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Jeez, you go away for a while...

All I did was get my beloved Powerbook 12" serviced, and what happens? The Interlub goes wild with great stuff. Or was it always, and I only noticed because I was unable to blog? So, here is a rough and ready roundup of interesting things. Before I do, I'd like to note that Paul Griffiths and I had a wonderful time last night talking to the Philosophy Students Association about Dawkins' The God Delusion. You, my loyal readers, already know my views on this, so I won't rehearse them here. But Paul made a comment I had to think about overnight. He does that. It was basically about religious…

The turtle cometh

The election last night wasn't as bad as it could have been — the teabaggers who'd received much ridicule, Angle and O'Donnell and probably Miller, were defeated (there's a lesson there, I think) — but sanity did not win out, and the Republicans have taken over the US House, and here in Minnesota, they've taken control of both the state house and senate — Democrats have probably won the governorship, but it's so close that there's going to be a recount. These next few years are going to be extraordinarily painful. Personally, I'm going to take a hit: the Republicans will do their best to gut…

Robots: First tumors, then the world!!!

When I first read this it summoned immediate images of the robot from Lost in Space. Fortunately, these X-ray wielding robots seem decidedly less sinister. Instead, it is a better way to deliver X-rays to lung tumors, accounting for motion of the lungs during breathing: Super-intense radiation delivered by a robotic arm eradicated lung tumors in some human patients just 3-4 months after treatment, medical physicist Cihat Ozhasoglu, Ph.D. of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (ozhasogluc@upmc.edu) will report in early August at the 48th Annual Meeting of the American Association of…

Secularism as protection for religion

As some of you may have figured out by now, my overarching Evil Plan is to get people thinking about their basic assumptions. Even when those people are the "good guys" and free thinkers. So in service of that I am giving a public talk for the Secular Freethinkers society on Tuesday next (details below the fold) on why secularism does not require the end of religion, and in fact why the religious ought to support it to protect their future standing in society. Anyone who's in Brisbane is free to attend and heckle, and if anyone asks "What about the workers!?" I have a Sellarsian response…

Spencer was no social Darwinian

For a while now, and in particular since I read Robert Bannister's Social Darwinism and then actually read Herbert Spencer's own work, I have been unable to reconcile the mythology about social Darwinism with the actual writings of Spencer himself. Supposedly the founder of the justification for robber baron capitalism, Spencer actually proposes feminism, liberal protection of the poor and weak, and other ideas that are more redolent of Mill than Malthus (who is also the subject of similar demonisation, as Flew showed). Now someone has affirmed my unease: Damon Root, writing in Reason…

On ID and the public awareness of evolution

Imagine a scientific theory that very few people know or understand. Let's call it "valency theory". Now suppose someone objects to valency theory because it undercuts their view of a particular religious doctrine, such as transubstantiation. So they gather money from rich members of their faith community and start a public relations and political campaign to have the form-substance dichotomy (hylomorphism) taught as chemical science. What would be the outcome? Well, for most people they would remain as uneducated on the topic as before. They may know, vaguely, there is a dispute of some…

Send some love to Derek Lowe

Pharmaceutical chemist, Derek Lowe, at Corante's In the Pipeline notes that yesterday was the end of his employment at the Wonder Drug Factory due to a site closure. I've admired Dr Lowe since I began reading blogs because he puts a human face on the travails of a bench-level pharmaceutical industry researcher. His thoughtful discussions of chemistry, the industry, and careers for young scientists has put Derek at the top of my reading list most mornings. Despite the missteps often attributed to pharma execs or marketers, Derek shows that the average pharma scientist is just like the rest…

Christians depict Christians as delusional

A few Christians are indignant over this video mocking Pollyannaish theology. Unfortunately for them, and to our increased mirth, their excuses are just as ridiculous as Suzie. Dr. Normal L. Geisler, author of If God, Why Evil?, said the video contains a lot of misconceptions. "You look at all of that [and] you sympathize with Susie because you think they (disasters, illnesses, etc.) are evil," he said. "But if it's evil, then there must be a standard for good. If there is a crooked line in this world then there must be a straight line. If there is a straight line then there must be God…

Sickening outcome in Tripoli Six sentencing

Terrible news this morning, but not entirely unexpected given the complete ignorance of science in the case of medical personnel charged with intentionally infecting children with HIV in a Libyan hospital. The defendants have again been sentenced to death. Luc Montagnier -- the French doctor who was a co-discoverer of HIV -- testified in the first trial that the deadly virus was active in the hospital before the Bulgarian nurses began their contracts there in 1998. More evidence for that argument surfaced on December 6 -- too late to be submitted in court -- when Nature magazine published an…

Durham district attorney race: Nifong emerges as non-majority victor

All I was doing yesterday was answering our webhost-wide "Ask A ScienceBlogger" query about the most notable local election races in our respective communities. I was taken aback by getting more traffic on my displeasure with Durham DA, Mike Nifong, than on any other topic since I last asked whether the San Antonio Hooters restaurant could tactfully support the activities of basic and clinical researchers at the internationally-renowned San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. What I neglected to note yesterday was that competing with Nifong in addition to a candidate who refused to serve if…

Casual Fridays: Who eats desserts?

Last week's Casual Friday study had a secret: We weren't just interested in whether you like light desserts; we also wanted to know if the weight and/or gender of the dessert chef influenced your opinion of a dessert. Each survey participant saw two different versions of a dessert recipe: Each recipe was randomly credited to one of four chefs: Then readers rated the recipes for taste, creativity, and healthiness. We wanted to know the dessert chef would influence the ratings. Maybe the heavier chefs would be seen as less credible in presenting the "light" recipes. Maybe heavier chefs…

Why are people out and about in the middle of the day?

Jason Kottke points to an interesting article about why so many people seem to be hanging out in cafes, coffee shops, and parks in the middle of the day while "normal" people are working. Everyone seems to have a different reason: "Jeffrey" (some names changed at owner's request), writing a poem in a notebook on Church Street, had quit his California Pizza Kitchen job that morning; he was down to a barista gig now. The poem was about knots. With extreme reluctance he conceded to hailing from Fresno. There was "no love" at his pizza job. "I get Wednesdays off," said Kim Anderson, 29, an…

Does straightening your teeth make you happier?

When our dentist told us Jim and Nora needed braces, we just took them straight to the orthodontist and signed them up for treatments -- we didn't even think twice about it. On the other hand, their treatments haven't been especially dire -- neither child needed "headgear," for example. I know people who've had elaborate, painful gear, requiring horrific hand-cranking and years of dreaded visits to the orthodontist, beginning as early as the second grade. It does make you wonder: is it all worth it? A new study suggests that it may not be. Researchers followed a group of children for 20 years…

Caffeine and concentration

If you're like me, sometimes you feel as if you couldn't get anything done at all if it weren't for coffee. I'm sipping from a cup right now as I write this (a double Americano, in case you're curious). Caffeine seems to perk me up just enough to organize my thoughts into a coherent whole. But Hugo at AlphaPsy points out that caffeine's effects aren't all good. If you give a spider a large dose, her web will be a random mess instead of a beautiful spiral. Even more fascinating are the human responses to arguments while under the influence of caffeine: In these experiments, people were made…

The music we like: Does expertise make a difference? (Part 1)

A week ago Friday we conducted a little survey about musical preferences. Readers were asked to listen to three different clips, then say which music they preferred. We promised you we'd be back to let you know what the preferences were, and whether they said anything about how preferences are formed. Our survey was inspired by much more exhaustive work conducted by Mark G. Orr and Sellan Ohlsson. They are interested in the question of how expertise informs preferences. Do experienced jazz musicians like the same music as untrained listeners? One dimension you might want to consider is…

How emotion can improve your vision

Sometimes we think of emotions as completely separate from the more "objective" parts of the mind. You might believe that emotion can sometimes cloud your judgment, but it certainly can't affect your vision system. Or can it? Take a look at the following image. It's my attempt to use Photoshop to make a Gabor patch -- a means of testing vision. Gabor patches are useful because researchers can systematically vary their contrast and determine the limits of the visual system. For example, try this quick movie. The screen will remain blank for a second, then quickly flash four Gabor patches.…

What would Greta and I be doing if we weren't doing this?

This week's Ask a Scienceblogger inquires about our other research interests: Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?... We talked about this one over the weekend, considering all the important lines of research we could have gotten involved in: solving world poverty, curing cancer, stopping global warming. It's all quite overwhelming. Besides, we've just gotten comfortable with this gig, where Greta serves as the fountain of knowledge about things cognitive and I'm its editorial…

L.A. Times Calls B.S. on the White House

Last week I got pretty exercised about how the White House was trying to rewrite history to pretend that Bush had always endorsed the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. Well, now an L.A. Times news analysis piece by Maura Reynolds and James Gerstenzang goes over Bush's record, albeit incompletely, and comes to a similar conclusion. Check this out: The letter cites a June 2001 speech by Bush, quoting him as saying that "we know the surface temperature of the Earth is warming.... There is a natural greenhouse effect that contributes to warming.... And the National Academy of…

What Does "Non-Skeptic Heretic" Mean?

Gosh, I have so much work to do, I feel like blogging..... A dialogue/debate is starting up over this whole concept of a "middle ground" on global warming, or the idea that one can be a "non-skeptic heretic." See here and here and just generally all over the place. Labels are dangerous, so let me just tell you briefly how I think about all this. I am a "non-skeptic heretic" if it means the following: 1. The kind of person who thinks global warming is real and human-caused, but gets really uneasy when environmental groups and their ilk oversell the science, whether it's by blaming global…

I Apologize...At Least in Part....

...for causing so very many people so very much depression and angst. Reading this reaction to my book recently on a blog, I thought to myself, wow, it sounds like countless other reactions I've gotten from folks: Reading these two books back to back [mine and Esther Kaplan's] is a tough thing to do, since Mooney's point of view (that yes, the Democrats/liberals/intellectuals have on occasion abused science, but that the GOP has made a full-time vocation of it) is both unabashedly direct and brutally nailed down. On finishing Kaplan, you think "things are awful, but we can get through this."…

Compensation?

There's a widespread notion that hurricane basins across the world take turns having active and inactive years. It's epitomized, for example, in this 2005 NOAA press release anticipating a slow season for the East Pacific: "There tends to be a seesaw affect between the East Pacific and North Atlantic hurricane seasons," said Jim Laver, director, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md. "When there is above normal seasonal activity in the Atlantic there tends to be below normal seasonal activity in the Pacific. This has been especially true since 1995. Six of the last ten East…

Ice Age Predictions in Context

For reasons that will remain obscure, I was recently reading a 1978 volume of the journal Oceanus, published by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. And in light of the tripe we often hear about how in the 1970s scientists were worried about a New Ice Age, one passage in particular stuck out to me. It's from a paper by one John Imbrie, a Brown University oceanographer, entitled "Global Perspectives on our Changing Climate" (p. 65-70, Number 4, Fall Issue 1978, "Oceans and Climate"). Here's what it had to say about this subject: ...there is no doubt that the 40 year cooling trend…

My Crazy, Crazy June

Well, folks, I'm off to Pasadena tomorrow; the debate with Ron Bailey is Saturday. I may blog more about it here if I need feedback on any particular point as I prep my arguments today and, once I arrive at the hotel in Pasadena, tomorrow. Meanwhile, as thing are likely to be bumpy, here is what you can expect from me for the rest of the month blog- and speech-wise; turns out I'm venturing into a lot of new areas: June 4-8: After Pasadena, I am retreating to a family house north of Flagstaff, Arizona to get some writing done. No Internet, may not even be a phone. So there will definitely be…

Time Magazine Gets It

Via Tara, I see that a major media organ has finally contrasted Bush's "I Heart Science" message in his SOTU speech with the reality of how science has been treated in this administration: Starting when he was a presidential candidate in 2000, George W. Bush has often assured voters that his policymaking would be guided by "sound science." Last week, in his State of the Union address, the President pointed to scientific research as the way to "lead the world in opportunity and innovation for decades to come." Yet growing numbers of researchers, both in and out of government, say their…

Popular Misunderstandings of Evolution, Take Twenty One

I went and saw a movie the other night, and in the process also wound up seeing an ad that I'm sure many of you are familiar with. It's for Coca Cola, and it involves cute penguins and surprisingly benign polar bears getting together to enjoy fizzy beverages at the North Pole. Now, the conceit of polar bears and penguins being buddies--rather than the former devouring the latter--is ridiculous enough. But let that pass; this is, after all, a cartoonish ad campaign obviously aimed at kids. What troubles me more, though, is the blatant ignorance the ad both embodies, and spreads, about…

Want to know about religion? Go to your local atheist, not your priest

Lately, a certain faction within CFI (not the whole organization — I know several staff who disagree) has taken it upon itself to slam the Gnu Atheists as a gang of crude louts who know nothing about religion — they've criticized Richard Dawkins, and I've heard that both Jerry Coyne and I were named in a recent talk as bad for the movement. Both Coyne and Benson have already taken John Shook to task for his poor HuffPo article, which begins: Atheists are getting a reputation for being a bunch of know-nothings. They know nothing of God, and not much more about religion, and they seem proud of…

A New Hope For A New America

"This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old. She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.And tonight, I think about all that she's seen…

Beyond Belief III

Today we're both off to The Salk to participate in The Science Network's ongoing annual conversation known as Beyond Belief. This year's theme is 'Candles In The Dark': Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark is the third in an annual series of conversations: an ongoing project to foster and promote the use of reason in formulating social policy. This year, we are asking participants to propose a Candle -- a potential solution to a problem that they have identified in their area of expertise or informed passion. In The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan wrote: Science is more than a body of…

Best Of: Re-Framing Science While Chris Mooney's Away..

originally published May 23, 2007 by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum That's right, I said it. Dare I broach the topic sans Chris? Is it fair to discuss Framing when he's not here at The Intersection to reply? I think YES. Just be aware everything that follows is 'according to Sheril' and none of this necessarily reflects the opinions of our two favorite Framers. That said, I'll forge on.. Unless you've fallen off the blogosphere since April, you're likely familiar with the concept of Framing Science which Mooney and Nisbet recently published an article about in the journal Science. My perspective…

Oil and Gas Projects in the Western Amazon Threaten Wilderness, Biodiversity, and Indigenous Peoples

A vast area of the western Amazon--arguably the most intact and biodiverse part of the Amazon--is now wide open for oil and gas development. This is a new threat to the forest, biodiversity, and many indigenous groups living in the region. Research by Finer et al. in PLoS ONE demonstrates full scale impacts, including an assessment of relevant conservation and indigenous rights policies. Oil and gas blocks in the western Amazon The western Amazon is the most biologically rich part of the Amazon basin and is home to a great diversity of indigenous ethnic groups, including some of the world…

Cyclone Nargis vs. the Junta

We've been watching Cyclone Nargis for a week here at the Intersection, but I've finally done my first lengthy piece about the disaster over at Science Progress. Over there, I make the following points, most of which I don't think you're seeing elsewhere: 1. It's Not About Global Warming, But Poverty and Infrastructure. 2. The American Media Present a Very Selective Picture of Cyclone Disasters in the Developing World. 3. Hurricane/Cyclone Forecasting in the North Indian Region is Lackluster at Best. 4. Hurricanes Can Bring Down Governments. I want to expand upon the last point, which is…

For a Global Warming Bill, Wait Til 2009

So...there is talk that Lieberman-Warner will be coming up again soon in the Senate, which kinda baffles me. There are a whole host of reasons why it would be far better to have a climate change bill pass Congress in 2009, rather than during this election year. In my latest Daily Green column, I rattle off a few of them: The politics of this issue are changing rapidly and dramatically, expanding the sphere of what's possible - and you can bet that by 2009, an even stronger bill will be able to pass. Between now and then, after all, we are probably going to just get worse and worse news from…

What sort of evolution book do we need?

I haven't written any book reviews in a while, primarily because I have not had the time, but when I was offered a review copy of Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True I couldn't resist. It is slated to be one of the first titles out of the gate in 2009, the Year of Evolution, and many similar books are due to be released to commemorate the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. I am sad to say, however, that I hope Coyne's book does not represent the best of what we can expect next year. While the book is not without its virtues, at…

Edit, edit, edit

After spending a long weekend hammering away at the text, I am now happy to say that the first formal iteration of Written in Stone is nearly complete. It has been difficult work. Making sure that the narrative flows smoothly throughout the book has been among the top challenges, especially since I am not using the somewhat worn technique of starting at a point in earth's history and chronologically creeping towards the present. Instead I am using the history of science as a way to introduce what we have come to understand about the history of life from the fossil record. The two narratives…

Curl up and die already, HuffPo

Jebus, but I despise that fluffy, superficial, Newagey site run by the flibbertigibbet Ariana. I will not be linking to it, but if you must, you can just search for this recent article: "Darwin May Have Been WRONG, New Study Argues". I don't recommend it. It sucks. Read the title, and you've already got the false sensationalism of the whole story down cold. It's actually an old and familiar story that doesn't upset any applecarts at all. There is a well-known concept in evolutionary theory of an adaptive radiation: a lineage acquires a new trait (birds evolve flight, for instance), or an…

Two 'Sexy Geek' Co-Bloggers Named Chris... Coincidence?

I can't deny my co-blogger here is a sexy geek. Heck, even if I tried, I'd have no case--it's been documented. Well, the west coast is starting to seem like a parallel universe because now I have this other co-blogger named Chris who's also a sexy geek with WIRED and they even live in the same town! Remember MTV's Singled Out? That Chris - host of PBS's WIRED Science - is the newest member of our family over at the Correlations Compound and let me be the first to say welcome! Make yourself at home... Okay, admittedly I never imagined I'd be blogging. Back in 2005, I promised some…

Loggerheads in PLoS Today: The BIG Impact of Small-Scale Fisheries

Never underestimate the impact of the little guys... at least when it comes to fishing practices and North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles. Today in PLoS one, Ocean Conservancy Scientist Wallace J. Nichols and University of California (UC)-Santa Cruz researcher Hoyt Peckham report that small-scale operations are a greater threat to the survival of loggerheads than large industrial practices. This finding comes after 10 years of research and what makes it interesting is the result is not quite what we'd expect... The New York Times recently explained: "For an oceanic species such as the…

I.THE PHANTOM MENACE

As I'm driving down Highway 1 listening to The Plain White Ts, the road twists and turns and all I can see is blue. I can't tell where ocean ends and sky begins and I'm reminded why I became a marine biologist: The real magic in the world is far more interesting and invigorating than anything even J.K. Rowling can dream up and today this stretch of California's coast is simply breathtaking.. All too often we're bombarded with visions of a dying planet. Sea birds covered in oil, drowning polar bears, beached whales.. the famous photos keeping several NGO's and plenty of actors in the…

III. 'Is Science about Converting People?'

asks Dark Tent and others.. No, not in the religious sense. Still, for far too many people, there is a distrust of science because it's viewed as a threat to the beliefs that they hold above all else. Why should an atheist care? Because the very individuals making important decisions on issues that matter - stem cell research, a woman's right to choose, systems and species to protect, and on and on - hold multiple perspectives. A healthy dialogue is the best manner by which to understand your opponent. It's the most effective way to debate rather than by holding an adamant refusal to…

Cyclone Warfare Between India and Pakistan?

Cyclone 03B (or Yemyin) making landfall in Pakistan on Tuesday. Note the well defined structure, including a cloud filled central eye region. When do international politics interfere with protecting vulnerable people from hurricanes? Possibly when India has to provide storm warnings for Pakistan. Jeff Masters and Margie Kieper are blogging about an unfolding scandcal concerning cyclone 03B (or Yemyin), which regenerated earlier this week in the Arabian Sea, intensified, and went on to strike Pakistan. The storm's floods left 250,000 homeless, and guess what: The Indian Meteorological…

Re-Framing Science While Chris Mooney's Away..

That's right, I said it. Dare I broach the topic sans Chris? Is it fair to discuss Framing when he's not here at The Intersection to reply? I think YES. Just be aware everything that follows is 'according to Sheril' and none of this necessarily reflects the opinions of our two favorite Framers. That said, I'll forge on.. Unless you've fallen off the blogosphere since April, you're likely familiar with the concept of Framing Science which Mooney and Nisbet recently published an article about in the journal Science. My perspective, although similar in many respects, has been influenced…

"The Bottom Line is That Climate Change is a Partisan Issue"

So says Roger Pielke, Jr., in a very illuminating post. He also adds: "On the very hot-button issues of climate change and the teaching of evolution, Republican political agendas require confronting current scientific consensus." I agree entirely--indeed, that's the whole point of The Republican War on Science (of which Roger has been critical). This doesn't mean partisan alignments on these issues can't change; it doesn't mean that the situation has necessarily been the same in other periods in history; it doesn't mean the situation is the same in other countries. But right now, these are…

Will the real Catholic please stand up?

Nominally, the Catholic church has no beef with evolution — they've got their own official twisted logic in which God did some invisible indetectable hocus-pocus somewhere in the documented evidence of evolution. Sometimes, though, that seems as thin and neglected as church doctrine on contraception. Here's an article on catholic.org that is pure unadulterated creationism, flatly denying the facts of human evolution because it contradicts the Magisterium of the Church on original sin and our exclusive descent from Adam and Eve. It's unclear how this particular site is associated with the…

Public Opinion on Hurricanes and Global Warming

Via Matt Nisbet, I see that Gallup has asked a pretty careful polling question to determine what the public thinks about the hurricane-climate relationship. As I detail in Storm World, some past polls on this question were so poorly worded that few conclusions could be drawn from them. Now Gallup has done a better job (although hardly a perfect one, as we'll see) and the results are very interesting: * 5 % of Americans think global warming-induced hurricane intensification has already happened. My hunch is that that's actually a much smaller percentage than the proportion of experts who…

Book Progress #41

Two down, one to go. Sort of. Even though it took longer than I thought, I am setting aside the dinosaurs and birds chapter for a bit to work on the section on human evolution. To get myself in the spirit of things I picked up Bones of Contention yesterday, although I also have a stack of academic resources to go through to try and make sure what I write is up to date. When I first started seriously writing this book, I thought it was going to be a relatively easy project. I was at least somewhat familiar with each of the subjects I wanted to tackle, and I knew I could do a better job than…

Picking Over Fossil Hunter: Preface

About two weeks ago I mentioned that, in conjunction with Expelled, a book called Fossil Hunter was released. I had not heard anything about it until I stumbled upon it by accident, but the book's synopsis did not give me much reason for hope; Fossil Hunter is an Indiana Jones-style thriller that explores the Intelligent Design controversy from the points of view of two field scientists working in the strife-torn countries of Iran and Pakistan. When paleontologist Dr. Katie James leads an expedition to search for an ancient whale fossil rumored to be in the Iraqi desert, she has no idea her…

Now we know the price of academic freedom at St John's University

It's $20,000. St John's is a very nice, private Catholic college not too far down the road from us. They also have a program named after our celebrated liberal Minnesota politician and alumnus, Eugene McCarthy, the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy & Civic Engagement, which has a Senior Fellows program to bring in new and interesting people to the community. So you'd think they'd be good guys; I've had a good opinion of them for some time. That's changing fast. One of the Senior Fellows they recently appointed was Nick Coleman, formerly a well-known columnist at the Minneapolis…

Science Debate Questions

There is a movement afoot to develop a framework for a href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/12/lets_get_the_presidential_cand.php">Presidential candidate debate on science.  Bora has been proposing href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/12/science_debate_2008_my_questio.php">questions that would have the candidates explain.. In what way, if any, would you change the current federal framework of implementing science-related policy? One issue here is this: would it be best to ask broad questions, detailed questions, or a mix of the two? Or would it be better to…

Warrantless Search of Welfare Recipients

Uprising Radio reports on an item of social justice: href="http://uprisingradio.org/home/?p=2134">San Diego County Searches Welfare Recipients’ Homes Published on 28 Nov 2007 at 12:06 pm GUEST: Eric Isaacson, Partner in the law firm, Coughlin-Stoia, and cooperating attorney with the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties If you live in San Diego and are a welfare recipient, investigators from the County’s DA office can show up unannounced and without a warrant to search your home in order to to confirm that you are eligible for government aid. Failure to submit to the…

Valerie Plame Wilson , Postpartum Depression

Not much to add to this.  I do want to make sure that more people see it. Why did you include a chapter on your bout with postpartum depression and were you concerned that the CIA would look unkindly on the fact that you sought help for your condition? I included the chapter on postpartum depression (PPD) frankly because my publisher, Simon & Schuster, allowed me too, even though it is a departure from the rest of the themes of my book. It is something that I feel passionately about and was actually somewhat painful to write. With the birth of my twins in 2000, I experienced serious…