Wasn't this an episode of Star Trek? 'Autism test would deprive the world of geniuses.'

I know damn well it was.

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this sixth day of July, 2007, in the city of Atlanta, Georgia, that this organization condemn and deplore the negative, damaging, distorted description of blindness and blind people contained in the novel, Blindness by José Saramago, for playing on society’s fears and deepening prejudice against the blind, leading to lost opportunities in employment and social acceptance...

I said the other day that José Saramago's Blindness is one of the best books I've read in years—so it's worth noting that the book is very unpopular with disability organizations, with the film re-igniting those controversies again. I feel very conflicted about this, torn between a sensitivity against ableism on the one hand and, on the other, the recognition that the conditions described in the novel—a highly contagious plague of blindness that sweeps an entire city over the course of a few weeks—bear almost no relation to the dignity or quality of life of actually existing blind people outside that sort of speculative conceit.

The Bush administration continues to fight the entirely sensible decision that U.S. currency discriminates against the blind, and continues to lose.

The U.S. acknowledges the design hinders blind people but it argued that blind people have adapted. Some relied on store clerks to help them, some used credit cards and others folded certain corners to help distinguish between bills.

The court ruled 2-1 that such adaptations were insufficient. The government might as well argue that, since handicapped people can crawl on all fours or ask for help from strangers, there's no need to make buildings wheelchair accessible, the court said.

* I refuse to believe that the new Indiana Jones movie isn't totally awesome, regardless of what people on the Internet have to say about it.

* Double-amputee Oscar Pistorius has won his appeal against the Olympic Committee and will be participating in the Beijing Olympics.

* Jesse the Body Ventura teases a third-party run in the Minnesota Senate race. I thought Franken would have this thing walking away, but his campaigning hasn't impressed me so far. I have no sense of whether Ventura helps him or hurts him.

* Los Angeles may be forced to turn to sewage to meet its water needs.

* How to get out of serving on the R. Kelly jury, via Kottke.

I blame R. Kelly for Sept. 11. When the judge asked one prospective juror about his feelings regarding Kelly, he cryptically answered: "R. Kelly may have led the Taliban in attacking us on 9-11, but you can't prove it." You're right, we can't. In fact, we're fairly certain that no one has ever tried.

* What went wrong: TNR reports on how Clinton blew it.

* And in the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan calls 2008 for the Democrats.

When I was a young Ph.D. student, I tested children using the “penny-hiding game.” This is the age-old game where you sit opposite the child and show him you have a penny. You then put your hands behind your back, conceal the penny in one of your hands, and then bring your two closed hands in front of your body to invite the child to guess which hand the penny is in. Obviously he has a 50/50 chance of choosing the correct hand. You then repeat this, varying which hand you hide the penny in. To trick the child, your best strategy is to be unpredictable, rather than always hiding it in the same hand. Most children find this game lots of fun. But to test whether he himself can deceive, you then swap roles. Now he is the hider and you are the seeker. The question is: how good is he at trying to trick you?

Playing this game with a typical child over four years old soon reveals that this is – literally – child’s play. He realizes that in the role of hider he needs to do three things: (1) conceal the penny only when his hands are behind his back; (2) keep both hands tightly shut when inviting you to choose; and (3) over a series of trials, hide the penny in a sequence that is hard to predict. But playing this game with a child with classic autism – even if he is older than four – soon reveals major difficulties. The child with autism typically makes one of three kinds of error: transferring the penny from one hand to another in full view of you, in front of his body; keeping one hand open when inviting you to guess which hand the penny is in; or hiding the penny in an easy-to-predict pattern (such as in the same hand each time, or just alternating). The first two of these errors suggest he is not keeping track of what you might know, based on what you can see. He is just not keeping track of another person’s beliefs.

What people with autism can tell us about honesty, by Borat's cousin (really). Via MeFi.