “the nectar of our republic and the basis of university life.” Its protection, she said, “is one of the most difficult things that we do. But it’s this same freedom that protects us when we are powerless.”

True, she said, “brigands” may be adept at using these freedoms “for their nefarious purposes,” but this must be fought through debate and the presentation of information. Simmons recounted an incident from her own student years, when a South African woman in one of her classes stood to defend apartheid. “I regret not engaging this woman for her assertions,” she said, “rather than dismissing her as racist.”

Referring to the Van Wickle Gates, Simmons issued a warning: “If you’ve come to this place for comfort, I urge you to rise, walk through yonder gate, and don’t look back.” For the rest, she concluded, “Welcome to this quarrelsome enterprise that we call a university. Enjoy.”

(Emphasis added.) I’m very happy to see statements like this, and hope that the presidents of other universities will follow suit. I do believe that we’re seeing a genuine trend here, and it’s big news.

THE WALKER COMMISSION is urging the U.S. to do more in space:

But the report still warns that unless aerospace companies can boost their commercial profits, their role as defence contractors could be imperilled. The response, the commission said, should be to develop new military programmes, overhaul commercial barriers such as antiquated export control rules, and create a White House policy council to ensure these receive high priority.

The commission notes that Europe has already developed plans to establish its leadership in civil aviation and commercial satellite technologies by 2020 through close co-operation between government and industry.

The most controversial recommendations are likely to be those involving space travel, which has largely disappeared from the US agenda since the end of the moon launches in the 1970s and the unmanned Voyager missions that ended in the 1980s.

Mr Walker said the “US has to boldly pioneer new frontiers” in space, and that the first step is government-backed research into new propulsion technologies that could allow spacecraft to travel through the solar system in weeks or months rather than years.

Well, I’ve got one suggestion . . . .

UPDATE: Here’s a much more in-depth treatment from Leonard David at Space.Com.

GARRISON KEILLOR’S EMBITTERED RANTS have apparently made some people at Minnesota Public Radio uncomfortable.

OXBLOG has an anti-divestment letter that will be presented to the Yale administration. They’d like you to sign, if you went to Yale. There’s also a link to an online anti-divestment petition that you can sign even if you didn’t go to Yale.

DANIEL FORBES says that the Drug Czar is lying. Say it ain’t so!

I wonder about the propriety of Drug Czar John Walters interfering in state elections anyway:

One reason for the ballot-box failure may have been the full-throttle, anti-marijuana campaign tour by White House Drug Czar John P. Walters. Walters, whose official title is director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, inveighed against the demon weed in campaign swings through Ohio, Arizona, and Nevada (twice). At the heart of Walters’ sermon: “It is not your father’s marijuana.” Today’s users, he claims, confront pot that’s up to 30 times stronger than what aging baby boomers smoked.

Forbes says that this isn’t true, and it looks like an outright lie. What’s more, what’s an appointed bureaucrat doing going around trying to influence state elections?

The problem is, the Drug Czar’s job is entirely political, and entirely bogus — which probably makes telling lies in political campaigns seem like a natural extension of the Czar’s ordinary duties. And heck, it probably is. But, as with the public health lies discussed below, it’s yet another reason for the public to distrust the government, one that will come back to bite us when trust is really needed. These sorts of lies aren’t just cute politics-as-usual. They’re destructive as hell.

Extra blogger bonus — the piece cites, and links to, Mark Kleiman.

POLITICAL SCIENCE: MedPundit Sydney Smith writes in TechCentralStation that — from The Lancet to the American Public Health Association — it’s getting more common for physicians and scientists to distort results in service of a political agenda. She’s absolutely right. It seems to me that the CDC’s junk science in favor of gun control — which has spread that disease throughout the Public Health community — was the opening wedge for a lot of slanted research. The result is that people don’t trust them as much as they used to, which is causing a lot of trouble where important issues like vaccination are concerned.

Heck, these guys can’t even talk straight on the Atkins diet.

JAMES SWAN WRITES that a number of states are amending their constitutions to protect the right to hunt.

Tennessee had a proposal for such a right a few years back, and they asked me to testify on it. But the proposed language was so weak (it basically said that hunting was good, but could be regulated as the legislature saw fit) that I didn’t really have anything to say, and declined. Swan’s article quotes some language from a standard amendment that’s somewhat stronger, but not much.

I understand the motivation behind these things, and I’m not actually opposed to the idea. But if you want to create a right, it needs to be a right. And recognize that if you do, that right will have costs, like perhaps making wildlife-management (which most hunters support) more difficult. If you leave enough leeway for management, you leave enough leeway for abuse of management powers, and for judicial interpretation of the “right” into nothingness. That’s very hard to avoid.

SPINSANITY IS FACT-CHECKING MICHAEL MOORE:

Much more mendaciously, Moore has apparently altered footage of an ad run by the Bush/Quayle campaign in 1988 to implicate Bush in the Willie Horton scandal. Making a point about the use of racial symbols to scare the American public, he shows the Bush/Quayle ad called “Revolving Doors,” which attacked Michael Dukakis for a Massachusetts prison furlough program by showing prisoners entering and exiting a prison (the original ad can be seen here [Real Player video]). Superimposed over the footage of the prisoners is the text “Willie Horton released. Then kills again.” This caption is displayed as if it is part of the original ad. However, existing footage, media reports and the recollections of several high-level people involved in the campaign indicate that the “Revolving Doors” ad did not explicitly mention Horton, unlike the notorious ad run by the National Security Political Action Committee (which had close ties to Bush media advisor Roger Ailes). In addition, the caption is incorrect — Horton did not kill anyone while on prison furlough (he raped a woman).

Although he uses statistics much less frequently in “Bowling for Columbine” than in Stupid White Men, Moore still manages to present at least one figure inaccurately. During a stylized overview of US foreign policy, he claims that the U.S. gave $245 million in aid to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001. The Taliban aid tale is a favorite of Moore’s that he has repeated in numerous media appearances over the past year. Contrary to his claim, the aid did not go to the Taliban — it actually consisted of food and food security programs administered by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations to relieve an impending famine.

To me, though, this was the most damning part: “Beyond the satire and the fabrications, just what is Moore’s argument? It’s often hard to tell.”

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL WANTS TO ADOPT A SPEECH CODE:

Last night, the proposed code set off such a furious debate at an extraordinary campus ”town meeting” that some committee members and the law school dean said afterward that they were deeply uneasy with the idea.

They should be. I think that Harvard should consider adopting this statement from the University of Chicago:

“The ideas of different members of the University community will frequently conflict and we do not attempt to shield people from ideas that they may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even offensive. Nor, as a general rule, does the University intervene to enforce social standards of civility.” . . .

In other words, the University permits partisan, even hostile statements against groups or states, but not violence or physical intimidation of individuals. And while we do not enforce speech or civility codes, we have long prided ourselves on the kind of respectful environment that encourages all to offer their views. We see this kind of civility not as a requirement, but as a virtue, and therefore worth pursuing. In short, while we sometimes treat ideas here rather roughly, we strive to treat others with the civility we would like to receive ourselves.

It’s okay for students to be made uncomfortable in class, and they should learn how to deal with opinions that they find unpleasant or offensive without asking for Big Brother to step in. If they can’t deal with that, then they don’t belong in law school.

UPDATE: Boston blogger Jay Fitzgerald writes: “Harvard is starting to get hurt by all these embarrassments.” I think that’s right. What’s interesting is that these kinds of PC initiatives are usually started by administrators who want to avoid divisiveness and bad publicity — yet they tend to produce far more of both than a principled free-speech stance.

I AM SOMETHING OF AN ATKINS DIET SKEPTIC. But after listening to NPR in the car a few minutes ago, I can understand why Atkins boosters claim that the medical establishment and media are conspiring against them. The NPR story opened with a reference to this Duke study:

Westman studied 120 overweight volunteers, who were randomly assigned to the Atkins diet or the heart association’s Step 1 diet, a widely used low-fat approach. On the Atkins diet, people limited their carbs to less than 20 grams a day, and 60 percent of their calories came from fat.

“It was high fat, off the scale,” he said.

After six months, the people on the Atkins diet had lost 31 pounds, compared with 20 pounds on the AHA diet, and more people stuck with the Atkins regimen.

Total cholesterol fell slightly in both groups. However, those on the Atkins diet had an 11 percent increase in HDL, the good cholesterol, and a 49 percent drop in triglycerides. On the AHA diet, HDL was unchanged, and triglycerides dropped 22 percent. High triglycerides may raise the risk of heart disease.

Those are pretty impressive results, though I freely admit that one small study like this doesn’t really prove anything. But NPR’s story consisted of a couple of sentences on this study followed by a long interview with the President of the American Heart Association, who spent the whole time talking about the potential dangers of the Atkins diet and the superiority of the AHA diet without ever addresssing the study. How lame is that? You’d think that NPR would have at least had one of the people who conducted the study on, instead of a guy spinning against it.

I’m still just as skeptical of Atkins. But — though I think this is just sloppiness, not bias — this story reminds me of why I’m also skeptical of NPR.

UPDATE: While working out I saw Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN. In a similar amount of time he did a much better job. He noted that (1) the study was partly funded by the Atkins Foundation; and (2) many physicians are still skeptical, but also noted that other studies have shown similar results and talked about the findings of the Duke study. His discussion was much, much better than the NPR treatment. Advantage: CNN!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a more detailed story.