From eurekalert.org: Mental math dependant on language:

The language most bilingual people use to mentally solve math problems isn't necessarily their native language or even the language that is most prevalent in their environment. Psychological research shows it's the language in which they were first taught math - a finding with educational implications, especially for areas with high concentrations of bilingual persons. Texas A&M University psychologist Jyotsna Vaid's research has found that bilinguals' preferred language for different mental arithmetic activities is the language in which the associated skills have been acquired.

Must read:

• Mathematical Mountaintops: The Five Most Famous Problems of All Time, by John L. Casti
• Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel, by Jerome K. Jerome
• To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis

TV -- ELECTRONIC HEROIN or BRAINWASHING MACHINE?

Phil Kline's 2001 Unsilent Night ("an outdoor ambient music piece for an INFINITE number of boom box tape players") will happen on Saturday December 15th, 2001 in New York City, starting at the Arch in Washington Square Park at 6:45 pm. (As seen in Wired magazine, Issue 9.12).

From iabolish.com: Help Free Abraham Bol, Age 8:

Just days ago [Nov. 11], Sudanese militia forces raided a cattle camp near the town of Malek Alel. Eight-year-old Abraham Bol, along with 29 others, was taken into slavery by soldiers. E-mail and call (202-647-4531) the new US Special Envoy to Sudan, John Danforth, and demand the immediate release of Abraham and those enslaved with him.

Current Amnesty International USA actions:

• Holiday Card Action 2001 -- send messages of support to prisoners of conscience and imprisoned human rights defenders around the world, to let them know that they are not forgotten.
• Special Focus Cases: Mexico: Brigadier General José Gallardo; Egypt: Saad Eddin Ibrahim; China: Rebiya Kadeer; Ethiopia: Dr. Taye Wolde-Semayat; Turkey: Leyla Zana

Independent Weekly: The Poster Police: A Durham (NC) student activist gets a visit from the Secret Service. Thanks to the null device for the link.

Must consume mass quantities (per recommendations from Consumer Reports):

• Chardonnay: Chateau Souverain Sonoma County, 1999, $14
• Merlot: Chateau St. Jean Sonoma County 1999, $22; Kenwood Sonoma County 1998, $17; Sterling Vineyards Napa Valley 1998, $22
• Pinot noir: La Crema Sonoma Coast 1999, $18; Beringer Founders' Estate 1999, $10; Estancia Pinnacles 1999, $15

Charleston (WV) Gazette: Sissonville student [Katie Sierra]'s appeal won't be heard by WV state supreme court.

Richard Stallman has set up an excellent Support Katie Sierra page.

From Nando Times: Anti-war student [Katie Sierra] pulled from West Virginia high school:

The handwritten message on the T-shirt that got her in trouble read: "When I saw the dead and dying Afghani children on TV, I felt a newly recovered sense of national security. God Bless America."

From Boston Globe: US weighs how far to go to preempt attackers:

Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that while he does not favor elimination of the assassination ban, he believes that it should be modified to permit the killing of individuals, such as terrorists or drug kingpins, who are jeopardizng national security. ''I see it as a self-defense issue,'' Kerry said.

The honorable Senator can be reached at john_kerry@kerry.senate.gov, phone: 202-224-2742, fax: 202-224-8525

Here's the letter I sent:

From: Craig Lee Burket craig@burket.net
To: Senator John F. Kerry john_kerry@kerry.senate.gov
Date: December 3, 2001
Subject: Killing individuals who are jeopardizing national security

I am one of your constituents, and I have voted for you in the past. I read the following in the November 27 edition of the Boston Globe, in an article titled "US weighs how far to go to preempt attackers", by Stephen Kurkjian:

Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that while he does not favor elimination of the assassination ban, he believes that it should be modified to permit the killing of individuals, such as terrorists or drug kingpins, who are jeopardizng national security. "I see it as a self-defense issue," Kerry said.

I have some questions:

- how do you reconcile support for a ban on assassination with support for "killing of individuals"? By "assassination" do you mean "killing of politicians"?

- how exactly do you define "drug kingpin" and "jeopardizing national security"?

- would this apply only to foreign nationals, or are there situations where you could envision killing individual U.S. citizens?

- who would decide which individuals are to be killed? Would a judge issue a "death warrant" in each case? Would there be a trial (or military tribunal) beforehand? Could the president simply issue an executive order?

- should countries other than the United States (e.g., Afghanistan, Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria) adopt similar laws, which might then be applied to the killing of U.S. citizens who are judged to be jeopardizing their national security? If not, why not?

Please reply in writing, preferrably via email to craig@burket.net, at your earliest convenience.

Thank you.

Craig Lee Burket

From Wired News: Keeping a Who's-Naughty List:

London police are planning to register children who exhibit criminal potential in an effort to prevent them from developing into full-fledged lawbreakers. Kids who tag buildings with graffiti, skip school, or even talk back to adults run the risk of being entered into a database program that will be used to monitor their behavior as they grow up, according to police sources.

One more reason to support Privacy International.

Victory for Palestinian activist Amer Jubran over racist frame-up charges in Brookline, MA!

REPEAL THE PRICE-ANDERSON ACT! For details, see Who Pays for Nuclear Power?, by Matt Bivens

Attention terrorists! Here's How To Build An Atom Bomb!

Now you can join the search for Nessie from the comfort of your own wee laptop, thanks to the Loch Ness Webcams!

Conference in NYC: Weapons of Mass Destruction: Cold War Legacies in the Post-9.11 World, Monday and Tuesday, November 26 and 27, 2001, John Ben Snow Room, Top Floor, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University, 70 Washington Square South, New York, New York

Think slavery is a thing of the past? Think again: Escaped Mauritanian slave, Ahmeimidi Ould El Khaliva, recounts his journey to freedom

Workers World: Michigan voters defeat anti-gay initiatives in Traverse City, Kalamazoo, and Huntington Woods

Tired: distributed computing -- Wired: parasitic computing

From The Village Voice: Abandoning the Constitution to Military Tribunals, by Nat Hentoff:

Bush is sending a corollary message to the world that is particularly dangerous to American citizens arrested by foreign governments on charges of endangering their national security—journalists reporting "state secrets," travelers talking to native dissenters, or overly curious visiting academics. If the United States can prosecute and even execute loosely identified "supporters" of "terrorism" secretly and swiftly, why can't other countries follow that lawless example in their own interests?

Slashdot.org: Libraries Asked by U.S. Government To Destroy Reports, Databases

From Technology Review: All the News That's Fit for You:

"At its tenth anniversary this fall, Microsoft Research unveiled prototype software that analyzes and indexes news footage. Q-Video, as Microsoft calls it, lets viewers find a CNN story as easily as a New York Times article. "The objective is to provide an intelligent and interactive viewing experience to users, and technologies for next generation TV," says HongJiang Zhang, who heads the Q-video effort at Microsoft's Beijing, China research center.

Q-video works through the artful blend of a variety of technologies, from face recognition to image analysis to natural language processing. Although researchers have developed a number of ways to search video (see Upstream: Video Searching), Zhang's group may be the first to combine so many different technologies—an approach that promises to categorize clips more accurately."

Sign language enriches learning for hearing children

freedomforum.org: Pentagon says attack on Al-Jazeera bureau in Kabul was missile gone 'awry'

From The Nation:

"IMAGINE: IRAQ", is an evening of new short plays by Tariq Ali, Kia Corthron, Culture Clash, Reg E. Gaines, Trevor Griffiths, Robert O'Hara, Harold Pinter, Betty Shamieh, and Naomi Wallace. The plays explore the connections between the people in Iraq, the Middle East, and the West at a time when world history could well turn on these relationships. Planned prior to September 11, the project took on new relevance after the terrorist attacks and the subsequent US bombing campaign.

The evening is being presented by the Artists Network of Refuse & Resist!, in association with playwright Naomi Wallace. These works-in-progress will be performed as staged readings.

November 19th, 7:30 PM
The Great Hall, Cooper Union
7 East 7th Street, NYC,
Astor Place subway station
$5 (suggested donation)
For reservations, call 212-431-3681

The Nation: Pogroms Return to Russia

Police attack peaceful anti-war march in Hartford, Conn. on Oct. 25

From Citizens for Participation in Political Action (CPPAX):

HELP STOP THE [MASSACHUSETTS] ANTI-GAY / ANTI-EQUALITY BALLOT AMENDMENT

To get involved with the DECLINE TO SIGN effort, contact: DTS@massequality.org or call 617-859-0325

On September 5, 2001, Massachusetts' Attorney General Tom Reilly approved a ballot initiative proposed by the so-called "Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage" to amend the Constitution of Massachusetts. This amendment is modeled after the federal so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), but is actually far more draconian. If adopted, this amendment will permanently limit marriage to "one man and one woman" and forever limit the "benefits or incidents exclusive to marriage."

See also: massequality.org

Focus on the Family wants to help you deal with the "dilemma" of the Harry Potter craze. That is, when you're not too busy assessing your school's risk of encouraging homosexuality

Was Mohammed Rafiq Butt tortured to death in a New Jersey jail last month?

From Scripps Howard News Service: War in Aghanistan could cost U.S. $1 billion a month :

One of the most expensive aspects of the Afghanistan campaign is the cost of the ordnance itself. For example, cruise missiles lobbed by ships, warplanes and submarines cost between $1 million and $2 million each. Through October, the Navy alone had launched about 90 of the $1 million Tomahawk cruise missiles. Other bombs also add to the bottom line. Each GBU-28 "bunker-busting" laser-guided bomb carries a price tag of $125,000. CBU-72 unguided cluster bombs cost about $5,000 each. Additional expense comes from the cost of warplane fuel. It takes about $5,000 in fuel per hour of flying time for the Navy's F/A 18 fighter-bombers, which are traveling hundreds of miles from U.S. aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea to Afghanistan, and back. And the cost for deploying the 1,000 Army ground troops to Uzbekistan adds another $25 million.

From Campaign for America's Future > Profiteering in the name of patriotism:

These corporations would receive rebate checks for 15 years’ worth of federal income tax under the “stimulus” plan approved by the House: IBM: $1.4 billion, Ford: $1 billion, GM:$833 million, GE:$671 million, Texas Utilities: $608 million, DaimlerChrysler: $600 million, ChevronTexaco: $572 million, United Airlines: $371 million, Enron: $254 million, Phillips Petroleum: $241 million, American Airlines: $184 million, IMC Global: $155 million, Comdisco: $144 million, CMS Energy: $136 million, Kmart: $102 million. -- Source: Citizens For Tax Justice, from corporate annual reports.

Tell your senators to "support a real economic stimulus package - one that puts money into the hands of working people, with decent unemployment benefits and health insurance coverage."

From CounterPunch: Interview of Nancy Oden, by Declan McCullagh:

"I went over to the American Airlines ticket counter way down at the end. Nobody else was there, except the clerk. I gave him my name. He didn't even ask for photo ID. It was almost like they were expecting me. He put it into the computer. He stayed on the computer a long time, like 10 minutes.

He put an S on the boarding pass, for search. He said, 'You've been picked for having your bag searched.' ... I said to him, 'This wasn't random, was it?' He said, 'No you were in there to be searched, no matter what.' "

IBM: Text Mining and Knowledge Management, by Daniel Tkach

Free Speech Victory in CA DeCSS Case (Nov. 1, 2001)

From The Bush-Bin Laden Money Connection:

“This conflict of interest has now turned into a scandal. The idea of the President’s father, an ex-president himself, doing business with a company under investigation by the FBI in the terror attacks of September 11 is horrible. President Bush should not ask, but demand, that his father pull out of the Carlyle Group.” -- Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman, 9/28/01

From ACH-ALLC 2001 -- The 2001 Joint International Conference of the Association for Computers and the Humanities and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, June 13 - 16, 2001: Program in Detail:

• Mimetic Metadata: Linguistic Representations of Visual Objects in Image-Based Electronic Projects, by Kari Kraus
• Using Natural Language Processing Techniques for Musical Parsing, Rens Bod

From ACH-ALLC 97: Towards a text benchmark suite, by Richard S. Forsyth

Green Party USA coordinator Nancy Oden Detained at Maine Airport; Prevented by Armed Military Personnel from Flying to Political Meeting in Chicago

Black Clergy, Anti-Slavery Activists Demand Liberation of 85 Women and Children Taken in Slave Raids between October 23 - 26 in Southern Sudan.