Random: February 2006 Archives

Anyone reading Drudge today will notice that there is a report that Bush will dump Cheney
following the 2006 elections. Those people taking this report at face
value would do well to remember what Bush's father, George H.W. Bush,
did in 1992 with his own Vice President, Dan Quayle.


Like Cheney, Quayle had a few liabilities with the press corps (Murphy Brown, e.g.), and his
Chief of Staff, William Kristol, was determined to prop his boss up,
like any good CoS. Thus, Kristol leaked a story that Bush would replace
Quayle. The press corps forced Bush to issue a denial, solidifying
Quayle's number two spot on the GOP ticket.

Dumping Cheney after the elections won't make any difference for this
year's results, which is what Republicans worry most about.  Next
year is Bush's last term in office, and installing a new Vice President
isn't that easy when you consider the vetting process and the Harriet
Myers withdrawal.



Historical moments in Dick Cheney's life: His opinion of Adam Clymer.

I just checked the logs for my site, and while more people
continue to look at this blog, more are looking for HDTV information in
Washington, DC. I think a lot of people are trying to figure out why
they're not seeing the Olympics in HD on their new HD sets. Thus I have updated the page.

Update, 09-25-2009: A postdoc has proven that dead salmon could apparently detect, and respond to, the the emotional state of human beings, according to his fMRI research. That's better than the fish sticks joke.

After reading Slashdot's latest on
lie-detection using an MRI (Magnetic
Resonance Imagery), I read a submission to Nature on "Empathic
neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others," which
also used MRI to detect emotional states of its subjects. (The title is from
the cover of Nature's 26/01/06 issue.)  Basically,
a team from CalTech,
the Wellcome Department of Imaging,
Neuroscience, and the Institute
of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College of London, used the
Prisoner's Dilemma game to induce liking and disliking of opponent players. Emotional
reactions could be located in specific regions of the brain. 

Being able to "see" emotions in the brain sounds pretty cool, but these emotions have been known to be "real" since Homer told the story of Apollo helping Paris kill Achilles. The new technology for lie detection sounds like it could be used for great profit, but how would you feel being asked for a "lifestyle MRI?" The lifestyle polygraph is rather feared because the more conscientious you are, the more likely it is to trip you up. (Remember that pen you "stole" by failing to return it?) However, the polygraph is inaccurate and hasn't caught any spies yet. (They'll say it helped, but it didn't stop Aldrich Ames or Robert Hansen.)

Who will administer the lie-detection MRI? It's not like you can go get a six-week degree in radiology and neurology, as you can for the polygraph. It takes a board-certified radiologist just to find something actually wrong with you in an MRI, not just a subtle change in a specific area during the subject's response. I doubt highly that if any companies start setting this up that they'll even use scientific staff to run it. I doubt that many doctors would even testify to its reliability, but that won't stop it from being used for profit. Fortunately, the courts have refused to admit polygraphs as evidence and will do the same for MRI lie detection.