carapace – Not your father's america

After more than three years and the death of nearly 2,400 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis, Congress has yet to consider, debate, or vote on alternatives to the president’s stay-the-course policy – a policy that 72% of U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq and a majority of Americans now believe should end within a year.

As Christians called to be peacemakers, we have a unique opportunity to demand that Congress stop passing the buck. So far, 95 members of the House of Representatives have signed a petition calling for immediate debate and consideration of all alternatives to the policy of open-ended occupation with Iraq, including proposals calling for immediate or phased withdrawal.

All we need is 123 more members to sign the petition for debate to begin. And that’s where you come in…

Call your representative today!

202-224-3121

Ask your representative to sign the petition, or thank them if they already have (see below for the list).

Message for non-signers of H.R. 543:

As a person of faith called to be a peacemaker, I ask you to sign onto H.R. 543, a “discharge petition” that calls for open and honest debate on Iraq. We can’t just pass the buck to the
president – it’s time to show strong leadership and lead us to peace in the region.

Message for signers of H.R. 543:

As a person of faith called to be a peacemaker, I want to say thank you for signing H.R. 543, the “discharge petition” that would force debate on solutions to the conflict in Iraq. I hope and pray that this is one important step in building peace inIraq and throughout the region.

We believe this is an important and historic opportunity formembers of Congress to offer alternatives to war without end inIraq. For more information about the “Open Iraq Debate”
campaign, click here:

http://go.sojo.net/ct/XdAkse91HR5U/

Peace,

Adam, Duane, Matt, Christa, Yonce, Nadia, and Laurna The Sojourners Policy and Organizing Team

Has Not Signed H. Res 543

Alabama
Jo Bonner (R-01)
Terry Everett (R-02)
Mike Rogers (R-03)
Robert Aderholt (R-04)
Robert Cramer (D-05)
Spencer Bachus (R-06)
Artur Davis (D-07)

Alaska
Don Young (R-At Large)

Arizona
Rick Renzi (R-01)
Trent Franks (R-02)
John Shadegg (R-03)
Ed Pastor (D-04)
J.D. Hayworth (R-05)
Jeff Flake (R-06)
Jim Kolbe (R-08)

Arkansas
Marion Berry (D-01)
Vic Snyder (D-02)
John Boozman (R-03)
Mike Ross (D-04)

California
Wally Herger (R-02)
Dan Lungren (R-03)
John Doolittle (R-04)
Doris Matsui (D-05)
Ellen Tauscher (D-10)
Richard Pombo (R-11)
Dennis Cardozo (D-18)
George Radanovich (R-19)
Jim Costa (D-20)
Devin Nunes (R-21)
Bill Thomas (R-22)
Elton Gallegly (R-24)
Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-25)
David Dreier (R-26)
Brad Sherman (D-27)
Howard Berman (D-28)
Adam Schiff (D-29)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-34)
Jane Harman (D-36)
Ed Royce (R-40)
Jerry Lewis (R-41)
Gary Miller (R-42)
Joe Baca (D-43)
Ken Calvert (R-44)
Mary Bono (R-45)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-46)
Loretta Sanchez (D-47)
John Campbell (R-48)
Darrell Issa (R-49)
Duncan Hunter (R-52)
Susan Davis (D-53)

Colorado
Diana DeGette (D-01)
John Salazar (D-03)
Marilyn Musgrave (R-04)
Joel Hefley (R-05)
Tom Tancredo (R-06)
Bob Beauprez (R-07)

Connecticut
Rob Simmons (R-02)
Rosa DeLauro (D-03)
Chris Shays (R-04)
Nancy Johnson (R-05)

Delaware
Mike Castle (R-At Large)

District of Columbia
Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC)

Florida
Jeff Miller (R-01)
Allen Boyd (D-02)
Corrine Brown (D-03)
Ander Crenshaw (R-04)
Ginny Brown-Waite (R-05)
Cliff Stearns (R-06)
John Mica (R-07)
Ric Keller (R-08)
Mike Bilirakis (R-09)
C.W. Young (R-10)
Jim Davis (D-11)
Adam Putnam (R-12)
Katherine Harris (R-13)
Connie Mack IV (R-14)
Dave Weldon (R-15)
Mark Foley (R-16)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-18)
Robert Wexler (D-19)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-20)
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-21)
Clay Shaw (R-22)
Tom Feeney (R-24)
Mario Diaz-Balart (R-25)

Georgia
Jack Kingston (R-01)
Sanford Bishop (D-02)
Lynn Westmoreland (R-03)
Tom Price (R-06)
John Linder (R-07)
Jim Marshall (D-08)
Nathan Deal (R-09)
Charlie Norwood (R-10)
Phil Gingrey (R-11)
John Barrow (D-12)
David Scott (D-13)

Hawaii
Ed Case (D-02)

Idaho
C.L. “Butter” Otter (R-01)
Mike Simpson (R-02)

Illinois
Bobby Rush (D-01)
Dan Lipinski (D-03)
Luis Gutierrez (D-04)
Rahm Emanuel (D-05)
Henry Hyde (R-06)
Melissa Bean (D-08)
Mark Kirk (R-10)
Jerry Weller (R-11)
Jerry Costello (D-12)
Judy Biggert (R-13)
Dennis Hastert (R-14)
Tim Johnson (R-15)
Don Manzullo (R-16)
Lane Evans (D-17)
Ray LaHood (R-18)
John Shimkus (R-19)

Indiana
Peter Visclosky (D-01)
Chris Chocola (R-02)
Mark Souder (R-03)
Steve Buyer (R-04)
Dan Burton (R-05)
Mike Pence (R-06)
John Hostettler (R-08)
Mike Sodrel (R-09)

Iowa
Jim Nussle (R-01)
Leonard Boswell (D-03)
Tom Latham (R-04)
Steve King (R-05)

Kansas
Jerry Moran (R-01)
Jim Ryun (R-02)
Dennis Moore (D-03)
Todd Tiahrt (R-04)

Kentucky
Ed Whitfield (R-01)
Ron Lewis (R-02)
Anne Northup (R-03)
Geoff Davis (R-04)
Hal Rogers (R-05)
A.B. “Ben” Chandler III (D-06)

Louisiana
Bobby Jindal (R-01)
Bill Jefferson (D-02)
Charlie Melancon (D-03)
Jim McCrery (R-04)
Rodney Alexander (R-05)
Richard Baker (R-06)
Charles Boustany Jr. (R-07)

Maryland
C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-02)
Steny Hoyer (D-05)
Roscoe Bartlett (R-06)
Chris Van Hollen Jr. (D-08)

Massachusetts
John Tierney (D-06)
Mike Capuano (D-08)
Stephen Lynch (D-09)

Michigan
Bart Stupak (D-01)
Pete Hoekstra (R-02)
Vern Ehlers (R-03)
Dave Camp (R-04)
Dale Kildee (D-05)
Fred Upton (R-06)
Joe Schwartz (R-07)
Mike Rogers (R-08)
Joe Knollenberg (R-09)
Candice Miller (R-10)
Thad McCotter (R-11)
Sander Levin (D-12)

Minnesota
Gil Gutknecht (R-01)
John Kline (R-02)
Jim Ramstad (R-03)
Betty McCollum (DFL-04)
Martin Olav Sabo (DFL-05)
Mark Kennedy (R-06)
Collin Peterson (DFL-07)
Jim Oberstar (DFL-08)

Mississippi
Roger Wicker (R-01)
Bennie Thompson (D-02)
Chip Pickering (R-03)
Gene Taylor (D-04)

Missouri
Todd Akin (R-02)
Russ Carnahan (D-03)
Sam Graves (R-06)
Roy Blunt (R-07)
Jo Ann Emerson (R-08)
Kenny Hulshof (R-09)

Montana
Denny Rehberg (R-At Large)

Nebraska
Jeff Fortenberry (R-01)
Lee Terry (R-02)
Tom Osborne (R-03)

Nevada
Shelley Berkley (D-01)
Jim Gibbons (R-02)
Jon Porter (R-03)

New Hampshire
Jeb Bradley (R-01)
Charlie Bass (R-02)

New Jersey
Rob Andrews (D-01)
Frank LoBiondo (R-02)
Jim Saxton (R-03)
Chris Smith (R-04)
E. Scott Garrett (R-05)
Mike Ferguson (R-07)
Bill Pascrell (D-08)
Steve Rothman (D-09)
Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-11)
Rush Holt (D-12)

New Mexico
Heather Wilson (R-01)
Steve Pearce (R-02)

New York
Tim Bishop (D-01)
Steve Israel (D-02)
Pete King (R-03)
Gary Ackerman (D-05)
Anthony Weiner (D-09)
Vito Fossella (R-13)
Eliot Engel (D-17)
Sue Kelly (R-19)
John Sweeney (R-20)
John McHugh (R-23)
Sherwood Boehlert (R-24)
Jim Walsh (R-25)
Tom Reynolds (R-26)
Brian Higgins (D-27)
Louise Slaughter (D-28)
John Kuhl (R-29)

North Carolina
Bob Etheridge (D-02)
Virginia Foxx (R-05)
Howard Coble (R-06)
Mike McIntyre (D-07)
Robin Hayes (R-08)
Sue Myrick (R-09)
Patrick McHenry (R-10)
Charles Taylor (R-11)
Mel Watt (D-12)

North Dakota
Earl Pomeroy (D-At Large)

Ohio
Steve Chabot (R-01)
Jean Schmidt (R-02)

Mike Turner (R-03)
Mike Oxley (R-04)
Paul Gillmor (R-05)
Dave Hobson (R-07)
John Boehner (R-08)
Pat Tiberi (R-12)
Steve LaTourette (R-14)
Deborah Pryce (R-15)
Ralph Regula (R-16)
Bob Ney (R-18)

Oklahoma
John Sullivan (R-01)
Dan Boren (D-02)
Frank Lucas (R-03)
Tom Cole (R-04)
Ernest Istook (R-05)

Oregon
David Wu (D-01)
Greg Walden (R-02)
Darlene Hooley (D-05)

Pennsylvania
Chaka Fattah (D-02)
Phil English (R-03)
Melissa Hart (R-04)
John Peterson (R-05)
Jim Gerlach (R-06)
Curt Weldon (R-07)
Mike Fitzpatrick (R-08)
Bill Shuster (R-09)
Don Sherwood (R-10)
Paul Kanjorski (D-11)
John Murtha (D-12)
Allyson Schwartz (D-13)
Charlie Dent (R-15)
Joe Pitts (R-16)
Tim Holden (D-17)
Tim Murphy (R-18)
Todd Platts (R-19)

Rhode Island
Patrick Kennedy (D-01)
Jim Langevin (D-02)

South Carolina
Henry Brown (R-01)
A.G. Wilson (R-02)
J. Gresham Barrett (R-03)
Bob Inglish (R-04)
John Spratt (D-05)
Jim Clyburn (D-06)

South Dakota
Stephanie Herseth (D-At Large)

Tennessee
Bill Jenkins (R-01)
John Duncan Jr. (R-02)
Zach Wamp (R-03)
Lincoln Davis (D-04)
Jim Cooper (D-05)
Marsha Blackburn (R-07)
John Tanner (D-08)
Harold Ford Jr. (D-09)

Texas
Louie Gohmert (R-01)
Ted Poe (R-02)
Sam Johnson (R-03)
Ralph Hall (R-04)
Jeb Hensarling (R-05)
Joe Barton (R-06)
John Culberson (R-07)
Kevin Brady (R-08)
Al Green (D-09)
Mike McCaul (R-10)
Mike Conaway (R-11)
Kay Granger (R-12)
Mac Thornberry (R-13)
Ruben Hinojosa (D-15)
Silvestre Reyes (D-16)
Chet Edwards (D-17)
Randy Neugebauer (R-19)
Charlie Gonzalez (D-20)
Lamar Smith (R-21)
Tom DeLay (R-22)
Henry Bonilla (R-23)
Kenny Marchant (R-24)
Michael Burgess (R-26)
Solomon Ortiz (D-27)
Henry Cuellar (D-28)
Gene Green (D-29)
Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-30)
John Carter (R-31)
Pete Sessions (R-32)

Utah
Rob Bishop (R-01)
Jim Matheson (D-02)
Chris Cannon (R-03)

Virginia
Jo Ann David (R-01)
Thelma Drake (R-02)
Randy Forbes (R-04)
Virgil Goode (R-05)
Bob Goodlatte (R-06)
Eric Cantor (R-07)
Rick Boucher (D-09)
Frank Wolf (R-10)
Tom Davis (R-11)

Washington
Rick Larsen (D-02)
Brian Baird (D-03)
Doc Hastings (R-04)
Cathy McMorris (R-05)
Norm Dicks (D-06)
Jim McDermott (D-07)
Dave Reichert (R-08)

West Virginia
Alan Mollohan (D-01)
Shelley Moore Capito (R-02)
Nick Rahall (D-03)

Wisconsin
Paul Ryan (R-01)
Ron Kind (D-03)
Jim Sensenbrenner (R-05)
Tom Petri (R-06)
Mark Green (R-08)

Wyoming
Barbara Cubin (R- At Large)

Has Signed H. Res 543

Arizona
Raul M. Grijalva (D-07)

California
Mike Thompson (D-01)
Lynn C. Woolsey (D-06)
George Miller (D-07)
Nancy Pelosi (D-08)
Barbara Lee (D-09)
Tom Lantos (D-12)
Fortney Pete Stark (D-13)
Anna G. Eshoo (D-14)
Michael M. Honda (D-15)
Zoe Lofgren (D-16)
Sam Farr (D-17)
Lois Capps (D-23)
Henry A. Waxman (D-30)
Xavier Becerra (D-31)
Hilda L. Solis (D-32)
Diane E. Watson (D-33)
Maxine Waters (D-35)
Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-37)
Grace F. Napolitano (D-38)
Linda T. Sanchez (D-39)
Bob Filner (D-51)

Connecticut
John B. Larson (D-01)

Colorado
Mark Udall (D-02)

Florida
Kendrick B. Meek (D-17)
Alcee L. Hastings (D-23)

Georgia
Cynthia McKinney (D-04)
John Lewis (D-05)

Hawaii
Neil Abercrombie (D-01)

Illinois
Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-02)
Danny K. Davis (D-07)
Janice D. Schakowsky (D-09)

Indiana
Julia Carson (D-07)

Iowa
James A. Leach (R-02)

Maine
Thomas H. Allen (D-01)
Michael H. Michaud (D-02)

Maryland
Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-01)
Benjamin L. Cardin (D-03)
Albert R. Wynn (D-04)
Elijah E. Cummings (D-07)

Massachusetts
John W. Olver (D-01)
Richard E. Neal (D-02)
James P. McGovern (D-03)
Barney Frank (D-04)
Martin T. Meehan (D-05)
Edward J. Markey (D-07)
William D. Delahunt (D-10)

Michigan
Carolyn C. Kilpatrick (D-13)
John Conyers, Jr. (D-14)
John D. Dingell (D-15)

Missouri
Wm. Lacy Clay (D-01)
Ike Skelton (D-04)
Emanuel Cleaver (D-05)

New Jersey
Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-06)
Donald M. Payne (D-10)

New Mexico
Tom Udall (D-03)

New York
Carolyn McCarthy (D-04)
Gregory W. Meeks (D-06)
Joseph Crowley (D-07)
Jerrold Nadler (D-08)
Edolphus Towns (D-10)
Major R. Owens (D-11)
Nydia M. Velazquez (D-12)
Carolyn B. Maloney (D-14)
Charles B. Rangel (D-15)
Jose E. Serrano (D-16)
Nita M. Lowey (D-18)
Michael R. McNulty (D-21)
Maurice D. Hinchey (D-22)

North Carolina
G.K. Butterfield (D-01)
Walter B. Jones (R-03)
David E. Price (D-04)
Brad Miller (D-13)

Ohio
Ted Strickland (D-06)
Marcy Kaptur (D-09)
Dennis J. Kucinich (D-10)
Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-11)
Sherrod Brown (D-13)
Tim Ryan (D-17)

Oregon
Earl Blumenauer (D-03)
Peter A. DeFazio (D-04)

Pennsylvania
Robert A. Brady (D-01)
Michael F. Doyle (D-14)

Tennessee
Bart Gordon (D-06)

Texas
Ron Paul (R-14)
Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-18)
Lloyd Doggett (D-25)

Vermont
Bernard Sanders (I-At Large)

Virginia
Robert C. Scott (D-03)
James P. Moran (D-08)

Washington
Jay Inslee (D-01)
Adam Smith (D-09)

Wisconsin
Tammy Baldwin (D-02)
Gwen Moore (D-04)
David Obey (D-07)

Visit the link below to tell your friends about this campaign.

http://go.sojo.net/join-forward.html?domain=sojourners&r=9pAkse91IRvn

If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Sojourners at:

http://go.sojo.net/sojourners/join.html?r=9pAkse91IRvnE

Huckabuck -

A metasearch interface that queries Google, Yahoo!, and MSN simultaneously to deliver results that are more comprehensive and more relevant than results from a single engine.

HuckaBuck.com is a metasearch interface that takes the words you type into its search box, and queries Google, Yahoo!, and MSN simultaneously to deliver results that are more comprehensive and more relevant than results from a single engine.

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HuckaBuck.com is proud to introduce algorithm-tuning technology where users can weight search engine results. Click the Search Tuner button above to use this unique feature.

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NEW PULSE POSTED
  http://www.ornl.gov/news/pulse/pulse_v207_06.htm

That’s the url to the April 17, 2006, issue of DOE Pulse. Pulse is a
newsletter about accomplishments at the Department of Energy’s
national laboratories. Here is some of what you’ll find in this issue:

* Jefferson: FEL targets fat

* Brookhaven: Nanoscale storage media

* Argonne: Finest X-rays

* Ames: Nanoscale drug delivery

Feature:  Ames Lab’s “tool” de force

Researcher profile: Jefferson Lab’s Leon Cole

WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA? – Most bell curves have thick tails

The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

BART KOSKO
Professor, Electrical Engineering, USC; Author, Heaven in a Chip

Most bell curves have thick tails

Any challenge to the normal probability bell curve can have far-reaching consequences because a great deal of modern science and engineering rests on this special bell curve. Most of the standard hypothesis tests in statistics rely on the normal bell curve either directly or indirectly. These tests permeate the social and medical sciences and underlie the poll results in the media. Related tests and assumptions underlie the decision algorithms in radar and cell phones that decide whether the incoming energy blip is a 0 or a 1. Management gurus exhort manufacturers to follow the “six sigma” creed of reducing the variance in products to only two or three defective products per million in accord with “sigmas” or standard deviations from the mean of a normal bell curve. Models for trading stock and bond derivatives assume an underlying normal bell-curve structure. Even quantum and signal-processing uncertainty principles or inequalities involve the normal bell curve as the equality condition for minimum uncertainty. Deviating even slightly from the normal bell curve can sometimes produce qualitatively different results.

The proposed dangerous idea stems from two facts about the normal bell curve.

First: The normal bell curve is not the only bell curve. There are at least as many different bell curves as there are real numbers. This simple mathematical fact poses at once a grammatical challenge to the title of Charles Murray’s IQ book The Bell Curve. Murray should have used the indefinite article “A” instead of the definite article “The.” This is but one of many examples that suggest that most scientists simply equate the entire infinite set of probability bell curves with the normal bell curve of textbooks. Nature need not share the same practice. Human and non-human behavior can be far more diverse than the classical normal bell curve allows.

Second: The normal bell curve is a skinny bell curve. It puts most of its probability mass in the main lobe or bell while the tails quickly taper off exponentially. So “tail events” appear rare simply as an artifact of this bell curve’s mathematical structure. This limitation may be fine for approximate descriptions of “normal” behavior near the center of the distribution. But it largely rules out or marginalizes the wide range of phenomena that take place in the tails.

Again most bell curves have thick tails. Rare events are not so rare if the bell curve has thicker tails than the normal bell curve has. Telephone interrupts are more frequent. Lightning flashes are more frequent and more energetic. Stock market fluctuations or crashes are more frequent. How much more frequent they are depends on how thick the tail is — and that is always an empirical question of fact. Neither logic nor assume-the-normal-curve habit can answer the question. Instead scientists need to carry their evidentiary burden a step further and apply one of the many available statistical tests to determine and distinguish the bell-curve thickness.

One response to this call for tail-thickness sensitivity is that logic alone can decide the matter because of the so-called central limit theorem of classical probability theory. This important “central” result states that some suitably normalized sums of random terms will converge to a standard normal random variable and thus have a normal bell curve in the limit. So Gauss and a lot of other long-dead mathematicians got it right after all and thus we can continue to assume normal bell curves with impunity.

That argument fails in general for two reasons.

The first reason it fails is that the classical central limit theorem result rests on a critical assumption that need not hold and that often does not hold in practice. The theorem assumes that the random dispersion about the mean is so comparatively slight that a particular measure of this dispersion — the variance or the standard deviation — is finite or does not blow up to infinity in a mathematical sense. Most bell curves have infinite or undefined variance even though they have a finite dispersion about their center point. The error is not in the bell curves but in the two-hundred-year-old assumption that variance equals dispersion. It does not in general. Variance is a convenient but artificial and non-robust measure of dispersion. It tends to overweight “outliers” in the tail regions because the variance squares the underlying errors between the values and the mean. Such squared errors simplify the math but produce the infinite effects. These effects do not appear in the classical central limit theorem because the theorem assumes them away.

The second reason the argument fails is that the central limit theorem itself is just a special case of a more general result called the generalized central limit theorem. The generalized central limit theorem yields convergence to thick-tailed bell curves in the general case. Indeed it yields convergence to the thin-tailed normal bell curve only in the special case of finite variances. These general cases define the infinite set of the so-called stable probability distributions and their symmetric versions are bell curves. There are still other types of thick-tailed bell curves (such as the Laplace bell curves used in image processing and elsewhere) but the stable bell curves are the best known and have several nice mathematical properties. The figure below shows the normal or Gaussian bell curve superimposed over three thicker-tailed stable bell curves. The catch in working with stable bell curves is that their mathematics can be nearly intractable. So far we have closed-form solutions for only two stable bell curves (the normal or Gaussian and the very-thick-tailed Cauchy curve) and so we have to use transform and computer techniques to generate the rest. Still the exponential growth in computing power has long since made stable or thick-tailed analysis practical for many problems of science and engineering.

This last point shows how competing bell curves offer a new context for judging whether a given set of data reasonably obey a normal bell curve. One of the most popular eye-ball tests for normality is the PP or probability plot of the data. The data should almost perfectly fit a straight line if the data come from a normal probability distribution. But this seldom happens in practice. Instead real data snake all around the ideal straight line in a PP diagram. So it is easy for the user to shrug and a call any data deviation from the ideal line good enough in the absence of a direct bell-curve competitor. A fairer test is to compare the normal PP plot with the best-fitting thick-tailed or stable PP plot. The data may well line up better in a thick-tailed PP diagram than it does in the usual normal PP diagram. This test evidence would reject the normal bell-curve hypothesis in favor of the thicker-tailed alternative. Ignoring these thick-tailed alternatives favors accepting the less-accurate normal bell curve and thus leads to underestimating the occurrence of tail events.

Stable or thick-tailed probability curves continue to turn up as more scientists and engineers search for them. They tend to accurately model impulsive phenomena such as noise in telephone lines or in the atmosphere or in fluctuating economic assets. Skewed versions appear to best fit the data for the Ethernet traffic in bit packets. Here again the search is ultimately an empirical one for the best-fitting tail thickness. Similar searches will only increase as the math and software of thick-tailed bell curves work their way into textbooks on elementary probability and statistics. Much of it is already freely available on the Internet.

Thicker-tail bell curves also imply that there is not just a single form of pure white noise. Here too there are at least as many forms of white noise (or any colored noise) as there are real numbers. Whiteness just means that the noise spikes or hisses and pops are independent in time or that they do not correlate with one another. The noise spikes themselves can come from any probability distribution and in particular they can come from any stable or thick-tailed bell curve. The figure below shows the normal or Gaussian bell curve and three kindred thicker-tailed bell curves and samples of their corresponding white noise. The normal curve has the upper-bound alpha parameter of 2 while the thicker-tailed curves have lower values — tail thickness increases as the alpha parameter falls. The white noise from the thicker-tailed bell curves becomes much more impulsive as their bell narrows and their tails thicken because then more extreme events or noise spikes occur with greater frequency.

Competing bell curves: The figure on the left shows four superimposed symmetric alpha-stable bell curves with different tail thicknesses while the plots on the right show samples of their corresponding forms of white noise. The parameter describes the thickness of a stable bell curve and ranges from 0 to 2. Tails grow thicker as grows smaller. The white noise grows more impulsive as the tails grow thicker. The Gaussian or normal bell curve has the thinnest tail of the four stable curves while the Cauchy bell curve has the thickest tails and thus the most impulsive noise. Note the different magnitude scales on the vertical axes. All the bell curves have finite dispersion while only the Gaussian or normal bell curve has a finite variance or finite standard deviation.

My colleagues and I have recently shown that most mathematical models of spiking neurons in the retina can not only benefit from small amounts of added noise by increasing their Shannon bit count but they still continue to benefit from added thick-tailed or “infinite-variance” noise. The same result holds experimentally for a carbon nanotube transistor that detects signals in the presence of added electrical noise.

Thick-tailed bell curves further call into question what counts as a statistical “outlier” or bad data: Is a tail datum error or pattern? The line between extreme and non-extreme data is not just fuzzy but depends crucially on the underlying tail thickness.

The usual rule of thumb is that the data is suspect if it lies outside three or even two standard deviations from the mean. Such rules of thumb reflect both the tacit assumption that dispersion equals variance and the classical central-limit effect that large data sets are not just approximately bell curves but approximately thin-tailed normal bell curves. An empirical test of the tails may well justify the latter thin-tailed assumption in many cases. But the mere assertion of the normal bell curve does not. So “rare” events may not be so rare after all.

Complete article at:

http://edge.org/q2006/q06_12.html#top

USGAO – Offshoring in Six Human Service Programs

Offshoring in Six Human Service Programs:  Offshoring Occurs in Most States, Primarily in Customer Service and Software Development. 

GAO-06-342, March 28.

http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-342

Highlights – http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06342high.pdf

CNN finally asked employee Bennett about his comment that Pulitzer-winning reporters should be jailed

Three days after CNN’s Wolf Blitzer missed an opportunity to quiz CNN political analyst William Bennett about his comment that the journalists who recently were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for their work publicly disclosing the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic surveillance program and the CIA’s alleged use of secret interrogation sites across the globe should not be rewarded but jailed, a CNN anchor finally asked Bennett about the controversial statement.

Read more http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200604210007?src=other

Fools Gold

Volume XI No. 8 – April 20, 2006

The administration and some congressional lawmakers are pushing to dust off nuclear reprocessing, a proposition that would be dangerous and expensive for generations of taxpayers to come.  Reprocessing is no safer or less expensive than it was when the U.S. program was abandoned 30 years ago.  Instead, proponents have simply repackaged the idea as the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) and hope to plunk down $250 million for starter money toward what will likely be a $100 billion total price tag.

GNEP is a large-scale initiative to reprocess nuclear waste.  While proponents argue reprocessing is designed to deal with the problem of nuclear waste, the complex process of separating uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear fuel actually creates more high-level radioactive waste.  The bottom line is, taxpayers will be stuck paying for a prohibitively expensive program that won’t make our nation any safer.

Read the rest of this week’s Wastebasket

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/IZZJFTEPXF/NUKTFTEQBW/695019521

TCS in the News

Lott, Barbour defend CSX funding (Mississippi Press)
Is Congressional Record for sale? (Scripps Howard News Service)
Mississippi Senators’ Rail Plan Challenged (Washington Post)
From staff to lobbyist: The ties that bind (Philadelphia Enquirer)
Dam has a tiny backer (Sacramento Bee)
Money a motivator in I-75 earmark? (Naples Daily News, Florida)
FEMA boosts Hoosier RV dealer (Louisville Courier-Journal)
A Mission Under Fire (The State Journal)
Rage renewed as FEMA redoes bids (The Times-Picayune)
This Train Is Really Defying Gravity (Business Week)
Executive ethics under election-year scrutiny (The Hill)
River project draws critics (Courier Press News)
From staff to lobbyist: The ties that bind (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Congressman funnels millions to pet projects (Indianapolis Sta
Congressman’s Special Projects Bring Complaints (Amherst Times)
W.Va. Congressman Earmarks Well (Post Chronicle)
Despite slippage, Alaska leads nation at trough (Cape Cod Times)
Hurricane a windfall for RV dealer (Louisville Courier-Journal)
Alaska brings in less pork (Anchorage Daily News)
Senate panel boosts storm relief (New Orleans Times Picayune)
Congress cools ardor for earmarks (Kansas City Star)
Loophole weakens lobbying reform bill (Boston Globe)
The $3 Billion Question (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
Frist’s Senate Leadership Faulted as Self-Serving (Los Angeles Times)
Senate’s lobby reform: strong enough? (Christian Science Monitor)
Pentagon agency says `prime vendor’ program remains sound (Knight Ridder)

“In the last couple years watching the process, I have become convinced that the total amount of spending has increased because of the earmarking process. And so not only do we waste money, we also increase the total amount of spending because people do not want to vote against a bill if they’ve gotten some special project in that bill. And so, as we know, it’s almost a way to buy votes around here…”

– Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) at a Feb. 9, 2006 press conference on earmark reform

From: Taxpayers for Common Sense” <info@taxpayer.net>  www.taxpayer.net

U.S. National Archives Web Site Uploads Thousands of Diplomatic Cables
National Security Archive Update, April 21, 2006

National Security Archive Hails Major Step for On-Line Research

For more information contact:
William Burr – 202/994-7032

Washington D.C., 21 April 2006 – Last month the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) put almost 320,000 declassified cables on-line when it opened up State Department document databases from 1973 and 1974. This is significant news for researchers, because the text of
declassified diplomatic cables is now retrievable on the NARA Web site.

Beginning in 1973, the State Department began creating electronic systems for transmitting cables to and from U.S. embassies. With computerized records management becoming standard practice, only electronic copies of the cables would be saved in the State Department’s Central Foreign Policy Files. Over time, NARA will put on-line State Department document databases for the years after 1974. The new databases provide extensive coverage of key events of the period, from the October War, to the conflict in Indochina, to developments in Chile surrounding the September 1973 coup against the Allende government. They also include withdrawal cards of documents that are still classified, so that they can be requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Unfortunately, the new electronic systems lost significant numbers of cables as they migrated through new software and hardware. Moreover, Top Secret and other tightly-controlled cables cannot be retrieved on-line. The new databases include non-cable records, but they can only be identified, not viewed, on-line.

According to National Security Archive senior analyst William Burr, the National Archives and the State Department “have taken a major step forward in transparency by making available on-line around the world important declassified historical records.”

The National Security Archive’s background paper on the new databases shows the strengths and weaknesses of the new on-line system as well as sample cables from 1973-1974, including items regarding:

* a June 1973 coup attempt against Chilean president Salvador Allende,

* assurances from U.S officials in Israel in late September 1973 that a Syrian attack was improbable,

* Ambassador Daniel P. Moynihan’s reaction to India’s nuclear test in May 1974,

* an example of the State Department’s “Morning Summary of Significant Events” prepared for CIA and Pentagon officials,

* and reactions from the U.S. Interests Section in Iraq to the Iran-Iraq conflict and the “hopeless battle” by the Kurds against the Baathist regime.

http://www.nsarchive.org

Rising Oil Prices:

SAM STEIN, sstein@publicintegrity.org

Stein is a spokesperson at the Center for Public Integrity. He said today: “Our nation’s ‘addiction’ to oil did not happen by accident; far from it. For the past decade, the oil industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in its attempts to influence our political system.

In the process it has ensured not only the passage of legislation favorable to industry interests, but also that a demand for its product continues to exist no matter what the price or environmental damage.”

The complete study by the Center for Public Integrity titled “The Politics of Oil” is posted at:  

http://www.publicintegrity.org/oil/overview.aspx

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

Borowitz Report – power-stripping shocker

BOLTEN STRIPS SELF OF POWER

No Exceptions, Says New White House Chief of Staff

Just days after forcing the resignation of White House spokesman Scott McClellan and reducing the role of political advisor Karl Rove, newly installed White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten stunned Beltway observers today by stripping himself of power as well.

Moving from his spacious corner office to a card table in the hallway, Mr. Bolten explained his extraordinary decision to reduce his own role at the White House to almost nothing.

“I have been stripping people of power around here and this sends the message that there are no exceptions,” Mr. Bolten said.

Mr. Bolten said that the only power he would retain would be “the power to strip other people of power,” adding that he had just stripped Postmaster General John E. Potter of the ability to mail letters or buy stamps.

While Mr. Bolten’s decision to strip himself of power struck some in Washington as perplexing, political scientist Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota called it “a political masterstroke.”

“Right now, the Bush administration’s approval ratings are at an all-time low,” Mr. Logsdon said. “It will be reassuring for the American people to know that every man and woman in the White House now has less power to do any harm.”

But Mr. Logsdon said he did not believe that it was necessary for Mr. Bolten to strip President Bush of power, explaining, “Dick Cheney did that years ago.”

Elsewhere, after wife Katie Holmes gave birth on Tuesday, Tom Cruise informed the people of the world that it was “okay” for them to make noise again.

Borowitzreport.com

three to see

Chan Lowe: white house china
http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/servlet/com.featureserv.util.Download?file=20060421edlow-a-p.jpg&code=edlow

Doug Marlette: exxcess

http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/servlet/com.featureserv.util.Download?file=20060420edmar-b-p.jpg&code=edmar

Mike Peters: job no american wants

http://www.grimmy.com/images/MP_Archive/MP_2006/MP0422.gif

WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA? – Using Medications To Change Personality
The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

SAMUEL BARONDES
Neurobiologist and Psychiatrist, University of California San Francisco; Author, Better Than Prozac

Using Medications To Change Personality

Personality — the pattern of thoughts, feelings, and actions that is typical of each of us — is generally formed by early adulthood. But many people still want to change. Some, for example, consider themselves too gloomy and uptight and want to become more cheerful and flexible. Whatever their aims they often turn to therapists, self-help books, and religious practices.

In the past few decades certain psychiatric medications have become an additional tool for those seeking control of their lives. Initially designed to be used for a few months to treat episodic psychological disturbances such as severe depression, they are now being widely prescribed for indefinite use to produce sustained shifts in certain personality traits. Prozac is the best known of them, but many others are on the market or in development. By directly affecting brain circuits that control emotions, these medications can produce desirable effects that may be hard to replicate by sheer force of will or by behavioral exercises. Millions keep taking them continuously, year after year, to modulate personality.

Nevertheless, despite the testimonials and apparent successes, the sustained use of such drugs to change personality should still be considered dangerous. Not because manipulation of brain chemicals is intrinsically cowardly, immoral, or a threat to the social order. In the opinion of experienced clinicians medications such as Prozac may actually have the opposite effect, helping to build character and to increase personal responsibility. The real danger is that there are no controlled studies of the effects of these drugs on personality over the many years or even decades in which some people are taking them. So we are left with a reliance on opinion and belief. And this, as in all fields, we know to be dangerous.

Complete article at:

http://edge.org/q2006/q06_12.html#top

Tell Congress to Support Mine Safety

Every year on April 28, Workers Memorial Day, we honor fellow workers who have been hurt or killed on the job and renew our struggle for safe workplaces.

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/minesafety/s3guse4h7wmwdj?

This year began with a terrible workplace tragedy, the explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia that claimed the lives of 12 miners. A total of 24 coal miners have died in workplace accidents already in 2006, making it crystal clear that we need strong protection for our miners.

As oil prices soar, pressure is on to produce more coal. As the coal mines kick into high gear, we have to protect the workers who are working for us. Let’s make sure there are no more Sagos. Contact your U.S. senators and representative today and ask them to support real reform to our mine safety laws.

Click Here to Take Action

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/minesafety/s3guse4h7wmwdj?

It’s no coincidence that we’ve seen a rash of mining fatalities this year. The Bush administration has put our nation’s coal miners in danger by killing 17 Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) safety rules, including measures on mine rescue teams and emergency oxygen. These very rules might have helped the miners at Sago. The administration also weakened mine ventilation standards and allowed coal conveyer belt shafts to be used as a source of air, a dangerous practice prohibited by the Mine Act.

What’s more, President George W. Bush has consistently put mine bosses and industry executives in charge of MSHA. His administration has failed to punish mining companies for safety violations, levying insignificant fines when companies put their workers in danger.

Our coal miners are dying at an alarming rate, and it has got to stop. Take action today and tell your senators and representative to pass protections for miners.

Click Here to Take Action

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/minesafety/s3guse4h7wmwdj?

Two bills proposed in Congress (H.R. 4695/S. 2231 and S. 2308) would take immediate steps to protect the nation’s coal miners, including:

Requiring immediate notification of accidents and rapid emergency response.
Requiring new, stronger standards on mine rescue teams, communications, tracking devices and oxygen availability for mine emergencies.
Setting mandatory minimum penalties for egregious and repeated violations.
Prohibiting the use of conveyor belts to ventilate work areas.
This Workers Memorial Day, let’s make a difference for workers who face unsafe conditions every single day. Help pass these important reforms and help save miners’ lives.

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/minesafety

In solidarity,

Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO

Here’s how miners who escaped the Sago disaster described the explosion:

“There was no warning, no nothing. I mean, more wind and dust than you could even think about.”
—Owen Jones

“I didn’t hear anything but a little bump, like a thump. And all this stuff started blowing down on us—coal dust, soot, ash, mud. It was just like volcano stuff, you know. It was just like being in a volcano.”
—Ronald Grall

Read more at AFL-CIO Now. http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/rpqVob51vuI-/

A ‘Pulitzer Prize for Treason’

By Glenn Greenwald, AlterNet. Posted April 18, 2006.

Hiding under the banner of free press advocates, right-wingers are calling for the heads of reporters who publish ‘against the president’s wishes.’
A slightly different version of this story first appeared on Unclaimed Territory.

Several weeks ago, the Washington Post published an op-ed jointly written by Bill Bennett and his neoconservative comrade Alan Dershowitz, in which Bennett — of all people — pretended to be an advocate of a free press by decrying the media’s “capitulat[ion] to Islamists.” Bennett was upset that only a handful of American newspapers had published the Mohammed cartoons, arguing that by failing to publish the cartoons, “the press has betrayed not only its duties but its responsibilities.”

As I noted at the time and on several other occasions, Bush supporters like Bennett are the last people who ought to be parading around under the banner of a free press, given their lengthy and intensifying efforts to destroy investigative journalism in this country by criminalizing its defining functions and threatening reporters with imprisonment who expose dubious (or worse) conduct on the part of the Bush administration. That is a very real and disturbing trend that has received far less attention than it deserves — particularly from, ironically and revealingly enough, the press itself.

Yesterday, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau received well-deserved Pulitzer Prizes for “national reporting” based on their (yearlong-delayed) disclosure of the president’s illegal NSA eavesdropping program. That award has unleashed a slew of bitter commentary from Bush supporters, including Bennett, proclaiming that Risen and Lichtblau belong in prison. On his radio show this morning, the great free press crusader Bennett said: “I think what they did is worthy of jail.”

Powerline blog, as always, helpfully expounds on this definitively American principle of throwing reporters in jail who publish stories which damage the political interests of the commander-in-chief during a time of war. In an item entitled “Pulitzer Prize for Treason,” Scott “Big Trunk” Johnson says that Risen and Lichtblau won the Pulitzer “for their treasonous contribution to the undermining of the highly classified National Security Agency surveillance program of al Qaida-related terrorists,” which, according to Johnson, “is a particularly serious crime insofar as it lends assistance to the enemy” — all together, now — “in a time of war.”

According to Big Trunk, the Times reporters are even worse than Stalin apologist Walter Duranty, who wrote for the Times and won a Pulitzer in the 1930s. This is how he explains his sequencing of journalistic villains:

…

Complete article at:

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/35123/

THE MEDIA WAR AND JOURNALIST THOUGHT CRIMES

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002345682

“When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s talk radio show” recently, he made several remarks “on the subject of press coverage in Iraq” that have mostly escaped
notice, writes Editor and Publisher. Rumsfeld said that “the terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees. They are actively out there trying to manipulate
the press in the United States. … They’re much better at (laughing) managing those kinds of things than we are.” He also said, “There have been far fewer journalists who have stepped up to
become embedded” with military units in Iraq. One reporter told Rumsfeld that the perception was that embedded journalists “were really part of the problem.” Rumsfeld commented, “I think that’s an inexcusable thought.”

SOURCE: Editor and Publisher, April 18, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:

http://www.prwatch.org/node/4739

two to see

Tom Toles: iran chain reaction
http://www.buffalonews.com/graphics/2006/04/15/0415toles.jpg

Matt Bors: wacko evolution theory

http://www.mattbors.com/strips/179.gif

Because of the way the United States set things up after the invasion, contractors are immune from prosecution by Iraqis. And even when firms are prosecuted, the millions of dollars in fines go to the US Treasury, not the Iraqi people. This is robbery, not reconstruction.

LINK

http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=tv5zvubab.0.gmv9vubab.u4ueehbab.3303&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boston.com%2Fnews%2Fglobe%2Feditorial_opinion%2Foped%2Farticles%2F2006%2F04%2F18%2Frobbery_not_reconstruction_in_iraq%2F
From: Public Diplomacy Press Review

Bill O’Reilly proclaimed St. Patrick’s Day a “secular celebration” just one month after he declared that allowing the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization to march in St. Patrick’s Day parade would be comparable to “walk[ing] into a church … with ‘I’m Queer’ on your shirt.”

Read more at:

http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200604170002?src=other