Later On

Interesting report in Science News by Laura Sanders:

A new twist on the ancient board game Go may clarify the complicated mathematics behind games like chess, suggests research from the mathematical field known as combinatorial game theory.

Using “coupons” to quantify the value of moves in the game allowed researchers to describe the math behind the game more precisely, mathematician Elwyn Berlekamp of the University of California, Berkeley reported February 14 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Go is a popular game in Asia thought to originate 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. Using a board with 19 squares on each side, players put stones on the grid in an attempt to surround and capture an opponent’s stones. Although the rules of Go are simple, the strategy of the game is very complex.

A chess board has more than 10⁴⁰ legal configurations that the pieces can be in at one time. The Go board has about 10¹⁷¹.

The complicated mathematical fallout of all those possibilities prevents computer programs from seriously challenging top-tier Go players. “For every move, you have to look at its impact on the whole board,” says Berlekamp. Without a significant handicap, no computer program has yet beaten a top-tier Go player, designated 9p.

To understand the mathematical rules that govern Go, Berlekamp turned to some of the best Go players. He wanted to know why the players thought certain moves were good or bad, what Go players call bigger or smaller moves. But Berlekamp ran into a problem. “Go players don’t want to have mathematics discussions,” he says. “They want to play.”

To get around this obstacle, Berlekamp created a version of Go called Coupon Go, in which players have the option of either putting a stone on the board or taking a coupon. The coupons, which have different point values, showed Berlekamp what the most valuable moves were.

Using the resulting map of moves, Berlekamp developed …

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Very interesting piece by Rory O’Connor, which begins:

When Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently called the Internet a “cesspool” of false information, he also claimed that corporate brands such as his own are necessary filters needed to help us sort through the muck. “Brands are the solution, not the problem,” Schmidt said. “Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”

Leading online credibility researchers such as Eszter Hargittai, associate professor at the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University, are now examining the filtering role that brands are playing, and have come to some surprising — and in some cases downright scary — conclusions about their effect. The Internet, as Hargittai notes, “is a source of unprecedented amounts of content… both lauded for its breadth and critiqued for its sometimes free-for-all ethos.” In this information-rich environment, “where traditional gatekeepers such as editors no longer evaluate material before it has the potential to reach large audiences,” Hargittai believes “the ability to find trustworthy content online is an essential skill.” In their attempts to do so, her research shows, “users put considerable trust in the online equivalent of traditional gatekeepers: search engines.”

This would seem to buttress Eric Schmidt’s contention that we should put our trust in Google. After all, as Hargittai and her associates note in one study, “search engine use is one of the most popular online activities second only to email.” According to the report, called “Trusting the Web: How Young Adults Evaluate Online Content,” nearly half of all Americans using the Internet “turn to a search engine on a typical day” — the figure is even higher among the young adults she surveyed — and two thirds believe that “using search engines provides them with ‘a fair and unbiased source of information.’” Search engines, and Google’s is obviously pre-eminent, are a “crucial part of the puzzle of online credibility assessment… They have become the most prevalent tool for information seeking online with the potential to garner large influence… on what material users deem trustworthy.”

While Hargittai’s research showed that “brands were a ubiquitous element throughout our respondents’ information-gathering process,” it also revealed a frightening lack of knowledge as to how brands such as Google actually operate in the information sphere. The study noted, for example, that only 38 percent of Internet users were aware that sponsors pay for their links to appear first on Google’s search engine results page. “Our findings suggest that students rely greatly on search engine brands to guide them to what they then perceive as credible material simply due to the fact that the destination page rose to the top of the results listings of their beloved search engine.” Google’s branding is so powerful, in fact, that more than a third of the study’s participants used its brand name as a verb, regularly responding “I’ll google it” when asked how they would complete an information-seeking task — despite the fact that the company admittedly performs no credibility verification whatsoever of the information links it offers, and features paid sponsored links more prominently than others…

Continue reading. And this article is but the latest in a series:

I spent much of last fall at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government as a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center for the Press, Politics and Public Policy. While there, I researched issues related to journalism, trust and credibility – and in particular what role emerging social media might play in addressing those concerns. Here’s the latest in a series of posts on the topic of emerging media and journalism. (Read Part 1: “Word of Mouse” — Part 2: “The New Breed of New Media Researchers” — Part 3: “Public Displays of Connection” — Part 4: “Brands, Cesspools and Credibility“) – Rory O’Connor

Although, of course, the GOP members of the House and Senate seem to enjoy having government healthcare. But they don’t want others to have it. (I assume they could opt out of the government healthcare they receive and buy their own private healthcare insurance, but I don’t believe any of them do that.) From Congressional Quarterly, we hear again from Sen. Grassley:

The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee says the toughest single issue confronting lawmakers drafting a health care overhaul is whether to create a government-run insurance option to compete with private health insurers.

“This is a deal-breaker for Republicans if it’s in, and it’s a deal-breaker for Democrats if it’s not,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley , R-Iowa, said Thursday. “Is there a compromise in between? I don’t see one today. There might be one. If you’re going to negotiate in good faith, everything’s on the table. But it’s one of the most difficult things, and I don’t see a compromise in that area.”

But it could be worse, he said. “I told you that abortion is about the only issue I know of that’s not compromiseable.”

Grassley voiced optimism about the ultimate goal. “I’m positive we can get health care reform done,” he said.

Many Democrats argue that a public plan that competes with private insurers is the only way to force down overall costs. Republicans contend that a public plan would be unfair competition, eventually driving private insurers out of business.

“I think it’s a step to single-payer,” government-run health care, said Grassley.

Grassley made his comments as part of a roundtable hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Continue reading. Note the GOP contention that, if people have a choice between a government-run program and a program run by private industry, they would overwhelmingly prefer the government-run program. The GOP position is to prevent people getting what they want. That’s always their position.

From the Marijuana Policy Project in an email:

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) criticized the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder today for their decision to stop raiding medical marijuana patients in states with medical marijuana laws. Senator Grassley told the media that this is a bad idea because marijuana leads to harder drug use. Click here for more information on Grassley’s statement.

This “gateway” theory has been debunked time and time again by every major study on the subject. For Sen. Grassley to use this line of attack against medical marijuana patients, who often find that marijuana allows them to stop using more dangerous pharmaceuticals, is ridiculous.

Senator Grassley’s remarks need an immediate response from sensible Iowans. Please call Senator Grassley’s office today and voice your displeasure with his remarks. You can reach his office at (202) 224-3744. Here is an example phone script to get you started.

Hello, my name is [your name], and I’m calling from [your town], Iowa. I heard that Senator Grassley spoke out against President Obama’s decision to end the medical marijuana raids today. I wanted to let you know that I disapprove of the senator’s comments.

Medical marijuana helps people use fewer pharmaceutical drugs like painkillers and appetite stimulants. It mitigates the side effects that the pharmaceuticals have on the seriously ill. I hope the senator will rethink his position and have some compassion for the sick.

In addition, please use MPP’s online action center to send a quick and easy e-mail to Senator Grassley, voicing your disapproval of his attack on medical marijuana patients.

Andrew Sullivan writes:

The awful repercussions for Israel of the assault on Gaza continue. Ethan Bronner paints a grim picture of world opinion, with particular emphasis on the Turkey-Israel relationship. And Haaretz debriefs some Israeli soldiers from the conflict who testify that the excesses of the attack may have been much worse than Israel has let on:

During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive…

Another squad leader from the same brigade told of an incident where the company commander ordered that an elderly Palestinian woman be shot and killed; she was walking on a road about 100 meters from a house the company had commandeered.

The squad leader said he argued with his commander over the permissive rules of engagement that allowed the clearing out of houses by shooting without warning the residents beforehand.

After the orders were changed, the squad leader’s soldiers complained that "we should kill everyone there [in the center of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist."

The squad leader said: "You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won’t say anything. To write ‘death to the Arabs’ on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing: To understand how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It’s what I’ll remember the most."

My boss, James Bennet saw this coming:

As this conflict grinds on, Israel will no doubt remain morally alert — morally conflicted, as demonstrated by the soldiers who refuse to serve in the territories — but it will also remain morally compromised in the eyes of the world. Its back to the rest of the Middle East, its face to the Mediterranean, Israel could become ”the largest ghetto in modern Jewish history,” in the words of Ezrahi.

Sharon may be right. This could be the only way to secure Israel’s survival as a Jewish haven. But it may mean a poignant legacy for this indomitable, secular Jew born into the Middle East: an Israel that is increasingly religious, walled off from its neighbors, simultaneously yearning after and fearing a Western community of nations that sees it as more and more foreign.

It profiteth not a man to gain the whole world if he lose his own soul. But for Gaza?

Interesting:

There’s one as yet unremarked constituency increasingly disturbed by some Republican senators’ efforts to block the confirmation of former North Korea envoy Christopher Hill to be the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq: the U.S. military.

Sources tell The Cable that Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus, top Iraq commander Gen. Raymond Odierno, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are frustrated by the delay in getting a U.S. ambassador confirmed and into place in Iraq, and support Hill’s confirmation proceeding swiftly.

Opposition to the Hill appointment has been led by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Brownback has called Hill’s past dealings with Congress over North Korea "evasive and unprofessional." In a joint statement last week, McCain and Graham wrote that Hill had a "controversial legacy" on North Korea, and added, "The next ambassador should have experience in the Middle East and in working closely with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations. Mr. Hill has neither."

Since the previous ambassador, Ryan Crocker, left the job Feb. 13, Odierno has complained of doing double duty: serving as the commanding general and the de facto ambassador.

The power vacuum in Baghdad comes at a critical juncture in Iraq’s transition, sources noted. The U.S. mission is becoming increasingly focused on political stabilization and economic development over military missions; Arab-Kurd tensions are rising in the north; struggles for dominance within and across sectarian groups are heating up in the aftermath of January’s provincial elections; the Baghdad government is facing tough budget choices due to declining oil prices; and national elections that will determine whether Iraq can consolidate its democracy are due by year’s end.

Keeping a lid on such political tensions is "crucial to consolidating the security gains from the surge," a Washington Iraq hand said, "yet the advocates of the surge want to slow down the process of getting an ambassador to Iraq." …

Continue reading.

Sherry F. Colb, a FindLaw columnist, is Professor of Law and Charles Evans Hughes Scholar at Cornell Law School. She writes:

A considerable body of research shows that eyewitness identifications of a criminal defendant – the gold standard in courtroom theatrics – are, in reality, quite unreliable. The courtroom setting itself offers a very strong "suggestion" to witnesses about who the perpetrator might be – the man (or woman) sitting with his (or her) lawyer at the defendant’s table. More importantly, the identifications that happen prior to trial, when witnesses look at live lineups or at pictures from "mug books," can also be quite suggestive, in ways that might not be immediately obvious.

Professor Gary Wells of Iowa State University has for many years studied the role of identification procedures in producing erroneous eyewitness identifications. Wells has performed experimental research that demonstrates just how suggestive the seemingly neutral lineup method really is. A recent, high-profile example also proves the point: In their book, Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton talk about the former’s erroneous lineup identification of the latter as her rapist. Cotton was sentenced to life imprisonment and served over a decade of that time before DNA evidence revealed the identity of the real perpetrator, Bobby Poole. Cotton ultimately spent eleven years in prison for a rape he did not commit, in part because of a lineup procedure that we know produces errors.

In this column, I will examine the implications of Wells’s research through the prism of my own experiences, first as a witness observing a lineup and then as a subject in Wells’s most recent experiment – in which the reader can participate as well here (click where it says "video") before reading on…

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Marci Hamilton, a FindLaw columnist, is the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge 2008). A review of Justice Denied appeared on this site on June 25, 2008. Her previous book is God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press 2005), now available in paperback. She writes:

Yesterday, March 18, the New York Assembly Rules Committee passed the Child Victims Act (Assembly Bill A02596/Senate Bill S02568), which will extend the criminal and civil statute of limitations for child sex abuse by five years. It will also open a one-year window of opportunity for child sex abuse victims to go to court even if their statute of limitations already had expired. The next stop is the full Assembly and then on to the Senate.

The Child Victims Act was first introduced by Assemblywoman Marge Markey, who has doggedly stood by the bill. For three years, she shepherded it through the Assembly, only to be blocked by Sen. Joseph Bruno, now under federal indictment. Now that Democrats are a majority in the Senate and many support this bill, there is real hope that victims have a shot at justice in New York this time around.

The Urgent Need for States to Extend their Statutes of Limitations and Create "Windows" During Which Past Victims Can Sue

As I have discussed in previous columns such as this one and my book Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children, we do not know the identity of the vast majority of child sex predators, because we have crafted a legal system that prefers the adult perpetrators over the child victims. Hundreds of studies have shown that child sex abuse victims face enormous barriers to pursuing their perpetrators and those who aided the perpetrators. The same mismatch in power that permitted the abuse to happen in the first place severely undermines the ability of victims to pursue those who sexually abused them, not to mention those in positions of power in organizations that also permitted them to be abused. In the nature of things, adults are in an extremely powerful position vis-à-vis children, but when an adult can also exploit a position of trust as a parent, teacher, rabbi, priest, or Boy Scout leader, the scale tips so strikingly that the victim can be seriously disabled and disempowered for life.

Until relatively recently, most states had statutes of limitations that closed the courthouse doors before the victim was psychologically capable of coming forward. The result has been that perpetrators have continued to teach, advise, and guide our children in churches, synagogues, schools, and extracurricular activities – and to do so under legal cover. The fix is obvious: Eliminate, or at least lengthen, the statutes of limitations.

The New York bill has taken a moderate route. On one hand, …

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From the NY Times:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday outlined a shift in the enforcement of federal drug laws, saying the administration would effectively end the Bush administration’s frequent raids on distributors of medical marijuana.

Speaking with reporters, Mr. Holder provided few specifics but said the Justice Department’s enforcement policy would now be restricted to traffickers who falsely masqueraded as medical dispensaries and “use medical marijuana laws as a shield.”

In the Bush administration, federal agents raided medical marijuana distributors that violated federal statutes even if the dispensaries appeared to be complying with state laws. The raids produced a flood of complaints, particularly in California, which in 1996 became the first state to legalize marijuana sales to people with doctors’ prescriptions.

Graham Boyd, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union drug law project, said Mr. Holder’s remarks created a reasonable balance between conflicting state and federal laws and “seem to finally end the policy war over medical marijuana.” He said officials in California and the 12 other states that have authorized the use of medical marijuana had hesitated to adopt regulations to carry out their laws because of uncertainty created by the Bush administration.

Mr. Holder said the new approach was consistent with statements made by President Obama in the campaign and was based on an assessment of how to allocate scarce enforcement resources. He said dispensaries operating in accord with California law would not be a priority for the administration.

Mr. Holder’s comments appeared to be an effort to clarify the policy after some news reports last month interpreted his answer to a reporter’s question to be a flat assertion that all raids on marijuana growers would cease. Department officials said Mr. Holder had not intended to assert any policy change last month but was decidedly doing so on Wednesday…

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My all-time favorite assault rifle is the H&K G11. It also uses a bullpup design, but the big change is in the ammo, along with the feeding mechanism. More info here and here.

I’ve always liked the bullpup design for assault rifles (see the Steyr AUG in the video below), and now the idea been adapted for pistols. Take a look at the Boberg XR9.

This sounds good and also easy:

Marinated Olives

It doesn’t take much to convert good olives to great ones — just a bit of olive oil, some crushed cloves of garlic, several sprigs of rosemary and, more for color then anything else, a few slivers of lemon peel. Perfect for entertaining.

Yield 4 servings
Time 5 minutes, plus marinating time

An assortment of olives is what you’re looking for here — oil cured, dark green, light green, brown and black.

• 2 cups assorted olives
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly crushed
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves
• 1/2 lemon, cut in half and segmented like a grapefruit

Toss all ingredients together in a bowl. Marinate for an hour or longer at room temperature. Refrigerate overnight if not using immediately. (Remove from the refrigerator an hour or two before serving.)

From New Scientist:

The Age of Stupid

• 14 March 2009 by Catherine Brahic

The Age of Stupid directed by Franny Armstrong. UK cinema release 20 March/US release September

No one likes being preached to, which doesn’t bode well for any film on climate change. The latest offering is the part sci-fi movie, part-documentary The Age of Stupid. Set in 2055 on a flooded, damaged, inhospitable Earth, a lone man, played by Pete Postlethwaite, guards a historical archive and bemoans that earlier generations did not prevent climate change.

It is worthy, though not riveting, cinema, but it has a very clever feature: much of the film is a patchwork of real news clips of remarkable single weather events from the early 2000s. Isolated events cannot be wholly blamed on global warming but, together, the staggering accumulation of severe hurricanes, droughts, heat waves and more is probably the result of climate change. By displaying these events side by side, the film compellingly shows that climate change is real, providing 20/20 hindsight while there is still time to act.

It’s not because they force us out of bed, Megs, just so you know. From New Scientist:

• Made for Each Other: The biology of the human-animal bond by Meg Daley Olmert
• Published by: Da Capo Press
• Price: $26

WHY and how do we bond with other beings? The rapidly growing field of anthrozoology, the study of human-animal relationships, is attracting scholars from a wide range of disciplines who want to answer this question.

To this end, Meg Daley Olmert has written a fascinating, wide-ranging and easy read about the biology of the human-animal bond. It comes with a strong endorsement from renowned scientist E.O. Wilson, who coined the term "biophilia" to highlight our innate attraction to the natural world. Olmert’s goal is to show that "our curiosity about other living things… is biological, is genetic, and can stand up to scientific scrutiny".

In Made for Each Other, Olmert weaves together the latest science – from archaeology and psychology to evolutionary biology and neuroscience – with engaging stories to make a strong case that we need animals in our lives and that there are deep-rooted reasons for why this is so. And it all comes down to one important chemical: …

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Good post from the Archdruid:

The relation of technology to time is a theme that’s come up more than once in these essays, and for good reason. On the one hand, many of the challenges we face as industrial civilization lurches down the long curve of its decline and fall come from the mismatch between the short timeframe that governs so many of our collective decisions and the long reach the consequences of those decisions so often have.

On the other, a crucial aspect of our predicament just now – though it’s not often recognized as such – is the fact that most of our modern technologies are very poorly adapted to the long term. Most of the technologies used by today’s industrial societies depend directly or indirectly on nonrenewable resources that, in the broad scheme of things, simply won’t be around all that much longer. Those technologies that can’t be reworked to use entirely renewable inputs, or that stop being economical once the costs of renewables has to be factored in, will go away in the decades and centuries to come, with profound impacts on human life.

In that light, it’s comforting to realize that our species has managed to come up with a certain number of extremely durable technologies. Agriculture, despite the assertions of its modern neoprimitivist critics, is at least capable of being one of those. The rice paddies of eastern Asia, the wheat fields of Syria and the olive orchards and vineyards of Greece and Italy, to name only a few examples, have proven sustainable over many millennia, and will likely still be viable long after today’s idiotically unsustainable petrochemical agriculture has become a footnote in history books written in languages that haven’t evolved yet.

There are other examples. One in particular, though, plays an important role in my own hopes for the future, not least because I work with it every day: …

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From the Wall Street Journal:

Sony Electronics Inc. is pairing with Google Inc. to battle Amazon.com Inc. in the growing digital books market.

In a strike against Amazon’s Kindle electronic book reader, Sony and Google plan to launch a partnership Thursday that will give users of the Sony Reader device access to more than half-a-million public domain books from Google’s ambitious book digitization project. The books will be offered to Sony Reader users free via the online Sony eBook store. The companies wouldn’t reveal financial terms of the deal.

"We aren’t set on just having books purchased from our store," said Steve Haber, Sony Electronics’ …

Take a look. From the site:

Science.gov searches over 38 databases and 1,950 selected websites, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information, including research and development results.

Also:

Agriculture & Food

Food Safety, Gardening, Pesticides, Veterinary Science …

 

Applied Science & Technologies

Biotechnology, Electronics, Engineering, Transport …

 

Astronomy & Space

Exploration, Planets, Space Technologies …

 

Biology & Nature

Animals & Plants, Ecology, Genetics, Pest Control …

 

Computers & Communication

Networks, Hardware, Software …

 

Earth & Ocean Sciences

Land, Maps, Natural Disasters, Oceans, Weather …

 

Energy & Energy Conservation

Energy Use, Fossil Fuel, Solar, Wind …

 

Environment & Environmental Quality

Air/Water/Noise Quality, Cleanup, Climate Change …

 

Health & Medicine

Disease, Health Care, Nutrition, Mental Health …

 

Math, Physics, & Chemistry

Astrophysics, Chemicals, Mathematical Modeling …

 

Natural Resources & Conservation

Ecosystems, Energy Resources, Forest Science, Mining …

 

Science Education

Homework Help, Teaching Aids, Science Internships …

15 free downloads to bring a spring back into its step.

Interesting article, which begins:

Everyone thinks that people in Paris are impossibly rude. The longer I spend in the city, the more I realise that this is untrue. In fact, they are impossibly polite.

Understanding this is the secret to an effortless life in the French capital. Mastering lift etiquette is a good case in point. I arrived in Paris a few years ago from London, where even colleagues would rather stare blankly at the closed doors than venture a greeting. In Paris, by contrast, there is a tightly observed ritual. When the lift doors part, you step in and say “Bonjour”. Everybody says “Bonjour” back. Whenever anyone steps out, you wish them a “Bonne journée”. They do the same. And that’s not all. If later in the day you bump into anyone again, you start all over again with (I’m not making this up) “Re-bonjour”.

At first, I found this exasperating. You approach a pair of shop assistants in the wonderfully chaotic DIY basement at BHV, the department store next to the Hôtel de Ville, who appear to have been trained not to interrupt their conversation as you draw near. In fact, they have perfected the art of not even catching your eye, while you wait in disbelief in front of them. I didn’t realise it then, but a “Bonjour Madame” would have brought their conversation to an instant halt, and located those 5cm masonry nails in moments. (If in doubt, it’s best to stick to Madame, not Mademoiselle, unless the shop assistant looks about 17; the French tend to use Madame as a term of respect for an older woman, not a factual reference to marital status.) …

Continue reading.

From the CAP:

During the presidential campaign, Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren had perhaps the best access to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) of any journalist. In September, she hosted a one-hour "documentary" on the GOP vice presidential candidate, titled "Governor Sarah Palin — An American Woman." She also scored an exclusive interview with Todd Palin, in which she grilled him "on everything from the story behind the name ‘First Dude’ to how he feels about the name ‘First Dude.’" Palin even chose Van Susteren for her first post-election national television interview. Since then, Van Susteren has consistently covered Palin, keeping an eye out for any potential slights of the governor and gushing over her popularity. On Monday, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza revealed one of the reasons that Van Susteren may have so much interest in and access to Palin: it turns out that her husband, John Coale, is one of "the figures charged with guiding Palin’s political image in Washington." In an interview with Cillizza, Coale "acknowledged that he suggested" Palin "start a leadership PAC and helped her navigate through some of the questions surrounding her family that lingered after the campaign." "Others familiar with Palin’s political team insist that Coale has far more power than he is letting on — essentially helping run Sarah PAC," reported Cillizza. According to a Nexis search, starting on the day that Sarah PAC was announced, Van Susteren has never disclosed her husband’s behind-the-scenes role on air. Ironically, just last week, Van Susteren decried people thinking she’s "so close to the Palin family." "The only way that I’ve met them is by interviewing them," she said, never mentioning her husband’s relationship to Palin.