Boffoblog

Wait Till Next Year

CongressDaily this afternoon reported on a few riders that were almost included in the end-of-year budget bill, and which will likely resurface in the 109th Congress.  Two are of note:

• A proposal by California developers to limit the government's authority to redefine permits for the development of critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act
• A proposal to allow the approval of pesticides without first consulting the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service about possible harm to wildlife, as currently required by law

These were not in the bill, though other environmentally unfriendly provisions which are include ones to permit snowmobiles in Yellowstone, to open the way for logging in Tongass National Forest in Alaska, to waive environmental review of grazing on public lands, to permit drilling in Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, and to allow development on Cumberland Island, Georgia, the largest undeveloped island on the East Coast.

As soon as the House fixes the noxious Istook amendment which would have opened everyone's tax returns to congressional scrutiny, the bill will be sent to the president for his signature.

Lying Liars: A Followup

In my earlier post on the study which reports detecting lying using functional MRIs, I asserted that there is far more media coverage of it than earlier studies, even though it appears to be only an incremental improvement at best over previous ones (and for which there are still open questions about methodology).  But I had made that assertion based only on a vague notion that while I remembered reading stories in the past on the subject, I did not know when or how many.

So I decided to do a little Lexis-Nexis search.  I will not claim that it was thorough -- the search was of major newspapers over the last two years with the words "brain," "lying" and "MRI" in the full text.  Naturally, there were quite a few false positives, but only three stories on point: Financial Times, May 28 of this year; USA Today, November 5 of last year; and Boston Globe, May 1 of last year.  None seemed obviously connected to the release of a particular study.

This confirms my hasty assertion, but also raises another topic.  The first two stories emphasized the investment made by the CIA and FBI in developing a foolproof lie detection method, an angle mentioned very little in the current spate of articles.  I am curious whether such support was behind the new Temple study.

I have no great objection to the role of intelligence agencies developing the technology provided it is accurate; it is also to be hoped that it is in their interest to ensure that such technology is accurate.  However, it also ought to be available to non-intelligence agencies and it ought to be publicly vetted.

There is a great leap from saying one can predict at conventional levels of significance whether the subject in an experimental setting is lying, and saying that it is A) of sufficient reliability B) in the real world to drive decisions about witnesses in legal settings, about employees in firms, and anywhere else lie detection might be used.  In other words, when questions of civil liberties are relevant, I will not be comfortable if simply at 95 or 99% confidence we can identify differences between liars and nonliars.

Promising technology, but one fraught with potential dangers as well if used prematurely.

Cronies Ascendant V

As I previewed on Cronies Ascendant III, Tom Ridge has resigned and one of the possible replacements named is White House crony homeland security advisor Frances Townsend.

The two other names mentioned in the CNN story are former New York congressman Asa Hutchinson, currently Assistant Secretary in DHS, and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who sat on the president's Homeland Security Advisory Committee.

Again, the only new blood so far for any of the appointments made and projected has been Gutierrez for Commerce yesterday.

In the interest of fairness, I should also note that Josh Marshall has been tracking the cronyism as assiduously as I have been.  He notes that the fourth name in line for DHS is "the guy who installed the alarm system at the ranch."  I have it on good authority, however, that the alarm guy has already been tapped for Education.

Lying Liars and the People Who Study Them

News reports yesterday and today tout a study that suggests one can learn whether a subject is lying by using a functional MRI to scan their brain while the person is testifying.  According to the study led by Dr. Scott Faro of Temple, seven "deception areas" of the brain were identified.

Jim Lindgren at the Volokh Conspiracy quotes a news account which seemed to reveal a fundamental design flaw in the experiment.  The key passage in the Reuters story is:

Faro and colleagues tested 10 volunteers. Six of them were asked to shoot a toy gun and then lie and say they didn't do it. Three others who watched told the truth about what happened. One volunteer dropped out of the study.

As even Lindgren's high school-age daughter identified, there are two variables when there should be only one -- whether one is shooting the gun, and whether one is lying about the gun being shot.  One would expect that the activity of shooting a gun would have an effect on the activation of brain centers and not just the lying about it.

Curious, I decided to see whether the study really was this poorly designed.  What I noticed, however, is how poorly it was reported.  Some stories said there were ten volunteers, other stories said eleven.  Some, clearly cribbing off this Reuters story, described the three who watched, while others said simply that six were told to lie about firing the gun and the others were told to tell the truth, eliding what those others were doing in the experiment.

A Daily Bulletin from the RSNA conference (hey, why doesn't APSA release Daily Bulletins?) reveals a crucial level of detail:

The research group used 11 volunteers and asked six to shoot a toy gun with blank bullets. Five other participants did not shoot the gun.

In two experiments, both shooters and non-shooters were asked to alternately lie and tell the truth about their participation. Scientists then examined the individuals with fMRI, while simultaneously administering a polygraph exam.

This sets my mind more at ease, because with two rounds of experiments and switching roles presumably they were careful enough to distinguish the act of lying from the act of shooting.   I say this, of course, without having seen how they performed their tests, which were not included in the press release, naturally.

This is a line of research going back several years.  Here is a July press release from the American Psychological Association on one study which involved leaving money on a table rather than firing a gun.  A study from two years ago had identified four deception centers in the brain, though this research sounds like it had a needlessly complex research design.  I have not read any of these papers yet and I am not a specialist in this field, but it does appear to be an active line of research.

Which leads to a question: Why is this, possibly flawed, Temple study getting so much play in the media?  One possibility is that the RSNA and/or Temple Medical School have much more aggressive public relations officers than the other institutions where the research has been conducted.  Another is that it took the presence of (toy) guns in the study, rather than money on the table, to get the attention of reporters.  In any case, rather than a bold shot out of the blue as the reports imply (no pun intended), this is an incremental contribution to an ongoing line of work.  As so much of scholarship is.

Big Time

Yes, I've made the highlight reel now.  A rightwing blog not only cited mine with a Trackback, but misquoted me in order to bash my post!   Feels like I hit the trifecta . . .

Will have to see if my oh-so-scathing comment in response is deleted from his site when he discovers it.

(By the way, I'm not going to provide the link because I don't want to give him the pleasure of extra hits.  Google it if you must.  It was on the Gutierrez nomination.)

Remind Me Again What a Conservative Is?

Who will be the next Fed chairman?  Don't look at me.  But in reading the Boston Globe's story on the speculation about Greenspan's replacement, I caught this nugget about Martin Feldstein, Harvard economics prof and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under Reagan, and Glenn Hubbard, Columbia economics prof who served under W in that capacity:

Handicappers generally put Feldstein, 65, on top, in part because he is the best-known. He has had a distinguished teaching career at Harvard and served from 1982 to 1984 as chairman of the CEA, a post that Greenspan used as a stepping stone to the Fed job.

Some say Hubbard, 46, might have an inside track because of his strong support for Bush's tax cuts. Also, doubts linger among some conservative GOP supply-siders about Feldstein, given his reputation as a deficit hawk (emphasis added).

So, there you have it.  Wanting to cut the deficit is a bad thing if you're a conservative, though I guess we've had plenty of warning that was the case already.

Cronies Ascendant IV

It's been quiet on the cabinet reshuffle front, and I'm sure the Bushies are anxiously awaiting who gets tapped next to go to the front of the line.  Time for an update.

Bush today nominated Carlos Gutierrez, CEO of Kellogg, to replace Donald Evans as Commerce Secretary.  This time, there are no obvious White House connections, so I won't go crying cronyism over this one.  But that's not to say there aren't any connections at all.  Gutierrez, who arrived as a refugee from Cuba in 1960, is an active donor to anti-Castro causes, obviously something near and dear to the president and his brother.  Clearly, the sanctions won't be going anywhere soon if he is confirmed.

The changes being reported for the economics team show that we haven't seen the last of overt cronyism, however.  First, the vacancies.  The Washington Post says that yet another cabinet member should start packing his bags now:

One senior administration official said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow can stay as long as he wants, provided it is not very long. He might stay as long as six months into the term, officials said.

Oh, and the likely name floated to replace him?  None other than WH Chief of Staff Andy Card.  Score one for the cronies!  But where one crony wins, another loses, in this case chief economic advisor Stephen Friedman.  As the Post reports, "Friends said Friedman announced last week that he was leaving because it became clear to him that he would not be named Treasury secretary."  Pass a tissue.

But, I hear you ask, who will replace Friedman?  Again, the Post sorts through the cronies for us

A possible replacement for Friedman is Tim Adams, who was policy director of the reelection campaign and was chief of staff to Snow and his predecessor, Paul H. O'Neill. But officials said Adams is more likely to become the deputy chief of staff for policy -- a job that came open when Harriet Miers, who currently holds the job, was named White House counsel.

Another possible Friedman replacement is Samuel W. Bodman, the deputy Treasury secretary, who has indicated he wants to leave that job. Adams could also succeed Bodman, officials said.

You can be sure there is more to come . . .

Please visit our earlier installments, Cronies Ascendant I, II and III.

Nuclear Options

The Samuel Taylor Coleridge Foundation, a very fine blog indeed, has had continuing coverage of the politics of global warming, and today has an extended treatment that is well worth a look.  In an earlier post, STCF declares support for nuclear energy as a relatively clean energy solution.  I have to say that until recently I was very skeptical that would be the case, especially given the political and legal wrangling over the Yucca Mountain waste deposit site.

What I've read recently about research in China into a much cleaner version gives me some hope.  An article in Wired gives a rundown.  It is less clear whether U.S. energy producers are willing to take this leap.  What's that you say, neoclassical economists?  A firm would make the switch as long as the profit margins were higher and the startup costs were sufficiently low?  Well, this technology is cheap, has been around for decades, is familiar to many in the U.S. nuclear industry and in fact was invented in this country, but they have chosen not to develop it to this point.  Domestic energy producers may need a kickstart, but I don't see one coming from this oil-drunk administraion.

Capital Time

On the Sunday talk shows, Hunter and Sensenbrenner continued to explain why they blocked the intelligence bill.  LiberalOasis expertly dissects Sensenbrenner's dubious claims.

Meanwhile, GOP chair of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean, reiterated that the president needs to spend some of that self-advertised post-election political capital if he really does want the bill passed.  We'll see.  So far, the administration has been lukewarm at best about reform.

Film Review: Sideways

I finally got a chance to see Sideways last night, and it was well worth the wait.  Alexander Payne is one of the finest writer-directors we have, and this film complements well his earlier ones Citizen Ruth, Election and About Schmidt.  As with the others, it is very funny and even at its most outrageous still feels real.  As with the others, it is an adaptation from a book, and I have to confess that I have not read the original.  I can comment on only the film and not the quality of the adaptation.

The plot outline sounds like a number of other cheesy films of the last twenty years: Guy is getting married soon, and best friend takes him out for a good time; hijinks ensue.  There is a twist -- the guy that is in more need of a good time is the best friend, who has yet to get over his divorce.  But there are two qualities which set Payne apart from all the other hacks.  First, the focus is not on the hijinks but on the characters.  This is a story about the journey of two men, Jack and his buddy Miles, and two women, Maya and Stephanie, they meet on their week touring the wine country around Santa Barbara.  It is not a story about the crazy, nutty stuff they do.

Second, he creates empathy for the each of the four main characters, even the cad Jack who wants to have one last fling -- no, make that a series of flings -- before he ties the knot.  One way Payne does this is by creating characters who are not ripped out of the latest O.C. episode, but who have been around the block once or twice or seven times and have some depth to them.  Jack, the washed up actor, is played by an actual washed up actor, Thomas Haden Church, once a costar of did-it-really-last-8-years Wings and later had an uncredited role in Monkeybones.  Miles, his best friend, is played by Paul Giametti, best known for starring in American Splendor.  While we never learn much about Jack's betrothed, there are two strong female characters we do meet, played pitch-perfectly by Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh (wife of Payne).

Miles is an oenophile and in a pivotal scene in the movie, a late night conversation with Maya (Madsen), the way he talks about the fragility and complexity of Pinot Noir makes clear that he is really talking about himself, trying to connect with Maya in the only way he knows how.  She replies with an explanation for her love of wine that almost made me an oenophile, too.

George Clooney very much wanted to play the role of Jack, and we can be thankful that he didn't, not because he would have ruined the role -- I think he is a fine actor -- but because we need to believe that all these characters are a bit world-weary in their way, each finding a way to connect with varying success.  Thomas Haden Church gets this character.

Without giving away the key plot points, let me say that the ending is obvious well ahead of time.  Payne, however, handles it with the same restraint and wit that he uses throughout.  Rather than feeling cheated by the predictability as I would with shallower movies, instead it feels comfortable and appropriate for the journey these characters have taken.

Finally, let me add that the film also confirms once again that there is no funnier sight in the pantheon of comedy than a flopping flaccid penis.