Bookraft

The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz, JWiley & Sons - 2003 $20US

Introduction

Coming hot on the latest Israeli-Hezbollah/Iran/Syria warfare and now apparent ceasefire, Alan Dershowitz’s book has greater relevance because as seen in our essay on Disproportionate - as Desi Arnaz used to say to Our Love Lucie: “Lucie, you have got a lot of ’splainin’ to do”. Also Dershowitz already noted in the Introductory chapter of his book back in 2003 - “The Jewish Nation of Israel stands accused in the dock of international justice. The charges include being a criminal state, the prime violator of human rights, the mirror image of Nazism, and the most intransigent barrier to peace in the Middle East. Throughout the world, from the chambers of the United Nations to the campuses of universities, Israel is singled out for condemnation, divestment, boycott and demonization.”. And of course Alan was partially right then and will be painfully, self-immolatingly right now.

The problems facing Israel are twofold. Coming in the near future, is a set of dual risks. First is the risk of loss of public sympathy, especially in Western Europe and the United States. This loss of public support will come from two sources as well. Israel since the death of Rabin and the start of the Palestinian Intefadah uprising has increasingly departed from its military strategy that emphasized proportionate and precision (but overwhelming Israeli tactical advantage) with its military strikes. In addition, proportionlity was also maintained through deferred retaliation or immediate return-of-fire only when greviously provoked or openly attacked. The shift has been to knee-jerk Grapes-of-Wrath destruction in Gaza and the West Bank or American style “shock and awe” air-based military campaigns as seen in Lebanon at least twice. These retaliations for very real provocations have lacked the previous sense of Israeli precision and proportionate response.

Now Israeli strikes are more disproprtionate as seen in the number of Palestinian and Lebanese deaths since say 2001 and the sheer amount let alone dollar value of destruction of homes and infrastructure in both Palestine and Lebanon. Its this move to a “get tough policy” no matter what the provocation or the consequent collateral damage or disproportion of the response that will put off Western European and US populations. And these populations are actively aware of the hotbed that is Israel-Palestine/Arab dispute simply for the reason of the War on Terror. That War on Terror is not confined to Britain and America’s tribulations in Iraq nor European and American engagement in Afghanistan. It is blowing up in Spanish, English, and French faces too.

So the second reason Israel will lose critical support in the West is active and sizable Muslim populations in England, France, Spain, Holland and other countries taking out their wrath for various perceived and actual local economic and social disadvantages. But also these Muslim activists constantly return to the lightning rod that ignites Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians in particular. That belief and grievance is that Arabs have always gotten a raw deal from the West with its almost unconditional, almost knee-jerk an, until the late 1980’s, disproportionate military, economic and social support for Israel.

But the fly in the ointment is now “just good enough” rocket science and a delivery vehicle in the form of a group that has just gained widespread Arab Shia popular support and begrudging Sunni Arab admiration - Hezbollah. As George Will pointed out on ABCTV’s Sunday News Report, on the last day of the conflict with Israeli troops swarming over most of Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah were able to launch 264 rockets on Israel, 30% more than on any other day in the war with Israel.

Now just take this situation down the road a year or two of continued unsuccessful wrangling over a Hamas-led Palestine and constant skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israelis plus US “leadership” with George W. Bush. The rocket science will improve. The warheads next time could be more sinister. Tell me now, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, what is a proportionate (leave alone disproportionate) response when Hezbollah or some other proxy Arab mischief maker lobs 2-5 missiles/day onto TelAviv and/or Jerusalem with not 3 soldiers taken hostage - but a whole nation ? Thus, the second problem facing Israel is that time and even “just good enough” rocket science are not on their side. And I am not yet talking about asymmetrical conflicts and a fractured Muslim community barely at peace within let alone able to police or govern itself and its various “distinctive” groups.

So as Macbeth would say - lay on MacDershowitz. Let me tell you that the one thing the US does not support for any long period of time is a loser - or a perceived can’t-possibly-win-but-have-not-yet-lost loser.

An Aside

Now a quick aside, Shakespearean in style. At this point of writing I have read parts of Alan’s book. It is tough going, like reading a Bush pre-Iraq war policy paper - in short an info minefield. So let me summarize so far on what Alan has done. He produces a straw man defense of Israel. He takes and then easily defeats arguments on the extreme against Israel - a line up of “shooting fish in a barrel” arguments that are easily refuted with any fair examination of the facts. He will not take on the 3 key arguments against Israel - ignorance, disproportion, and false restitution.

Ignorance - is Jay Walking. In his Jay Walking segment, NBC Late Night entertainer Jay Leno takes delight in showing how dumb and uninformed Americans can be about their own history and geography let alone anything outside their borders. I would be willing to bet a Baker’s dozen bagels that if you took a poll of 10,000 Americans and asked them where Israel was, how big it was geographically, and how long Israel had existed continually as a Jewish state - more than 5000 would get the first two facts wrong and more than 8000 would get the last one wrong. The excellent book, One Palestine Complete by Haaretz correspondent Tomas Segev tells how Israel emerged in the last 120 years from hundreds of years where the Jewish population of “Palestine” was a 50 to 1 in the minority . The new Jewish state of Israel (there is still a substantial Arab/Muslim population within) is a creation of the twentieth century. Thus, the Origin of the Species of modern Israel is very much a part of the nature of the current conflict there. And not just American but broad Western ignorance of the facts surrounding the emergence of Israel leads to the notion - that as one woman told a discussion group, “you can’t just allow Israel to be eliminated - it is one of the longest standing continuous democracies in the world.”

Disproportion - again we return to that word. But the problem is that the World community in every official and/or condoning unofficial war-disengagement and susequent partitioning of Palestine have given or conceded a disproportionate amount of the land to Israelis despite the fact that in every instance they have been the minority in population often by ratios of 2 to 1 or greater. This is one of the major craws that sticks in the throats of Arab and Muslim dissidents and their mullahs calling for the destruction of Israel. And I have not mentioned the diaspora of Palestinian refugees from Israel.

False restitution is the fact that Jews and the Roma and homosexuals and other Nazi-declared impures suffered the Holocaust. Make no mistake, the victims were disproportionately Jewish - easily 9 to 1. Because the Allied airforces did not bomb Auschwitz and the other extermination camps, because many Western countries did not take on Jewish refugees before the war fully broke out and because after the discovery of the Final Solution, Germany and Hitler and any collaborators were not put on notice by the Allies that they would be tried for any extermination War Crimes; therefore Jews deserve restitution in form of a Jewish state. And a state that deserves to be disproportionately large to accomodate all the potential Jewish in-migration.

It is these moral and ethical dilemmas surrounding Israel that I had hoped Alan would address. But this book is a microcosm of our 21st political undoing - the inability of world thought and political leaders to face truthfully let alone tackle some of the wicked problems fast accumulating in the economic, social, and political landscape.

The Actual Review

Still to be continued….

Marc Cuban is a multi-multi-millionaire.

He owns the Dallas mavericks NBA team among other tings.

Here is what he has to say about CEO’s Pay.

Surprise!

Technorati Profile

The May 2008 issue of Scientific American has a compelling article on the nature of so-called Science 2. This is where some scientist take advantage of the Web, blogs, and other social websites to dicuss thir ongoing experiments with the community. Now this raises a number of moral and ethical questions well beyond those incurred when students use  Wikipedia, Google and other sites to shortcut the learning curve. The publication Nature has also taken note of the Science 2 phenomenon - so expect afairly fast movement to agreed upo limits and constraints on participation.

However, the gist of the Scientific American article is that Science 2 Science is :
“… although their efforts are too scattered to be called a movement; yet their experiences to date suggest that this kind of Web-based ‘Science 2.0′ is not only more collegial than traditional science but considerably more productive”

There are distinct trade-offs, but read the story to get the full picture.

Conjectures and Refutations by Karl Popper
Routledge - $17US 582 pages 1963-1989

Here is a book on the epistemology by one of the pre-eminent thinkers on the nature and processes of Science. Having wrestled with the refined language of Kant, Schopenauer, Kuhn and Wilber I was not too enthusiastic to have to dive into this treastie. But since the topic of Science and its Relationship with Religion is currently an intellectual itch, I resigned myself to … well slogging through in preparation for Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery.

To my relief and astonishment I found Conjectures and Refutations not only approachable but refreshingly broad and intensive in its look not just at epistemology and theory of knowledge but broader philosophical currents. The second beneficial attribute of the book is that its highly understandable, avoiding or clarifying the philosophical nomenclature with approachable discussions of all sorts of topics surrounding the world of science and knowledge and how it is advanced and proofed.

Now this breadth and approachability may come for the original source for many of the chapters in the book - lectures and presentations to public audiences and students not necessarily studied in philosophy. Now I am not very fond of hese anthology of ideas - often quickly thrown together to make some publishing goal or date certain. However, clearly Popper is using the opportunity to tie together some the key ideas in his The Logic of Scientific Discovery to currents in philosophy and contemporary thinking in mid-2oth century. As well he has added chapters and reviews that glue the discussion of ideas on how the philosophy of science evolved - in one section he presents Kant’s ideas on morals:

“Kant’s Copernican Revolution in the field of ethics is contained in his doctrine of autonomy - the doctrine that we cannot accept the command of an authority, however exalted, as the ultimate basis of ethics. For whenever we are faced with a command by an authority, it is our responsibility to judge whether this command is oral or immoral. The authority ma have power to enforce its commands, and we may be powerless to resist. But unless we a re physically prevented from choosing, the responsibility remains ours. It is our decision whether to obey a command, whether to accept authority.

Kant boldly carries this revolution into the field of religion. Here is a striking passage:

Much as my words may startle you, you must not condemn me for saying: every man creates his God. From the moral point of view, … you have to create your God, in order to worship in Him your creator. For in whatever way … the Deity may be made known to you, and even … if He should reveal Himself to you: its is you … who must judge whether you are permitted by your conscience to believe in Him and to worship Him.

Kant’s ethical theory is not confined to the statement that a man’s conscience is his moral authority. He also trys to tell us what our conscience may demand from us.”

So to my astonishment I find Popper using Kant to argue Science and Religion. But Popper’s range is as noted - very wide. He elaborates on the nature of poetry and art, yet also gets involved in metaphysics and the mind body problem.  But the first 160 pages - Sources of  Knowlesge and Ignorance, Science: Conjectures and Refutations,  Nature of Philosophical Problems, and Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge might be thought of as a primer to his own philsophy. Again - very readable and approachable. Which might well be said of the whole book. It is wonderful discourse of clearly elucidated ideas.

Neural Networks: A Comprehensive Foundation is an example of science meeting a barrior. Fourty years ago, in a communications scince class at the University of Michigan I heard professor Simons tell our class that the problem of human neural circuitry and how memory works would be solved within the decade. In addition, the basic math and wiring behind human neural networks would be elucidated first in AIN-Ariticial Intelligence Networks and then mapped onto the brain with approriate adjustments/refinements.

Well that mapping has yet to occur. But the theory of Neural Networks is rich and this book, some thirty years later describes the huge range of thinking and experimentation on how circuits can get better and learn based on inputs and feedback on those derived inputs.
But the going is perilous - take this section on Performance Measures for Perceptrons:
What then is a suitable performance measure for the single layer perceptron? An obvious choice would be the average probability of classification error, defined as the the average probability of the perceptron making a decision in favor of a particular class when the input vector is actually dramwn from some other class. Unfortunately, such a performance measure does not lend itself readily to the analytic derivation of a learning algorithm.

This is typical of what it can be like slogging it out in the trenches of science. But I bring this up because I want to show that indeed science does not only look for but attempt to elucidate performance measures (in this case, analytic but based on a strong analog, the perceptron, to basic organic neural circuits). The problem in neuroscience is that it is exeedingly hard to measure basic operations of brain functioning. Even the recent advances of PET and other scanning technologies work on a gross structural level where answers are needed on small cellular circuit performance but still in a functionally rich environ.

But this book is full of various models of circuit based learning and limits. Chapter 9 on the Self Organizing Systems looks at the big picture and tries to define some constraints and expectations on what will have to take place in “biological learning systems” The next chapter on Self Organizing Systems II looks at models of Competitive Learning - and this posits several methods of determing the nature of competitive processes, that is specialized areas vying for the opportunity to act on inputs. Again the authors map onto the human brain and known neural specialization (Hebb’s famous Homunculi) and then sees how these map to mathematical neural models.

In sum after reading this book it becomes clear how sophisticated and yet crude the math neural models are in explaining basic human neural processes. Yet again, I believe that Professor Simons was right just delayed by 100 or more years. Yes, math neural models will help to elucidate how the brain works; just that the basic explanatory mappings likely won’t occur in his or my lifetimes.

In The Marriage of Sense and Soul, Ken Wilber, the seminal philosopher, has done something astonishing - as one whose works generally exult in precision of meaning, the book starts out as almost a vulgar tirade with imprecise characterizations of one of the main subjects of discourse - Science. Here is a sampler:
“Science and technology have created a global and transnational framework of industrial, economic, medical, scientific, and informational systems. Science tells us about electrons, atoms, molecules, galaxies, digital databits, network systems: its tells us what a thing is, not whether it is good or bad or what it should be or could be or ought to be. Thus this enormous global scientific infrastructure is, in itself, a valueless skeleton, however functionally efficient it may be.”

Wow, wrong on so many levels - I thought I would never say this. But why is Science deemed valueless when it does the following all the time:
1)Defines the truth (or to be Wilberian precise, a domain of veracity) by positing better models or explanations of cause and effect by open, repeatable and therefore verifiable tests or experiments;
2)Describes from the same testable models what is believable by defining what is known and unknown. The known increasingly has to be couched not in certainties, but possibilities or probabilities - the ensuing  shower of events have probabilities associated with them and this is not just in the world of particle physics but everywhere in science from economics to zoology. The known  of a theory also has acknowledged limits - things it cannot explain.
The unknown is also intriguing and sometimes hidden because scientists want to be the first to discover the next turn of the key - so often they do not discuss the unknown. But eventually good science and scientists will also  have to define the unknowns:
a)what is made impossible by the theory as it stands;  or equally brutal - why this conjecture, desire or wish cannot be;
b)what remains unproven and unknowable. These phenomena are not ruled out by the theory, but cannot be ruled in. These connections can be made to other models and hypotheses; but these cannot. Finally, some other hypotheses or theories will have to be developed to account for these unprovens and unknowables.
c)what is close - yet may be derived and deduced from the main main theory but has not been done. It is sort of like those RTP exercises from math class - some of which are trivial and other of which are demon tasks;
3)Always science and theory elucidate hard measures of goodness - efficiency, reliability, limits to growth, entropy,  MTBFs-Mean Time Between Failure, usability, maintainability, and millions of others measures of success and failure again both small and large;
4)Science also derives models of how to explore and then decide among courses of action - these are broad and growing such as portfolio theory, optimization methods, game theory, MAD and literally thousands more models of possible behavior;
5)Science is constantly describing its limits. From Kuhn, Popper, Godel and a constantly growing world of practitioners - science is describing a) what its methods are and are not; b)what it can do and cannot; and  c)where it stands on elucidating basic questions on how the Universe works.

Now lets take the fourth point, how Science derives models of behavior. These are not empty, valueless models - but rather they explicitly describe how to encapsulate values and priorities. Then they describe the different ways those priorities can be evaluated, maximized, and made effective not just for the existing decision but in the context of many related and future decisions. The humanity is in defining what are the priorities and what ought to be maximized while other detrimental factors are minimized. The decision models are robust enough to consider as well real world constraints and limits to behavior. What those limits  and constraints are Science will even offer statistical judgements  on what has worked well in the past. So, these choices of constraints and limits plus these choices of priorities and goals to be optimized have resulted in these  measures of successful outcomes. In short, there is a Science for measuring detrimental and positive outcomes not just for one moment  but over time - and it appears Wilber is not giving full credence to this aspect of Science.

As well I would like to argue that Science is now built-in and  innate in humans. This the Stephen Pinker argument in several of his books including the Blank Slate. But basic research by many neuroscientists on human  perception systems  show consistently that theses are not dumb I/O systems waiting to dump unadorned evidence into the brain and its  Good/Bad/Indifferent All Deciding ForeBrain or neocortex ; but rather they are proactive and anticipatory - scanning for hypotheses signals/signs and unconsciously turning on a millisecond to a new hypotheses of whats out there/going on when one or more signals refute the Topof Stack hypotheses. This hypotheses making, testing, refining phenomena is built into hearing, moving, seeing and a broad range of “instinctive” reactions and behavior. In short what is good for the Old Brain is good for the ForeBrain.

Finally, Science is contingent. Depending on what your goals, priorities and constraints are (the contingencies) - Science can help tell us what a)what your best set of decisions are including the likely outcomes and b)what goals, constraints, and priorities one may want to change in order to achieve better outcomes and decisions. So Science is definitely not valueless; but rather like a great Butler waits to evaluate your decisions and to perhaps hint/suggest another possible set of priorities and/or courses of action.

Summary

So with Science built in, I will have to take The Marriage of Sense and Soul with a grain of salt. On Barnes and Noble it gets a rave review. So I shall advance onwards, and see what The Marriage has to offer and report back here.

I am assured by Jokes2go.com that this is a Lawyers and Legal Joke:

The Night Before Christmas, Legally Speaking:

Whereas, on or about the night prior to Christmas, there did occur at
a certain improved piece of real property (hereinafter "the House") a
general lack of stirring by all creatures therein, including, but not
limited to, a mouse.

A variety of foot apparel, e.g. stocking, socks, etc., had been affixed
by and around the chimney in said House in the hope and/or belief that
St. Nick a/k/a/ St. Nicholas a/k/a/ Santa Claus (hereinafter "Claus")
would arrive at sometime thereafter. The minor residents, i.e. the
children, of the aforementioned House  were located in their individual
beds and were engaged in nocturnal hallucinations, i.e. dreams, wherein
vision of confectionery treats, including, but not limited to, candies,
nuts and/or sugar plums, did dance, cavort and otherwise appear in said
dreams.

Whereupon the party of the first part (sometimes hereinafter referred to
as "I"), being the joint-owner in fee simple of the House with the parts
of the second part (hereinafter "Mamma"), and said Mamma had retired for
a sustained period of sleep. (At such time, the parties were clad in
various forms of headgear, e.g. kerchief and cap.)....

Priceless material .. I wonder how long I might last on stage.

Toronto’s Reference Library is at the core of the city - right above the Bloor-Yonge subway lines right at Yonge Street’s entrance to Rosedale and the Upper suburbs. It is also an architectural beauty both externally and internally - getting constant visitors snapping away at the curves and lines both inside and out.

But most of all the Reference Library really gets used.

The Library has counted over 33 million users over the past 30 years - that works out to about 3300 per day. And over tha past 3 years that library usage has changed profoundly with the adoption of the Internet by the library rapidly. There are now about 200 PC workstations available to the public that are constantly filled and with new, free Wifi facilities about another 150 users can plugin and get the best of both worlds - hard copy books and periodicals as well as the ability to connect to the Net while working on their own personal computer.

This party has seen the latter usage rise dramatically over the past year and a half. You have to get in early to get the best seats and towards high school and university exam periods, the response time on the Internet can take a notable hit. But the library is also becoming a meeting centre. I constantly see events posted and have been to several talks that use the medium size (25-40 users rooms) in the past year.

One of the downside to the library’s famed Open Indoor Court design is that the library’s main floor gets drafted into being an adhoc large meeting area with capacity for maybe 200-250 people and sound disturbance for many more. In addition exhibitions of art and shows now have to compete with reading space on the main and some of the upper floors. The newly announced revitalization plan aims to change some of these dynamics.

Toronto Reference Library Revitalization

The Library just announced a revitalization plan for $30 million. The city will pay $10million, the Province another 10 million and there will be a private sector donation campaign to collect the last $10million. This plan is being designed by Moriyama & Teshima Architects. Having the original architect/ designer on board is obviously a big plus.

The crux of the plan is to provide three major improvements. There will be a new 650 seat Event Centre plus an expanded Exhibit Gallery. More small spaces for talks and presentations will be designed in including a new glass facade both at the entrance and along Yonge street. Finally, more options and better arrangements for the ever expanding PC connections will also be provided for.

In these days of very tight budgets constraints, especially in Toronto, this appears to be a savvy investment. However, as always, the devil is in the details. For example the city’s commitment is over 5 years and the changes will obviously affect access to the facility during renovations - details yet to be specified. Also I am a bit leery of the private sector contribution - I have seen mixed results in other public places in Toronto. The worst case is the SkyDome which was financed by more than 80% with public funds; yet the facility is now completely in private hands and for a pittance to the taxpayers. I will let others decide how well the ROM-Royal Ontario Museum, the new Opera/Ballet Centre, and the AGO-Art Gallery of Ontario have done in the tug of war between public and private interests.

However, I can say this - the Toronto Reference Library has responded fairly well to the change in demographics and usage patterns. True, I saw Wifi service in the rural libraries about a year before TRL; but then the situation reverses on availability of Internet workstations. Also the library has already remodelled to provide more small meeting spaces. What will be interesting to see is how the new Event Space gets used - its right at the core of the city and will inevitably have big demand. Who gets in to use the library’s public spaces, when and why (read also “for how much”) will be of keen interest.

With opportunities like Google Books, WikiPedia, and collaboration/meeting tools like Webex, Breeze and others all having significant interactive and communication based components, it is good to see that the Toronto Reference Library is committed to enabling these. And the ability to unveil some of the many hidden book, image and other library treasures is no small reward as well. In fact, I see this revitalization as an opportunity to go beyond the Ontario Governments commitment to Lifelong Learning to a broader Lifelong Living Well. On that basis one cannot help but wish the revitalization project well.

A New Green History of The World by Clive Ponting - Penguin Books June 2007, $19USThe first edition of this book was published in 1991, and 16 years later the author returns to the theme of human occupation of the planet. with even greater scientific insights at his disposal. The reading is literally geographic - spanning the globe and look at major trends in population, land use, and mineral resource throughout the World and over the 50,000 years that has seen the rise of the human species.

I should amend my statement above and say that Clive Ponting, like many scholars before including Malthus, really devotes many charts and figures and a good deal of his analysis on the World’ population and how it has been sustained at various levels for the past 50,000 years. Clive’s first chart on page 37 tells the book’s story. It is a chart of the World’s population from 10,000BC to 1AD when agricultural was just beginning to emerge (and the World’s population could be estimated with some degree of accuracy). For 6000 years the World’s population hovers at about 5-7 million. Then as city states arise with the full emergence of agricultural societies around 4000BC, the World’s population takes off . It rises to 100 million by 1AD. Rome itself the center of the Roman Empire reached its maximum population of just over 1 million around this time.

2000 years later and on page 412 in the book, Clive lists the following facts about the 20th century (1900 to 2000):
World population increases by a factor of 3.8 despite two World Wars
World urban population increases by a factor of 12.8
World industrial output increases by a factor of 35
World energy use increases by a factor of 12.5
World oil production increases by a factor of 300
World water use increase by a factor of 9
World irrigated areas increase by a factor of 6.8
World fertilizer use increases by a factor of 342
World fish catch increases by a factor of 65
World organic chemical production increases by a factor of 1000
World carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases by 32%
And with these two statistical bookends, Clive tells a very compelling story of how Earth and humanity have stayed static and grown by a factor 70 respectively in two thousand years - and that is the limits to growth conundrum. So we have the geographic and economic history of the world and its environment - like whiskey taken straight. This puts more hitory and flesh on the UN Report on Global Warming.

Having just completed a Dr.Arzt book on the Middle Ages in Europe, this book puts the historical events in population and geographic perspective. It is utterly fascinating. What is surprising is the semblance in many forms to Jared Diamonds books Collapse and Guns, Germs, Steel. Interestingly, Clive in his extensive bibliography does not make reference to either book. And he does not incorporate the Jared Diamond ideas on the role of disease and warfare in effecting world population and growth.

Likewise I was again surprised to not see any mention of the Meadows et alia book , Limits to Growth. And so the synthesis and conflict of ideas in History of the World is not quite as complete as I had hoped. Nonetheless, with this book be prepared to see World History in a way that the Durants and Gibbon could not imagine.

Try the following exercise at Barnes and Noble or Amazon - enter “Web Development” or “Web Design” in your search request for books. Click and you will get 100’s if not 1000’s of books recommendations - Web Creation for Dummies thru CSS Zen Garden to Learning Web Design. And many of the books will have 4 and 5 star reviews. But even among the better books there are a series of problems:
1)The Web continues to develop in technology and methods extremely rapidly. Microsoft turned off all browser development for 5-7 years and now its once dominant IE is constantly losing market share. Despite this impedance, Web technology has continued to percolate. Methods like ASP, JSP are being extended or supplanted by ASP.NET, JSF, and AJAX. But those technologies are being superseded by RIA etc. These are profound changes coming very fast. The net result is that top-rated books just 2-3 years old can have almost hopeless gaps.
2)The complexity of Web continues to increase as users now expect the same GUI experience and prompt response time they get on the desktop to be delivered online. And they want more convenience like customization, templates and plugins in their Facebook, Zoho and other online software. This means that such excellent books as Web Design in a Nutshell or The Design of sites can reach a thousand pages and still have major gaps and omissions on Web development. You almost have to 4-5 books to get a comprehensive picture of how to do Web development.
3)Security and hacking are becoming malignant on the Web because now organized crime is exploiting Web defects for all their “worth”. Web books, unfortunately following the Web industry’s cues, are just not prepared to discuss the trade-offs and tough decisions that have yet to be made in this arena. Just look at email and messaging security or the trade-offs in using AJAX and JavaScript for ease of use and greater performance but at the risk of some much greater security vulnerabilities.
4)The success of the Web is all about openness, equity and fairness - so called Net Neutrality and Open Standards adherence. Yet both of those are currently in jeopardy. Big corporates and governments are already in testing the move to IPV6 (huge increase in address space plus improved low level Web packet movement) adding capabilities that advantage big players. Likewise, Microsoft thwarted all Web standards for well nigh 7 years with barely a peep from the carefully Redmond coddled trade press. Book publishers fared no better - references to the Redmond tax of 20-40% more development time necessary to comply with the standards defective Microsoft IE browser, the dangers of proprietary Microsoft extensions and other non-open Web APIs are hopelessly buried and/or muted in countless Web books.

So this is a cautionary note - do not expect to find for a while yet - one book that is going to have all your Web Design or Development answers. True Google and especially Wikipedia are good starting points for online resources. And our website is packed with references and links for every major topic area, but inherently the Web is fractionated, diverse, many overlapped and sometimes contradictory conversations, blogs, tips and opinions. Despite O’Reilly and others’ epic tries, there is still not an adequate Web Bible.