THE WEDDING WAS YESTERDAY, and today, instead of going to the office as I usually do on Sundays, I took advantage of near-70-degree sunny weather to go to the mountains. I drove around in the RX-8, which hasn’t gotten enough exercise through the winter, and hiked the Laurel Falls trail. (It was a good thing I did, too, as the weather went to hell later this afternoon, just as I was on my way home). The picture above is from Laurel Falls, with the Toshiba, at the 1/1600 sec. shutter speed, which freezes things rather nicely. (Larger version here. As you can see, even consumer-grade digicams have gotten pretty good.)

Here’s another picture that shows one of the advantages of hiking during the off-season: this view will be completely obscured once the trees leaf out. It’s rather pretty.

The downside of hiking this time of year is slickness. There was a woman at the Falls looking pretty unhappy, as she had sprained her ankle badly slipping on some rocks. (A bystander said it was on ice, though I didn’t see any — it was 60 degrees there, but it’s still somewhat plausible as it may well have been below freezing there last night). The only ice I saw was the icepack on her ankle as she waited for rangers to haul her out. They use a rather clever stretcher that has a single mountain-bike-like wheel on it so as to navigate the trails without giving rangers hernias. I’m glad that they have it, and I hope that I never need it. . . .

JEFF JARVIS notes a suggestion that people post pictures of their blogging space. I agree with Jeff that I have too many locations for that, but you can see a picture of one of them here. I don’t generally blog in a suit, though. Here’s another, and I guess that this counts, too. But probably not this.

DURHAM, WE HAVE A PROBLEM: Here’s more on the flap over Duke’s diversity problem. “What’s clear is that the present administration has pledged a commitment to racial, gender, and intellectual diversity, but actual resources are only dedicated toward the first two components.” It’s not just that way at Duke, of course. Meanwhile, Lily Malcolm has observations of her own.

FORMER KASS COUNCIL MEMBER ELIZABETH BLACKBURN writes in the Washington Post that the Council is getting narrower as the result of politics:

When I read the council’s first discussion documents, my heart sank. The language was not what I was used to seeing in scientific discourse — it seemed to me to present pre-judged views and to use rhetoric to make points. Still, the debates we had in the ensuing months proved far-ranging, and all comments were politely received. And, despite the betting of outsiders, 10 of the council’s 17 members (one had retired) initially voted against recommending a ban on therapeutic cloning. A late change to the question being voted on turned the minority who were in favor of a ban into a majority of 10 favoring a four-year moratorium, an option the council had not discussed in meetings. But the report issued in July 2002 contained a breadth of views. It also contained a series of personal statements by council members, many of them dissenting from the report’s official recommendations.

In the year and a half following that report, I began to sense much less tolerance from the chairman for dissenting views. . . .

When I read the published views of the three new members (bringing the council up to its original total of 18 members), it seemed to me they represented a loss of balance in the council, both professionally and philosophically. None was a biomedical scientist, and the views of all three were much closer to the views espoused by Kass than mine or May’s were. One, a surgeon who was not a scientist, had championed a larger place for religious values in public life. Another was a political philosopher who had publicly praised Kass’s work; the third, a political scientist, had described research in which embryos are destroyed as “evil.”

Interesting.

THE ANNENBERG CENTER’S FACTCHECK.ORG is fact-checking a bogus anti-Bush ad from MoveOn.

UPDATE: Of course, this just echoes what James Lileks said about the ads:

Heard some of the moveon.org Soros-financed ad today, about Bush eliminating overtime. The ad made it sound as though he had signed an executive order that outlawed the practice of paying ANYONE any overtime EVER, which of course isn’t the case. It fits with the worldview of the intended audience, I guess – the people who think that once upon a time the United States strictly adhered to the Kyoto protocols, had legal gay marriage, and allowed overtime pay, and the President has undone these pillars of society one by one. Because he hates people, you know. He really wants to screw people over. That’s how you get reelected: wage unrelenting war against the electorate so they’ll vote for you in hopes that the beatings will slacken somewhat in the lame-duck term.

I don’t think that Soros is getting his money’s worth.

I’VE TALKED A LITTLE ABOUT JOHN KERRY’S RECENT SPEECH ON NATIONAL SECURITY and foreign policy, but this critical analysis over at Winds of Change is really worth reading.

TODDZILLA ASKS: “Where is everybody going to Spring Break? Daytona? Guantanamo Bay?”

Well, there are some similarities, according to this article in, of all places, The Guardian:

Cuba? It was great, say boys freed from US prison camp

James Astill meets teenagers released from Guantanamo Bay who recall the place fondly

Asadullah strives to make his point, switching to English lest there be any mistaking him. “I am lucky I went there, and now I miss it. Cuba was great,” said the 14-year-old, knotting his brow in the effort to make sure he is understood.
Not that Asadullah saw much of the Caribbean island. During his 14-month stay, he went to the beach only a couple of times – a shame, as he loved to snorkel. And though he learned a few words of Spanish, Asadullah had zero contact with the locals.

He spent a typical day watching movies, going to class and playing football. He was fascinated to learn about the solar system, and now enjoys reciting the names of the planets, starting with Earth. Less diverting were the twice-monthly interrogations about his knowledge of al-Qaida and the Taliban. But, as Asadullah’s answer was always the same – “I don’t know anything about these people” – these sessions were merely a bore: an inevitably tedious consequence, Asadullah suggests with a shrug, of being held captive in Guantanamo Bay. . . .

Tracked down to his remote village in south-eastern Afghanistan, Naqibullah has memories of Guantanamo that are almost identical to Asadullah’s. Prison life was good, he said shyly, nervous to be receiving a foreigner to his family’s mud-fortress home.

The food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and his warders were kind. “Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don’t have anything against them,” he said. “If my father didn’t need me, I would want to live in America.”

No doubt an apology will be forthcoming, from those who analogized Guantanamo to Buchenwald.

UPDATE: Roger Simon notes that some people are worried about “another Guantanamo” in Iraq.

PARANOIA STRIKES DEEP: A reader emails:

A thought occurred to me as I read bloggers who have done an about-face politically, which should be a very profound, well thought-out action. George Soros has said he is spending 10 million dollars to defeat President Bush and Teresa Heinz has said she will release soft money to fight for her husband’s reelection. How are we to know these about-face bloggers have not been recipients of some of this money? This could mean the end of bloggers before the concept really gets off the ground. That would be very sad. Is there some way to prevent this? I’ve turned to them in place of the mainstream media for my news but now I wonder if they are reliable.

I don’t know what bloggers the reader has in mind, and where we’ve seen changes it’s generally been because the Administration stepped on somebody’s pet issue; I can’t really think of an unexplained about-face.

But I guess people could buy off bloggers, though if there were a campaign for that I’d think that someone might have approached me, which certainly hasn’t happened. [Maybe you’re too obviously incorruptible! — Ed. That must be it.] And anyway, if a blogger stops making sense to his/her readers, those readers will probably just move on, and corruption too subtle to have that effect would probably also be too subtle to be worth paying for.

At any rate, the sad truth is that bloggers, despite their growing influence, probably aren’t worth bribing.

UPDATE: They say that everyone has his price, but Jay Manifold wants to be sure there’s no mistake about his. And he’s not the only blogger looking for some of that “sweet payoff cash.” I’m sure it would turn to ashes in your mouth, er, wallet.

ANOTHER UPDATE: What price integrity? $387.42, in this case.

SORRY FOR THE BLOGGING HIATUS: We had a wedding yesterday. Well, actually it was a re-wedding. My brother and sister-in-law were actually married in Nigeria a few months ago. But health and immigration issues kept some people here from going there, and vice versa, so the solution was to have two ceremonies. (It’s also easier to get married again in the United States than to have a Nigerian marriage between two American citizens recognized here.)

A wonderful time was had by all, and an impromptu blues band (including Doug “InstaLawyer” Weinstein on drums) rocked things into the night. And yes, that’s the InstaWife in the background, serving as videographer for the event. The Nigerian relatives will be getting a DVD of the festivities they missed, just like the one they sent us of the festivities there.

THE NORTHERN ALLIANCE’S BLOG RADIO SHOW will be airing shortly, at 1 Eastern / 12 Central. Captain Ed will be live-blogging it.

VIRGINIA POSTREL has two interesting posts about science and the Kass Commission.

DOES THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S NEW SPACE POLICY herald a new Age of Exploration?

Mr. Bush’s program will create a new American empire in space that will resemble the ocean-born empires of the European states in the 17th and 18th centuries. The United States will stake claim to new “open” territories, leverage their resources, and settle them on a small scale.

As in the first era of exploration, travel to new horizons will inspire some of the national virtues Mr. Bush extols: “daring, discipline, ingenuity, and unity in the pursuit of great goals.” If the past is any guide, however, exploration also will bring its share of problems, even for a country as powerful as the United States.

In spite of the problems, I hope that this analysis is correct.

MICKEY KAUS offers some interesting news on how John Kerry’s dating life impacts The New York Times.

As The Rainmakers put it, It’s a little tiny world, just like a little tiny town.

DUKE UNIVERSITY has been at the center of a controversy involving its apparent lack of intellectual diversity (see posts here and here.) In response, Duke held a panel discussion on the subject.

Er, except it was a discussion on the subject of academic freedom and whether affiliation matters, and none of the student critics got speaking roles — it was all Duke faculty and administrators.

Question: If a bunch of minority students challenged Duke for underinclusiveness, would the university put on an all-faculty-and-administrator panel, with most panelists suggesting that the race of faculty members isn’t important?

It’s not all bad by any means, and the very existence of this discussion is some evidence of progress. But the different treatment of different kinds of diversity challenges is striking, especially as intellectual diversity would seem more important to the university’s academic mission than skin-color diversity, which we’re always told is a proxy for the intellectual kind. And here’s an interesting bit from the only speaker to take a different tack:

Here’s a true statement: … every conservative faculty member recommended for [tenure] by the literature department has been tenured. That’s also true of every unicorn and every talking dog. . . .

When I first arrived at Duke, there was a party for new faculty. And when it was time to sit down, we were all told: “Since you’ve been hired at Duke, I’m sure that none of you is so foolish as to be conservative. So, please, spread yourselves liberally around the tables.” Now, I wasn’t offended. I wasn’t worried. I would never have mentioned the incident except I recently heard several people who were at that dinner and who laughed at that joke loudly insisting that politics should never play a role in hiring. . . .

Now, let me emphasize, it’s always unofficial, it’s not a statement of policy, I don’t think that there is any policy that takes that effect. It’s just an expectation. The policy is for openness. The actual expectation is that we’ll generally hire liberals.

It seems hard to justify such a policy, er, expectation, in light of the oft-stated importance of diversity in academic settings. It also suggests that many faculty members are unaware of their own prejudices, just as diversity consultants have been telling us, in other contexts, for years. Presumably, universities such as Duke will want to remedy this, as they have done in other contexts, with seminars for faculty on sensitivity, and guidelines for inclusiveness in hiring. . . .

(Thanks to Duke’s PR office for forwarding this link.)

UPDATE: Eric Muller says that I give insufficient attention to William Van Alstyne’s talk, which he says makes a similar point to the one above, but in a more understated way. Fair enough — though I think the transcript must not convey the full character of Van Alstyne’s talk, which seemed to me, from reading the transcript, to be understated indeed. But I couldn’t see the visual aids, which sound as if they increased the impact. (I couldn’t get any of the video links to play, and I guess that either Eric could, or he was there, though he doesn’t say which.)

NATURE has a nice summary of the evidence for water on Mars.

GERMANS LOVE GEORGE BUSH! Why, just look at this online poll!

ROGER SIMON ASKS — if Tony Blair were a Democrat, would you vote for him? I’m no fan of his domestic policies in Britain, but I’d vote for him based on his war stance.