Fans of Drew Westen's recent fMRI work will want to see this.

This year, at the UCLA Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, Marco Iacoboni and his group used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain responses in a group of subjects while they were watching the Super Bowl ads.

The main idea behind this project is that there is often a disconnect between what people say about what they like — and the real, underlying deeper motives that make us want and like some things and some people, but not others. With fMRI, it is possible to look at unfiltered brain responses, to measure how the ads shown today elicit emotions, induce empathy, and inspire liking and wanting.

In retrospect, there's not a lot to look at here. You basically just have to take the guy's word for it.

WHO REALLY WON THE SUPER BOWL? By Marco Iacoboni

I would like to request an additional feature for the MemeStreams site. It seems like it should be relatively straightforward to implement.

I'll explain with a use case. I want to revisit a particular date/time period in my stream. I recall some keywords from one notable entry in the neighborhood I'm seeking. I use these keywords to perform a search, either via Google or via the built-in search engine. I find the entry, but the only supplemental link I get is "Thread." What I want in addition is a pointer into my stream where that entry exists. As it is now, this information is a challenge to obtain. By default, Google hides the "pageNN" URL from the results, and even when you visit it, it's rarely accurate; it's "off" by the number of new posts since the Google Spider visited that particular page. In one example case, I found it to be more than two months off the mark.

This feature would appear along the footer on a search result entry. It would put the entry "in context" with the other posts from the same time period.

This is a roundup about the new book by James Risen, "State of War : The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration", published on January 3 and currently in the overall top 50 on Amazon and number 16 on the NYT nonfiction list.

In the latest issue of The New York Review of Books, Thomas Powers reviews the book and offers additional commentary in his article, The Biggest Secret. He writes:

Far from being a "vital tool," as described by President Bush, the program was a distracting time waster that sent harried FBI agents down an endless series of blind alleys chasing will-o'-the-wisp terrorists who turned out to be schoolteachers. And far from saving "thousands of lives," as claimed by Vice President Dick Cheney in December 2005, the NSA program never led investigators to a genuine terrorist not already under suspicion, nor did it help them to expose any dangerous plots. So why did the administration continue this lumbering effort for three years? Outsiders sometimes find it tempting to dismiss such wheel-spinning as bureaucratic silliness, but I believe that the Judiciary Committee will find, if it is willing to persist, that within the large pointless program there exists a small, sharply focused program that delivers something the White House really wants. This it will never confess willingly.

...

The systematic exaggeration of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq and the flouting of FISA both required, and got, a degree of resolution in the White House that has few precedents in American history. The President has gotten away with it so far because he leaves no middle ground—cut him some slack, or prepare to fight to the death.

The book is also reviewed, here by Walter Isaacson, in today's New York Times.

This explosive little book opens with a scene that is at once amazing and yet not surprising. It is riveting, anonymously sourced and feels slightly overdramatized, but it has the odious smell of truth.

Risen appears to feel that if something is secret and interesting, it should be exposed.

Risen's archvillain is George Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, whom Risen portrays, through a brutal procession of leaked anecdotes, as so eager to be liked by Bush that he prostitutes his agency.

So what are we to believe in a book that relies heavily on leaks from disgruntled sources?

As long as we remember that the truth these days comes not as one pronouncement but as part of a process, we can properly value "State of War" for being not only colorful and fascinating, but also one of the ways that facts and historical narratives emerge in an information-age democracy. So let the process begin!

NYT offers an excerpt from ... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

People like to geek out over the minutiae of Web 2.0, but bigger shifts are underway below the application layer.

In a broader sense, the move to create what is essentially a preferred class of e-mail is a major change in the economics of the Internet.

This Tuesday the Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing to consider legislation for what has been called Net neutrality -- effectively banning Internet access companies from giving preferred status to certain providers of content.

The hearing will be available as a live webcast, beginning at 10:00 AM Eastern.

"From AOL's perspective, this is an opportunity to earn a significant amount of money from the sale of stamps," he said. "But it's bad for the industry and bad for consumers. A lot of e-mailers won't be able to afford it."

Too few people realize that in order to experience the fruits of creative destruction, you have to put up with the destruction. And too many businesses are driven by egos that, out of fear for the future, remain bound to their traditions despite their waning effectiveness.

Who is advising the Committee (led by none other than Ted "bridge to nowhere" Stevens, of Alaska) on these issues? Let's review the list of witnesses:

Vint Cerf, Google
Lawrence Lessig, Stanford
Kyle Dixon, of The Progress & Freedom Foundation
Gregory Sidak, Georgetown University
Gary Bachula, Internet2
The CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association
The CEO of the United States Telecom Association
The CEO of Vonage

None have yet posted their testimony.

In case you missed the bridge story back in October:

Republicans in Congress say they are serious about cutting spending, but they learned yesterday to keep their hands off the "Bridge to Nowhere."

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a staunch opponent of pork barrel spending, tried to block $453 million for two Alaska bridges that had been tucked into the recent highway bill. Coburn wanted to redirect the money to the Interstate 10 bridge across Lake Pontchartrain, a major thoroughfare that was severely damaged during Hurricane Katrina.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the veteran Alaska Republican, was dramatic in his response. "I don't kid people," Stevens roared. "If the Senate decides to discriminate against our state ... I will resign from this body."

This reminds me of the Post's explanation surrounding the Cheney-Leahy flap:

We don't play games at The Washington Post and use dashes.

13 February 2006 -- UPDATE: Alaska Makes Plans to Counter Impression That It's Greedy

Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski says it is time for an image makeover. He wants the state to hire a public relations firm to change the perception of Alaska and its people as greedy for federal money and too willing to plunder the environment for profit.

Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail

Many Americans do not seem to believe they are living beyond their means, as long as the value of their houses are rising. But spending freely while the house appreciates is not saving for the future. It is betting that boom-time gains will last indefinitely.

They will not.

Will Your Money Last?

Speaking to workers at the 3M corporate headquarters in Maplewood, Minn., the president used DoD's investment in the research and development that ultimately led to the Internet as a model for the innovation he hopes to spark nationwide.

"I don't know if people realize this, but the Internet began as a Defense Department project to improve military communications," Bush told the group. "In other words, we were trying to figure out how to better communicate, here was research money spent, and as a result of this sound investment, the Internet came to be."

I love how the "I don't know" clause really folksies up the speech. And did you notice how he used "we", like he was right there on the scene? When Bush was missing his guard duty, he must have been at the Network Working Group. (The time frames do line up relatively closely ...)

Not only did the government invent the iPod, it also invented the Internet. (By the way, has anyone told the Queen the truth about the iPod?)

Bush's version of the story is so neat and tidy. Who needs the 268 pages that Janet Abbate wrote?

Bush's speech calls to mind this excerpt from Drucker:

Futurists always measure their batting average by counting how many things they have predicted that have come true. They never count how many important things come true that they did not predict. Everything a forecaster predicts may come to pass. Yet, he may not have seen the most meaningful of the emergent realities or, worse still, may not have paid attention to them. There is no way to avoid this irrelevancy in forecasting, for the important and distinctive are always the result of changes in values, perception and goals, that is, in things that one can divine but not forecast.

If only there were more women in engineering, our diamond turning machines would weigh 150 tons, they would use measurements 100 times smaller than the human hair, and they would be connected to the Internet. Just think how much sharper our chain saws could be!

Bush Cites DoD Internet Development in Promoting US Innovation

What is the Amazon Honor System?

The Amazon Honor System is a safe and easy way for you to support your favorite Web sites and to buy digital content on the Web. Amazon.com has successfully completed hundreds of millions of online transactions and has more than 29 million customers. Now, the Amazon Honor System lets you use Amazon.com payment technology to make payments to Web sites as small as $1.00.

Web sites use the Amazon Honor System to collect voluntary payments from their users and to accept payment for digital content. In many cases, the Honor System is the only way a Web site can economically collect small payments. In others, the Honor System allows the Web site to raise money for continued operations without resorting to intrusive banner advertisements.

How does the Amazon Honor System paybox know my name?

When you look at a Web page, the words and pictures you see actually may come from several sources. Your browser software assembles the pieces and displays them as a single page. On the Web site you were visiting, most of the content you saw was transmitted from server computers used by the site's operator. The image made up of the paybox and your name displayed within the paybox was different--we sent it to you directly from Amazon.com. This allowed us to recognize you by name just like we do when you visit the Amazon.com Web site. Because Amazon.com's servers transmitted the image containing a paybox and your name within the paybox directly to your browser software, the site owner never saw the paybox or your name and never received any information about you.

Even if it is secure, this strikes me as rather disconcerting. I'm sure there are cross-site scripting attacks that would allow the site operator to obtain your name from the URL of the image.

Amazon Honor System

Neoteric wrote:

Emory University psychologist Drew Westen ...

I want the paper.

A recent article by NYT columnist John Tierney, Smells Like Team Spirit, refers to Westen's latest work in the context of sports fans. The researcher, Drew Westen, is at Emory University in Atlanta.

At the site for the Laboratory of Personality and Psychopathology, you can find the paper, which is entitled, "The neural basis of motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional constraints on political judgment during the U.S. Presidential election of 2004." This manuscript is currently in press. The site states:

If you would like to view one of the manuscripts currently in press, please email us for a password to download it, at psychlab@emory.edu.

It's not clear from other web discussions whether the authors are providing access to this paper just yet; it is still under revision.

Emory issued a press release about the work.

RE: Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases

Districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush.

I find this conclusion overreaching, because it ignores the opposing candidate. For some of these highly biased voters, Bush may simply be the lesser of two evils. The voters may have been turned off by a common liberal or democratic policy that Al Gore or John Kerry or John Edwards said. It could be about anything -- affirmative action, gun control, school prayer, or gay rights, for example.

My criticism here falls under "correlation does not imply causation."

On this topic, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Wikipedia article on the "correlation implies causation" fallacy uses one of my favorite Simpsons scenes as an example:

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The "Bear Patrol" is working like a charm!
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: [uncomprehendingly] Thanks, honey.
Lisa: By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Hmm. How does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work; it's just a stupid rock!
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: (pause) Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

These days, everyone has a rock for sale. What's yours?

RE: Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases

This documentary won the Grand Jury prize for best documentary at Sundance. If you live in LA, NY, or Boston, go see it now; otherwise, you'll have to wait for it to be released on DVD.

Why We Fight, the new film by Eugene Jarecki, is an unflinching look at the anatomy of the American war machine, weaving unforgettable personal stories with commentary by a who's who of military and beltway insiders. Featuring John McCain, William Kristol, Chalmers Johnson, Gore Vidal, Richard Perle and others, Why We Fight launches a bipartisan inquiry into the workings of the military industrial complex and the rise fo the American Empire.

From a review in The Tech:

Speaking with the BBC about a source in the documentary, director Eugene Jarecki says, "Is she right? I don’t really look for that. I look for people who say things that are arresting, who you may not necessarily agree with, but who you also can't just dismiss."

Manohla Dargis called it "agitprop entertainment." She also says "Everyone sounds smart, if not always convincing." But the best part of her review is this:

The idea is that because the public buys the lies, it also buys the wars. Too bad this doesn't explain why people buy lies, including the obvious ones.

Maybe Ebert thinks so, too?

Perhaps we will find the answers in this Post article.

UPDATE: FYI, David Denby at the New Yorker didn't care for the film.

Why We Fight - A Film By Eugene Jarecki