MIT Hacks Through the Years

PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror

"Massive misinformation" from Arab news networks such as Al-Jazeera is hampering the US effort in Iraq, Rumsfeld told the troops during his Christmas Eve visit to Mosul: "Everything we do here is harder because of television stations like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiyah." In remarks that were not quoted in the American press, the defense secretary went on to tell the troops, "We don't go out and hire journalists and propagandize and lie and put people on payroll so that they'll say what you want. We just don't do that and they do and that's happening" (which is itself meta-misinformation.) Meanwhile, the Pentagon's multimillion-dollar solution -- the CIA-funded Iraqi news network, Al-Iraqiya (featuring "Iraqi programs that make you laugh, cry, and learn") -- has become "an irrelevant mouthpiece for [coalition] propaganda" according to one of its own former correspondents, veteran news reporter Don North. [from MetaFilter.com]

AARP Against Bush Plans for Social Security

There’s nothing wrong with Social Security that a few changes can’t fix
After 65 years Social Security is, like America, facing the challenges of aging. Fewer workers will be paying into the system to support those who receive benefits. By 2040 there will be just two workers for each retiree, compared with more than three today, seriously affecting the solvency of the system. But just how dire is the financial picture? Will Social Security be there for our grandchildren?
Designed to provide a basic income for retirees and their families, Social Security has done remarkably well in achieving that goal and is considered the most successful government program in the nation’s history.

Russia to Launch Satellite to Communicate With Aliens

Russian satellite experts have developed new panels that will allow people to send messages into space where they can be intercepted by interstellar civilizations. The new generation satellite, Glonass-M, is set to be launched on Dec. 25, with six initial information panels.
Russians will be able to send their space ads for free, but the company will determine which ones they accept.
The Krasnoyarsk satellite company that created the new panels said they had come up with the new way to make use of satellites — apart from their primary function, “satellites can be used as interstellar postmen,” the Itar-Tass news agency reported.
The satellite will orbit at distance of 20,000 kilometers and can theoretically remain in space forever. Information in the form of drawings or script can be placed on special aluminum sheets with an area of 12cm x 26cm.

Military Lab Proposed Gay-Aphrodisiac Chemical Weapon

Thanks to a FOIA request from the Sunshine Project, a fascinating document has now come to light. In June 1994, the US Air Force Wright Laboratory wrote a proposal titled "Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals." While listing the categories of chemical weapons they planned to develop, the military scientists wrote:
Chemicals that effect [sic] human behavior so that discipline and morale in enemy units is adversely effected [sic]. One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior.
The Air Force Lab was quite serious about the proposal, listing a timetable and estimate of expenses for the overall project.
Total cost through fiscal year 2000: $7.5 million
Having enemy soldiers throw down their guns and start humping each other: Priceless
The document is here [PDF format]
Other documents about the US "non-lethal" weapons program are here

Federal Court Rules Minnesota Can't Regulate VoIP Internet Calls

A Minnesota agency may not regulate calls through cyberspace as it does calls through traditional phone lines, a federal appeals court ruled.
The Tuesday order by the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis upholds a lower-court ruling and is a win for fledgling companies like Vonage Holdings Corp. of Edison, N.J., which provides Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission had argued that VoIP companies were providing phone-like service and therefore should be regulated as phone companies are. But those businesses said they provide an information service rather than a telecommunications service.
VoIP converts the sound of a voice into packets of data, sends them across the Internet, and reassembles them into sound on the other end of a call.

US Businesses Overseas Threatened by Rising Anti-Americanism

The Bush administration's foreign policy may be costing U.S. corporations business overseas--according to a new survey of 8,000 international consumers released this week by the Seattle-based Global Market Insite (GMI) Inc.
Brands closely identified with the U.S., such as Marlboro cigarettes, America Online (AOL), McDonald's, American Airlines, and Exxon-Mobil are particularly at risk. GMI, an independent market research company, conducted the survey in eight countries December 10-12 with consumers over the internet.
One third of all consumers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom said that U.S. foreign policy, particularly the "war on terror" and the occupation of Iraq, constituted their strongest impression of the United States.

Uncensored Restoration of Battleship Potemkin Premieres

A newly reconstructed version of the 1925 Soviet film Battleship Potemkin will premiere at Berlin Film Festival.
The film, by Sergei Eisenstein, dramatised a mutiny on the Russian ship showing how it inspired a failed 1905 uprising against the country's czars.
It now includes Russian graphics and words from revolutionary Leon Trotsky, which were censored in the 1920s.
The festival, which is showing the film next year, said no complete print of the original movie survived.

AIDS Action Befriends Bush

"It's mind-boggling: Marsha Martin, the executive director of AIDS Action - the AIDS community's largest, most visible, and wealthiest Washington lobby, with a multi-million dollar budget - has jumped into bed with the Bush-Rove Republicans with both feet," political journalist Doug Ireland writes on his blog Direland. "In a perfectly scandalous act of betrayal of the AIDS community, Martin is one of a small committee sponsoring a pricey celebration of Bush's November victory, and that of the Republicans in Congress. And guess who gets the money from this orgy of felicitations to the GOP? A front group for Big Pharma that crusades against giving cheap, generic AIDS-fighting meds to the world's poorest victims of the AIDS pandemic." The event is a benefit for the Aids Responsibility Project, which counts as "partners" the giant trade association Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), Daimler Chrysler, drug maker Pfizer, U.S. Agency for International Development and the free-market website Tech Central Station.

Arthur Schopenhauer: The Art Of Controversy

If you find that you are being worsted, you can make a diversion - that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute, and afforded an argument against your opponent. This may be done without presumption if the diversion has, in fact, some general bearing on the matter; but it is a piece of impudence if it has nothing to do with the case, and is only brought in by way of attacking your opponent.

Navy SEALs Sue Associated Press Over Iraq Photos

Six Navy SEAL special operations commandos and the wives of two of them sued The Associated Press and one of its reporters on Tuesday for publishing photos taken from a Web site that appeared to show the SEALs abusing prisoners in Iraq.
The suit, filed in San Diego Superior Court, said the pictures did not depict abuse and instead put the lives of the soldiers at risk by exposing their faces to the world.
"We haven't been served yet, so we haven't seen the complaint," said Associated Press attorney Dave Tomlin, who is representing the news agency and reporter Seth Hettena. "But we believe AP's use of the photos and the manner in which they were obtained were entirely lawful and proper."
The plaintiffs are identified only as "Six Navy SEALs and Two Jane Does," and the suit indicates they have been allowed to file anonymously by court order.

Agencies Clash on Fingerprint Database

Despite some improvement, the Justice, State and Homeland Security departments are at an impasse over such basic issues as whether two or 10 fingers should be printed at U.S. borders and which law enforcement agencies should have access to immigration information.
"Progress toward the longer-term goal of making all biometric fingerprint systems fully interoperable has stalled," Fine's report concluded.

Images of the Dec. 26th Tsunami

Video 1 2 3
Visualizations 1 2

Devastating quake redraws map
Sunday's destruction was unleashed by a 'megathrust' - a huge, sudden juddering movement beneath the ocean floor. Here, a buildup of pressure caused the Indian Ocean floor to lurch some 15 metres towards Indonesia, burrowing under its tectonic plate and triggering the ferocious swells that smashed the surrounding shores.The movement is likely to have altered the geography of neighbouring islands such as Simeulue, the Nicobar and Andaman islands, and Sumatra itself, says Bill McGuire, a geophysicist at University College London, UK. "In terms of the specific position of Sumatra on the planet, it will have moved," he says. "Things have shifted literally within minutes."

Michigan Now Open for New Jersey's Trash

Wayne County, already the dumping ground for all of Toronto's trash, is fast becoming the destination for New Jersey's construction waste, too.
To the ire of local and state officials, Canadian National Railway Co. this month began shipping as much as 1,000 tons of demolition debris -- broken walls, gnarled metal and the like -- 600 miles every day from the Garden State to Rockwood, a one stoplight community of 3,400 residents that hugs the border of Monroe County.
"Everyone is just disgusted," said Rockwood resident Dieter Schulz, a landlord. "It's terrible. Why is Michigan the dumping ground for everyone?"
The garbage flap began with rumors, remains stoked with mystery, but is almost certain to end in court. Along the way, the private deal could reshape Michigan's decade-long fight against out-of-state waste.

Steve Perry Adventures

Welcome to the Perry-Tales fan fiction site of make believe. This site is dedicated to the greatest voice in music, Steve Perry. If you are offended by fan fiction, any characterization of Steve or role playing, then this site is NOT for you. To the others, join us in this new Journey, and we shall gather under the banner of Perry-Tales! Enter all who desire something new and different.

Certain Things Have Come to My Attention

It has further come to my attention that the specter of my botched appearance before the Senate will end my political career, and may very well personally destroy me.
These revelations have shocked and bewildered me. How could I have done these things? How could I have remained unaware of them?
Are there two of me? Do I have an evil twin? Multiple personalities? A degenerative brain disease? Perhaps I'm psychotic?
Another equally troubling question is this: How could someone of my fundamental incapacity have come so close to heading the department of the United States government charged with protecting our country from acts of terrorism? Is anyone else horrified by this? Is anyone besides me even slightly bothered?
[thanks to Rod]

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed [oh and, also see :] [from MetaFilter.com]
Diamond teaches geography at U.C.L.A. and is well known for his best-seller “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” which won a Pulitzer Prize. In “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” Diamond looked at environmental and structural factors to explain why Western societies came to dominate the world. In “Collapse,” he continues that approach, only this time he looks at history’s losers—like the Easter Islanders, the Anasazi of the American Southwest, the Mayans, and the modern-day Rwandans. We live in an era preoccupied with the way that ideology and culture and politics and economics help shape the course of history. But Diamond isn’t particularly interested in any of those things—or, at least, he’s interested in them only insofar as they bear on what to him is the far more important question, which is a society’s relationship to its climate and geography and resources and neighbors. “Collapse” is a book about the most prosaic elements of the earth’s ecosystem—soil, trees, and water—because societies fail, in Diamond’s view, when they mismanage those environmental factors.

Recovered: Complete Fox News Series on Israeli Spying in US

Fox News' surprising and crucial December 2001 series on Israeli spy operations in the US was yanked off the Web soon after it triggered howls of rage from Israel and its supporters.
The transcripts of all four segments and the video of two segments have been widely mirrored on the Web since the story aired, but the first two video segments were thought lost until now. The entire series - video and text - is now available at the Information Clearing House:
Carl Cameron Investigates: Israel Is Spying In And On The U.S.?

Satan Worshipper, Witch Testing Religious Liberty

A religious liberties lawsuit brought by a Satan worshipper, a Wiccan witch, a white supremacist, and an adherent of an ancient Viking religion is drawing the impassioned support of major national religious groups as it approaches a hearing before the Supreme Court.
The case is potentially the most important religious liberties case on this year's docket, impacting how far a state can go to accommodate the religious practices of its citizens and whether Congress can require states to be more accommodating.
The case was filed by a group of Ohio inmates - Jon Cutter, J. Lee Hampton, John Gerhardt, John Miller, and Daryl Blankenship - who are demanding access to religious books, medallions, and costumes, as well as the right to worship in groups while in custody.
Ohio prison officials have dismissed their religious claims as a cover for gang activities, noting as an example that one of the plaintiffs belongs to a church that has been linked to the Ku Klux Klan. Their lawyer countered that they are sincere: Mr. Blankenship, who practices a polytheistic Nordic religion called Asatru, fasted for weeks in protest of prison rules and was hospitalized.

Russia develops new nuclear missile systems, Putin states

Putin, speaking to armed forces chiefs, said although international terrorism was one of Russia's main security threats the country had also to keep its nuclear defenses in sound condition.
"We know that we have only to weaken our attention to such components of our defenses as the nuclear-missile shield, and new threats to us could appear," Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying. He said research and successful testing of new nuclear-missile systems technology was being conducted, informs Reuters.

LAPD Using New Facial-Recognition Technology

"It's like a mobile electronic mug book," said Capt. Charles Beck of the gang-heavy Rampart Division, which has been using the software. "It's not a silver bullet, but we wouldn't use it unless it helped us make arrests."
But Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the technology was unproven and could encourage profiling on the basis of race or clothing.
"This is creeping Big Brotherism," Ripston said. "There is a long history of government misusing information it gathers."

Creative Commons for Sciences to Launch Jan 1st

Numerous scientists have pointed out the irony that, at the historical moment when we have the technologies to permit worldwide availability and distributed processing of scientific data, legal restrictions on transfer make it harder to connect the dots. Learned societies including the National Academies of Sciences, federal granting agencies such as the National Science Foundation, and other groups have all expressed concern about the trends that are developing. Any solution will be need to be as complex as the problem it seeks to solve, which is to say it will be interdisciplinary, multinational, and involve both public and private initiatives.
Enter Science Commons
Science Commons is an exploratory project to apply the philosophies and activities of Creative Commons in the realm of science.
...Here Science Commons continues the traditional Creative Commons role as public interest lawyer. Existing Creative Commons licenses have immediate relevance in the field of scientific publishing. We cite as an example the Public Library of Science (PLoS) which has agreed to adopt CC attribution license as its standard license - enabling anyone to make and distribute translations, as long as they give credit to the original authors.

Mainstream Media Buffeted In 2004 By Right And Left

We have asked a number of media experts and critics to make sense of events and to reflect on what they believe has been the year's biggest media story - the one that will have the most lasting effect on the business.None of the answers we got were precisely the same, though most point to a continuing crisis within the traditional media and concern about where it all will lead. Here's what they had to say:

Jeffrey Dvorkin, ombudsman, National Public Radio
"The most important change, in my opinion, was the increasingly defensive posture that most journalistic organizations have assumed in order to avoid any charge of media bias. As a result of the stridency of talk radio, cable TV shows, media watchdogs and bloggers, mainstream media has sought to avoid controversy, even when it goes against their own journalistic values."

...Geneva Overholser, the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in public affairs reporting, Missouri School of Journalism, Washington bureau
"This was the year when it finally became unmistakably clear that objectivity has outlived its usefulness as an ethical touchstone for journalism. The way it is currently construed, "objectivity" makes the media easily manipulable by an executive branch intent on and adept at controlling the message. It produces a rigid orthodoxy, excluding voices beyond the narrowly conventional."
And it leads to a false balance of `on the one hand, on the other hand' stories that make the two `hands' appear equal even when factual weight lies 98 percent on one side. Objectivity's most effective use today is as a cudgel in the hands of those who wish to beat up on the media."

Steve Lovelady, managing editor of Campaigndesk.org, and former newspaper and magazine editor
"I think the most important media story of the year was the way in which the press was so easily manipulated by spin machines all the way through the election campaign, partly thanks to the fact that it was hopelessly hobbled by some of its own outdated conventions and frameworks. And that, in turn, is related to its embarrassing performance in 2003 on weapons of mass destruction and on the question of an Iraqi tie to 9/11."
[It is also related to] its inability to be as nimble or fast on its feet as some blogs, and to continuing media consolidation, which invariably leaves editors with less staff and less space to make sense of the world for their readers. In some fairly scary ways, it all dovetails together."

ABC's Glib and Misleading Coverage of the Recount

Ohio Official Refuses Interview Over Vote

Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has requested a protective order to prevent him from being interviewed as part of an unusual court challenge of the presidential vote.
Blackwell, in a court filing, says he's not required to be interviewed by lawyers as a high-ranking public official, and accused the voters challenging the results of "frivolous conduct" and abusive and unnecessary requests of elections officials around the state.

Networks Refuse to Release Exit Poll Data

Conyers wrote to Warren Mitofsky, who owns the exit poll data, asking for the complete raw data, without the "real" numbers mixed in. Mitofsky balked, saying that the TV Networks actually own it and he was not able to release it without their permission. Conyers then took his inquiry to the leaders of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox.
And they promptly laid an egg. Through a spokesperson who spoke on behalf of all the media companies together, they said they are still analyzing the data and don't want to release it until they're done.

Kerry Files Motion to Protect Ohio Vote Evidence

This afternoon, an attorney representing the Kerry/Edwards presidential campaign filed two important motions to preserve and augment evidence of alleged election fraud in the November election. The motions were filed in the matter titled Yost et al. v. Delaware County Board of Elections and J. Kenneth Blackwell (Civil Action No. C2-04-1139) with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. The document is titled "Motion Of Intervenor-Defendant Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc. For A Preservation Order And For A Leave To Take Limited Expedited Discovery." The purpose of the motions is twofold: A) To preserve all ballots and voting machines pertaining to the Yost matter for investigation and analysis; and B) To make available for sworn deposition testimony a technician for Triad Systems, the company that produced and maintained many of the voting machines used in the Ohio election. The technician has been accused of tampering with the recount process in Hocking County, Ohio, though other counties are believed to have also been involved. Any officers of Triad Systems who have information pertaining to said tampering are likewise subject to subpoena for sworn deposition testimony.

Video Supporting Ohio Vote Fraud Claim Revealed

The revelation of this video has motivated Rep. John Conyers, ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, to post a letter to Brett Rapp, President of Triad Systems. In the letter, Conyers states:
"I have just reviewed a tape prepared by the documentarian Lynda Byrket of the hearing held by the Hocking County Board of Elections on December 20, and based on that tape I have more questions and concerns than ever about the conduct of your firm in connection with the Ohio presidential election and recount. In particular, I am concerned that your company has operated - either intentionally or negligently - in a manner which will thwart the recount law in Ohio by preventing validly cast ballots in the presidential election from being counted."

Questions over David Kelly's Death

Dr David Kelly is the first British citizen whose sudden, unexpected and violent death has been denied an inquest. Three weeks after Dr Kelly's body was found, Lord Falconer ordered that the inquest into his death be adjourned indefinitely and subsumed into a public inquiry by invoking section 17a of the Coroner's Act 1988.
The section is designed to avoid duplication of inquiry in cases of multiple deaths where the cause of death can, to some extent, be assumed from the outset. But Dr Kelly's was a solitary death coming amid a political storm concerning doubts over the government's case for war with Iraq, and its cause required rigorous investigation. The Hutton inquiry had no power to call a jury, subpoena witnesses or cross-examine them under oath.

Iceland tells U.S. to butt out; Fischer still welcome

Iceland has rejected a U.S. request to drop the offer of a residency permit for former American chess champion Bobby Fischer, officials said Tuesday.
The U.S. ambassador to Iceland, James Gadsden, asked the country last week to withdraw its offer because Fischer is wanted in the United States on criminal charges.
Fischer, who is being held in Japan, is wanted in the United States on charges of violating U.N. sanctions against Yugoslavia when he played a chess match there in 1992.
But on Monday, Foreign Secretary David Oddsson invited Gadsden to a meeting and told the U.S. ambassador that the Icelandic government stood by its offer, Icelandic officials said.

Evidence of Fraud and Disenfranchisement in Ohio: A Partial List

This post is intended as a resource tool for those doing factual research on Ohio election 2004 (a) fraud, (b) disenfranchisment, (c) voter suppression, (d) recount obstruction, and (e) vote machine tampering. It makes no pretense at comprehensiveness, but is merely an attempt to compile links which have been posted on this site which are primary sources of evidence, or which summarize, analyze, or point to, such sources. They are listed in reverse chronological order of posting. The permanent link to this post is

In Ohio, almost 1 in 50 votes for president don't count

Nearly 97,000 ballots, or 1.7 percent of those cast across the state, either did not record a preference for president or could not be counted because the voter selected more than one presidential candidate.
An analysis by Scripps Howard News Service found that Ohio recorded the second-highest number of missing votes in the country, behind California. Elections experts say a large number of missing votes in a high-profile race like president should raise a red flag that something may be amiss.

State Department Bans Arabic TV Network in US

"It's not a question of freedom of speech," State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said. "It's a question of incitement of violence. We don't see why, here or anywhere else, a terrorist organization should be allowed to spread its hatred and incitement through the television airwaves."
...The U.S. action had the effect of banning al-Manar in the United States, where its programming had been beamed via GlobeCast, a company that sells access to foreign television programs by satellite. "As of Friday last week, that channel is no longer on the satellite," GlobeCast spokesman Robert Marking said.
Some Arabic-speaking Americans expressed frustration with the State Department's action. Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, a newspaper in Dearborn, Mich., said al-Manar is popular in this country in part because of its strong support for "resistance against Israeli occupation."
"I disagree with the State Department that it incites violence," he said. "By that standard, they should shut Fox News for inciting violence against Muslims."

Berkeley Student Co-op Behaving Very Badly

More than a score of neighbors are suing an "Animal House" near the University of California, Berkeley, campus where over the years students have hurled chunks of roasted pig at passersby during a luau, beheaded a chicken with garden shears and twirled a flaming baton next to a neighbor's fence.The off-campus cluster of houses called Le Chateau has developed a reputation for outrageousness that has forced even the open-minded to demand closure to the situation. One former Chateauvian, as they're called, was dubbed "Naked Guy" because he went to class wearing only shoes and a small hat.On Monday, a small-claims court judge concluded hearing testimony from 21 neighbors, each of whom seeks $5,000, from the student housing cooperative association that owns Le Chateau. A date for the ruling was not announced. [thanks to Michael B.]

New coal plants bury 'Kyoto'

New greenhouse-gas emissions from China, India, and the US will swamp cuts from the Kyoto treaty.
The official treaty to curb greenhouse-gas emissions hasn't gone into effect yet and already three countries are planning to build nearly 850 new coal-fired plants, which would pump up to five times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce.
The magnitude of that imbalance is staggering. Environmentalists have long called the treaty a symbolic rather than practical victory in the fight against global warming. But even many of them do not appear aware of the coming tidal wave of greenhouse-gas emissions by nations not under Kyoto restrictions.

Scientific American's Top Science Stories of the Year

Mars Exploration
Researchers Unveil New Form of Matter
Cloned Human Embryos Yield Stem Cells
Chemists Report New Superheavy Elements
Ancient Shells May be Earliest Jewels
Ringed Victory: Cassini Gets Up Close and Personal with Saturn

Ohio GOP Election Officials Ducking Subpoenas as Kerry Enters Stolen Vote Fray

Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell refused to appear at a deposition on Monday, December 27. The deposition was part of an election challenge lawsuit filed at the Ohio Supreme Court. Meanwhile John Kerry is reported to have filed a federal legal action aimed at preserving crucial recount evidence, which has been under GOP assault throughout the state.
Richard Conglianese, Ohio Assistant Attorney General, is seeking a court order to protect Blackwell from testifying under oath about how the election was run. Blackwell, who administered Ohio's November 2 balloting, served as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign.
James R. Dicks, Miami County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, filed a motion to block a subpoena in his county while Conglianese filed to block subpoenas in ten key Ohio counties.
President George Bush, Vice-President Richard Cheney and White House Political Advisor Karl Rove received notice that they will be deposed Tuesday and Wednesday, December 28 and 29. The trio’s Ohio attorney, Kurt Tunnell, so far claims his clients have not been properly served. Under Ohio law, the Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court is responsible for serving the three with subpoenas.

Davey & Goliath Resurrected

After a nearly 30-year hiatus, Davey Hansen and his faithful dog Goliath are back to teach values to a new generation of young people. The Lutheran church has revived the 1960s-era animated series for a holiday special, "Davey & Goliath's Snowboard Christmas." The special — with a theme of religious tolerance — debuted on the Hallmark Channel last week , and will be repeated at noon Sunday. If things go well, Goliath's exasperated "Oh, Davey" will be heard many times again when his master gets into trouble.

Google's 2004 Searches of the Year

1. britney spears
2. paris hilton
3. christina aguilera
4. pamela anderson
5. chat
6. games
7. carmen electra
8. orlando bloom
9. harry potter
10. mp3

Berkeley Property Lines Shifting with Earth

The land under Robert Mathews' house in the Berkeley hills has slid about 20 feet since the structure was built in 1916. But property lines do not move, which means that today half of his house seems to sit on his neighbor's land.
"I figure the property line runs right through the middle of the front doorway,'' he said.
Three major landslides in Berkeley and neighboring Kensington are creating a dilemma for residents who, like Mathews, live in the well-populated neighborhoods.

Alabama Judge Wears Ten Commandments on Robe

A judge refused to delay a trial Tuesday when an attorney objected to his wearing a judicial robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered on the front in gold.
Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan showed up Monday at his Covington County courtroom in southern Alabama wearing the robe. Attorneys who try cases at the courthouse said they had not seen him wearing it before. The commandments were described as being big enough to read by anyone near the judge.

Rumsfeld says 9-11 plane 'shot down' in Pennsylvania

Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000?
Here's what Rumsfeld said Friday: "I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be."
Several eyewitnesses to the crash claim they saw a "military-type" plane flying around United Airlines Flight 93 when the hijacked passenger jet crashed – prompting the once-unthinkable question of whether the U.S. military shot down the plane.

"How Walmart Is Destroying America And The World: And What You Can Do About It"

Available for pre-purchase, online, from Walmart.com. List price: $10.95. Wal*Mart price: $7.55. You saved $3.40. [from MetaFilter.com]

The World's Only Missile Silo Luxury Home with Runway

LOCATION
Exclusive airport subdivision nestled in upstate NY'S Adirondack State Park.
FEATURES
FAA/DOT approved private paved runway 20 acres of manicured ground, forest and trails (with additional 85 acres available), privacy, security and low taxes. Year-round activities.
ATLAS-F MISSILE SILO HOME FEATURES(above ground)
2000 sf home with open floor plan, large garage, kitchen, open pit fireplace and wrap around covered porch. Surface home acting as entrance to 20,000 plus sf secure underground facility.
LAUNCH CONTROL CENTER (LCC)
Contemporary finished interior 2 story structure, 40' diameter containing 2300 sf 3 bedroom, 2 bath luxury home.
SILO
Silo climate constant/approx. 58 degree earth ambient temperature. 52' diameter x 178' deep / 9 floor steel superstructure. Entire steel superstructure hangs from gigantic spring suspension system designed to absorb shock of a direct nuclear hit. Unlimited possibilities!
UTILITIES
New well / 200 amp electrical service / phone / original 1800 gallon functional septic. Contemporary fiber optic effect lighting along with natural sunlight rendition back lighting. High circulation venting (two 18" vent tubes), specifically designed to handle the demands of everyday living as well as those that may be posed in a crisis situation. (i.e. a nuclear or biochemical attack).

ASKING $2.3 MILLION - SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY!!!

"Collective Behavior"

The "Pollock-like" photographs of a massive starrling flock.

Zappa on Crossfire in 1986

During this culture war Chrismas, treat yourself to Frank Zappa as panelist on the subject of words and censorship.

Potential for Atomic Clock Wristwatches

The complete working clock would be sugar cube-sized and would run on just 73 milliwatts -- small enough for it to be incorporated into battery-powered handheld devices such as mobile phones.
The clocks currently used in most electronic devices are based on quartz oscillators, in which minute vibrating quartz crystals produce precise pulses. But their accuracy can be adversely affected by factors such as temperature.
By contrast, the atomic clock would be accurate to within a second every 300 years, making it more than 1,000 times more reliable than a very good wristwatch.

Dollar Signs on the Airwaves

The Bush administration is expected to press for speedier licensing of public airwaves for auction to private companies. But telecom regulators say wireless apps need unlicensed spectrum too.

Bill O'Reilly: 'Misinformer' of the Year and Only "Defender" of Christmas

Media Matters for America announced that it has awarded its first annual "Misinformer of the Year" title to Fox News Channel's O'Reilly -- who beat out Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Britt Hume and Bob Novak for "top honors."
"Our staff analyzed more than 1,000 instances of conservative misinformation captured on our website and tallied the number of times members of the media espoused lies, distortions, or mischaracterizations of fact in order to further the conservative agenda," said David Brock, founder of Media Matters for America.
"In the end, Mr. O'Reilly stood out from all the rest."
Also from http://mediamatters.org/:
Continuing to tout his struggle against the "media forces of darkness" who seek to eliminate Christmas from the public sphere, O'Reilly characterized the perceived fight on his December 20 show, saying "all I'm doing is sticking up for is the baby Jesus," and noting that -- as a result of criticism of the imagined battle -- "somewhere, Jesus is weeping." Read more »

Open Source News in Greensboro

The Greensboro News & Record is looking to make a "transformative, revolutionary change" by turning its Web site into "more of an online community or public square," inviting bloggers and the general public to add and comment throughout their website. Journalism professor and citizen journalism advocate Jay Rosen offers some advice and other observations. Record editor Lex Alexander wants more. "We want -- we NEED -- your input and help," he writes on his own blog. [from PRWatch.org]

Physicists suggest natural selection acts on the quantum world

If, as quantum mechanics says, observing the world tends to change it, how is it that we can agree on anything at all? Why doesn't each person leave a slightly different version of the world for the next person to find? Because, say the researchers, certain special states of a system are promoted above others by a quantum form of natural selection, which they call quantum darwinism. Information about these states proliferates and gets imprinted on the environment. So observers coming along and looking at the environment in order to get a picture of the world tend to see the same 'preferred' states.If it wasn't for quantum darwinism, the researchers suggest in Physical Review Letters1, the world would be very unpredictable: different people might see very different versions of it.

Nevada high court says ‘Son of Sam’ law is unconstitutional

A state law allowing victims of felonies to collect money from offenders who produce books, magazines or movies related to the crime is an unconstitutional violation of free speech, the Nevada Supreme Court has ruled.
In striking down the state’s “Son of Sam” law, the court said that author and convicted felon Jimmy Lerner has a legal right to write a book — and reap its profits — that included details about suffocating his friend during a 1997 fistfight and going to prison for the slaying.

Conyers hears election horror stories

The session was more than merely an opportunity for citizens to “vent” their frustrations. “We cannot vent and then have Congress not act. If these reports are not investigated, we have all wasted our time,” declared Rev. Jackson, himself a two-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. “This cannot simply be an academic venting session. Take this struggle to the streets and legitimize it there, as they did in Selma.”
Many witnesses pointed out that the entire election process may have been flawed in Ohio. Those flaws were outlined in a letter that Rep. Conyers and 11 other Democratic representatives sent earlier this month to Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
The letter, as well as testimony at the hearing in Washington, makes a convincing case for continuing the examination of the problems caused by Mr. Blackwell—who was also Chair of the Ohio Bush-Cheney 2004 election team—made of the voting in Ohio on Nov. 2.

Backfire: Turning Pickets Into Pledges

It's an ingenious idea. Create a no-win situation for anti-choice protesters — the more picketers who demonstrate outside a Planned Parenthood clinic, the more donations the Planned Parenthood clinic receives.
A number of Planned Parenthood affiliates have created different versions of this scenario. Here's how it works at Planned Parenthood of Central Texas (PPCT) in Waco, where the Pledge-a-Picket program is going strong: Each time a protester shows up at the clinic, a donation is made to PPCT. This campaign makes lemonade out of lemons by allowing Planned Parenthood supporters to pledge between 25 cents and one dollar per protester.

Priate Radio Calling for inauguration protests

CNN is reporting that a guerilla radio station is calling for massive protests of the inauguration of President George W. Bush. After some googling, I found a press release from WSQT on indymedia concerning the transmissions. It seems that they are somehow related to DAWNdc a local leftist activist organization. Here is how they are reacting to the sudden attention. [from MetaFilter.com]

When will Coca-Cola stop acting like Big Tobacco?

"Like Big Tobacco, Coca-Cola has the right to push their product. Like Big Tobacco, Coca-Cola knows of the health risks of their product, yet prefer silence to safeguarding children," writes John Borowski. After publishing an earlier article, Borowski was contacted by Coca-Cola's principal manager of scientific and regulatory affairs, who suggested the piece "misinformed" readers. "Soft drinks do not cause obesity, soft drinks do not cause osteoporosis and finally, there is no data to link soft drink consumption to diabetes," the Coca-Cola executive stated. After challenging those claims, Borowski writes, "May Coca-Cola executives wake up Christmas morning to find the gift of corporate integrity, ethical standards and moral fiber tucked neatly under their tree." [from PRWatch.org]

A Week of Inauguration Protests Planned

Inauguration week will feature rallies, marches and demonstrations with the focus on peaceful, family-friendly gatherings, said organizer Shahid Buttar. Hundreds of groups throughout the country will participate, Buttar said, including Mobilization for Global Justice and the Committee to ReDefeat the President, a PAC that sees Bush's presidency as illegitimately won.
The groups have received permits for parks around the city, Buttar said, but they are still waiting for clearance to march along the Inaugural Parade route. More details will be released once all permits have been secured, said David Lytel, founder of Redefeat Bush.

Evidence against Utility of Affirmative Action

[R]esearchers Stephen Cole and Elinor Barber found that racial preferences at Ivy League colleges had a large and negative effect on the academic aspirations of black students. The mechanism worked like this: Blacks admitted to elite schools with large preferences had more trouble competing with their classmates, and tended to get lower grades. Low grades, in turn, sapped the confidence of students, persuading them that they would not be able to compete effectively in PhD programs. As a result, blacks at Ivy League schools were only half as likely as blacks at state universities to stick with plans for an academic career.
Dartmouth psychologist Rogers Elliot and three co- authors found that the same problem was keeping blacks out of the sciences.
Black students who received preferential admissions were at such a strong academic disadvantage compared with their classmates that fully half of those interested in the sciences tended to switch to majors with easier grading and less competition.
Again, the net effect of preferential policies was to "mismatch" blacks with their academic environments. My research over the last two years, using recent data that track more than 30,000 law students and lawyers, has documented even more serious and pervasive mismatch effects in legal education.

Observers rule out computer tampering

Election officials watched Monday as a technician repeated a repair he had made to a vote tallying computer, then announced they had found no evidence of any sort of tampering, despite a congressman's request for an FBI probe.
Observers, including a Green Party representative who had sought a presidential recount, agreed the procedure did not alter the Election Day vote total in the county, Hocking County Prosecutor Larry Beal said.
"Everybody felt better," he said.

Bleary Days for Eyes on the Prize

Eyes on the Prize, the landmark documentary on the civil rights movement, is no longer broadcast or sold new in the United States. It's illegal.
The 14-part series highlights key events in black Americans' struggle for equality and is considered an essential resource by educators and historians, but the filmmakers no longer have clearance rights to much of the archival footage used in the documentary. It cannot be rebroadcast on PBS (where it originally aired) or any other channels, and cannot be released on DVD until the rights are cleared again and paid for.
...Securing clearance rights to archival footage is a growing problem for independent filmmakers -- and documentary filmmakers in particular. Filmmakers must pay for the rights to use every song, photograph or video clip included in the film. Since many documentary films are made with small budgets, filmmakers often can only afford to buy rights for a limited amount of time. That leaves many filmmakers essentially renting footage, and rendering their work unusable after a certain number of years unless they can find more funding to clear the rights again.
Eyes on the Prize is only one example of documentaries that are in limbo.

MACGYVER'S SHOPPING LIST FOR G.I.S

In every American platoon, it seems, there's a MacGyver or a B.A. Baracus -- someone who can make just about anything, out of just about nothing. How else can you explain U.S. soldiers' amazing ability to piece together scraps and leftovers, and turn 'em into everything from gun turrets to armored Humvees?
With that in mind, nonproliferation expert Russell Seitz has put together a soldiers' shopping list of (mostly) off-the-shelf items that American troops could put to good use, in a hurry.

Wal-Mart elected "Grinch of the Year" for 2004

The retailing giant Wal-Mart was named 'Grinch of the Year' in a national online poll held between December 6 and December 22 by Jobs with Justice.
Wal-Mart is a fitting recipient of the Grinch title. As the United States' largest retailer and largest employer, Wal-Mart is a driving force in setting wage standards wherever its stores are located. Despite nearly $9 billion in profits, its wages are so low that many employees are eligible for food stamps. Even so, local taxpayers often finance Wal-Mart's expansion through tax breaks and development incentives.
Wal-Mart has created such high barriers to qualify for its health care benefits, that many workers are left dependent on publicly financed medical services, a largely hidden taxpayer subsidy. According to a research study in California, Wal-Mart workers seek $86 million a year in state aid because of inadequate wages and benefits. In effect, Wal-mart cleverly shifts a portion of its labor costs to the public.

U.S. Cuts Contributions To World Food-aid Programs

With the budget deficit growing and President Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would only have money to pay for food in emergency crises like that in Darfur, in western Sudan. The cutbacks, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched.
As a result, Save Our Children, Catholic Relief Services and other charities have suspended or eliminated programs that were intended to help the poor feed themselves through improvements in farming, education and health.

Scared of Santa Photo Gallery

Nothing says Happy Holidays like a photo of sweet little toddlers screaming at Santa. The first 25 photos in this gallery are from the Chicago Tribune's "Scared of Santa" contest in 2003. All the rest of the photos were submitted by SouthFlorida.com readers this year. Enjoy!
First place: No one, not even the office Grinches, failed to laugh at this shot from Valerie Miller of Lansing, who captured now-22-year-old daughter Amie’s first glimpse of St. Nick--artfully rendered in plastic. It’s the first in a series that Miller says she torments Amie with every year. Now this is a mom who knows what Christmas is all about.
43 images [from KatieWeb.com]

9/11 Legislation Launches Misguided Data-Mining and Domestic Surveillance Schemes

~ Section 1016 - a.k.a. "TIA II" ~
A clause authorizing the creation of a massive "Information Sharing Environment" (ISE) to link "all appropriate Federal, State, local, and tribal entities, and the private sector."
This vast network links the information in public and private databases, which poses the same kind of threat to our privacy and freedom that the notorious Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program did. Yet the IRTPA contains no meaningful safeguards against unchecked data mining other than directing the President to issue guidelines. It also includes a definition of "terrorist information" that is frighteningly broad.

~ Section 4012 and Sections 7201-7220 - a.k.a. "CAPPS III" ~
A number of provisions that provide the statutory basis for "Secure Flight," the government's third try at a controversial passenger-screening system that has consistently failed to pass muster for protecting passenger privacy.
The basic concept: the government will force commercial air carriers to hand over your private travel information and compare it with a "consolidated and integrated terrorist watchlist." It will also establish a massive "counterterrorist travel intelligence" infrastructure that calls for travel data mining ("recognition of travel patterns, tactics, and behavior exhibited by terrorists").

Mobile-phone radiation damages lab DNA

The research does not provide definitive proof that equivalent radiation harms people who use mobile phones. But the researchers emphasize that more extensive studies to test this link should be done, and that, until then, phone users should be cautious.
Controversy has raged for years over whether the electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobile phones can trigger tumours or Alzheimer's disease, or can otherwise harm human health. But the evidence showing whether and how radiation damages cells, and so might cause disease, has been scant and contradictory.

More Background on the Mystery Spy Satellite Program

The National Security Archives last week posted an excerpt from Jeffrey Richelson's book The Wizards of Langley, which first described the MISTY program, and has now added some remarkable declassified documents obtained by Richelson which trace the historical roots of the stealth satellite concept as far back as 1963. [from Secrecy News]

*The 2004 Recount in Ohio: County Reports

Click the map or the menu at right to access the recount report for that county. The blue menus at right list which counties currently have reports available and for which counties reports are still pending. We are adding new reports daily as we receive them from our volunteer recount observers in the field.

Election "Irregularities"

Democrats' lawyer asks Blackwell for investigation of TRIAD tampering
Kerry-Edwards '04, 12/15
Congressman implicated in vote fraud
Seminole Chronicle [Oviedo, FL], 12/16
Recount continues in Ohio as vote machine company makes odd "service calls"
Associated Press, 12/16
According to a sworn statement from Sherole Eaton, the county's deputy director of elections, a TRIAD representative told her on Friday he wanted to inspect the county's tabulating machine. She said the employee then told her that ''the battery in the computer was dead and that the stored information was gone."''He proceeded to take the computer apart and call his office to get information to input into our computer," Eaton said.
Recount observer not allowed to inspect machines
The Advocate [Newark, OH], 12/16
Mary Lewin, the recount observer for Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik, wanted to inspect the voting machines as part of the recount, but her request was denied."They threatened to have me thrown out of the recount because I raised certain questions," Lewin said. "We felt we had a right to look at the machines. You can't look at the ballot in isolation of the ballot assembly."
Ohio Justice throws out election challenge
Associated Press, 12/16
Ohio election officials obstruct recount, say Greens
Press release, Green Party, 12/17
"Ohio election officials are violating both the spirit and the letter of the law governing the recount," said Cobb-LaMarche Media Director Blair Bobier.In two counties, Monroe and Fairfield, election officials have refused to do a full hand recount, as required under Ohio election law, when hand and machine tallies don't match. They instead have opted to get new machines to count the votes.In the vast majority of counties, election officials have pre-selected precincts to be sampled, rather than chosen them randomly, as required by law. In Cuyahoga County, the pre-selection of precincts eliminated those which reported the most problems on Election Day, thwarting the intent of the recount and raising serious concerns about the integrity of the process.
Kerry, Bush pick up votes in Ohio
Associated Press, 12/17
"Please, please, please, count all the votes"
The Plain Dealer [Cleveland], 12/17
Election challenge refiled by activists
Associated Press, 12/18
“Everyone felt better” after technician “repeated a repair”
Associated Press, 12/20
Election official “must have mis-heard” about patch installed on computer
Wired, 12/20
Votes ought to be counted
Editorial, The New York Times, 12/20
[compiled by UnknownNews.net]

Military has access to student records

The privacy form, which also includes other disclosure information, goes to all public school students across the state. Many schools have sent the form out; at others, it is making its way to homes this week.
The form has been sent out for years as part of routine DOE information gathering to be used in the release of such things as honors and awards.
But this is only the second year that it has included the notice of potential disclosure to the military.

At Guantanamo, a Prison Within a Prison

The buildings used by the CIA are shrouded by high fences covered with thick green mesh plastic and ringed with floodlights, officials said. They sit within the larger Camp Echo complex, which was erected to house the Defense Department's high-value detainees and those awaiting military trials on terrorism charges.
The facility has housed detainees from Pakistan, West Africa, Yemen and other countries under the strictest secrecy, the sources said. "People are constantly leaving and coming," said one U.S. official who visited the base in recent months. It is unclear whether the facility is still in operation today. The CIA and the Defense Department declined to comment.

Climate Change Denial: A Note to Journalists

A recent survey of peer-reviewed studies published in Science magazine found no respected research debunking human-related activities as a major cause of climate change.
“The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change” Science Magazine (Vol 306, Issue 5702, 1686 , 3 December 2004)
Even the Bush administration’s 2002 report on climate change made this point clear.
“Greenhouse gasses are accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing global mean surface air temperature and subsurface ocean temperature to rise”
US Climate Action Report (U.S. Department of State, May 2002)

The confusion in the public’s mind comes largely from a privately financed public relations campaign sponsored, at least in part, by petroleum interests.
The funding and intentions of this campaign became clear on May 28, 2003, when The New York Times broke the story. The paper discovered the following:
"Exxon now gives more than $1 million a year to such organizations, which include the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Frontiers of Freedom, the George C. Marshall Institute, the American Council for Capital Formation Center for Policy Research and the American Legislative Exchange Council."
"Exxon's publicly disclosed documents reveal that donations to many of these organizations increased by more than 50 percent from 2000 to 2002."
“Exxon Backs Groups That Question Global Warming” Jennifer Lee, New York Times, May 28, 2003
Much like the “scientists” hired by the tobacco industry to find that cigarette smoke had no connection with lung cancer, these groups represent a well-funded effort to confuse the public about the science, risks, and severity of climate change.

US Meat Plants Violating Mad Cow Rules-Inspectors

U.S. meat plants are allowing brains and spinal cord from older cattle to enter the food supply, violating strict government regulations aimed at preventing the spread of mad cow disease, a federal meat inspectors union said on Monday.
Nearly a year after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, meat plants have yet to implement measures required by the U.S. Agriculture Department to protect consumers, said the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals.
"We are seeing little to no change at these plants," said Stan Painter, the union's chairman.

Medicated Humans Setting Off Radiation Detectors

Cat litter, granite and truckloads of porcelain toilets headed for Home Depot and Lowes are setting off radiation alarms. And they're not remotely as "hot" as the humans.
With the explosion of nuclear medicine, physicians are giving radioactive drugs to people an estimated 20 million times a year. For a few days to several weeks those people are emitting gamma rays, beta particles or X-rays that can radiate beyond the walls of cars, buses and subway trains to reach the attention of anti-terror authorities.

Vote for Grinch of the Year

You can read below about why these are the nominees for the Grinch who did the most harm to working families this year. Find out more about the results of last year's election here.
Wal-Mart
ComCast
Angelica
Continental General Tire
Cintas

US threatens UN agency funds over report

The lead writer of a U.N. report on freedom and governance in the Arab world said on Saturday the United States was threatening to cut off funds to a U.N. agency if the United Nations releases it.
Nader Fergani, the Egyptian social scientist who has worked on the last three Arab Human Development Reports, told Reuters defying the United States could cost the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) about $100 million a year.
U.S. officials have denied trying to delay or suppress the report, which was originally due to come out in October. But U.N. officials said parts are being rewritten after the United States and some Arab governments asked for changes.
Fergani said the United States had already penalised UNDP by $12 million because it did not like the previous report.

Saudi Arabia to Join Kyoto Protocol

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, on Monday approved the Kyoto protocol on climate change, the offial SPA agency reported.
The cabinet took the decision and "a royal decree has been prepared to this effect," the agency said.
The United States and Australia are the only two main industrialised nations not to have signed the treaty which seeks to control greenhouse gas emissions thought to be responsible for global warming, due to come into force in February.

Pennsylvania Parents File First-Ever Challenge to “Intelligent Design” Instruction in Public School

"Teaching students about religion’s role in world history and culture is proper, but disguising a particular religious belief as science is not," said ACLU of Pennsylvania Legal Director Witold Walczak. "Intelligent design is a Trojan Horse for bringing religious creationism back into public school science classes."

*Evidence of Bush Directly Authorizing Torture

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

Auditors Say That Government's Records Are So Inadequate They Cannot Be Evaluated, but Bush Official Cites Progress

The U.S. government's financial record-keeping is so inadequate that congressional auditors said last week that they could not determine whether the federal books meet generally accepted accounting principles.
It was the eighth fiscal year in a row that the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, was unable to provide a definitive opinion on the quality of the federal government's consolidated financial statements.

Google plugs desktop search hole

They managed to trick the Google desktop search program into inserting those results into other web pages where an attacker could read them. This would only work after a user had visited an attacker's website, upon which a Java program (as created by the Rice group) would be able to fool the Google desktop software into providing the user's search information. The program was able to do anything with the results, including transmitting them back to the attacking site.
...According to a statement from the web search company on Monday, it has rolled out a fix for the vulnerability that a US computer scientist and two of his students found in the tool in late November.

ISP wins $1 billion in spam suit

Robert Kramer, who owns CIS Internet Services, sued 300 spammers after his servers received up to 10 million spam e-mails a day in 2000, according to court documents.
"It's definitely a victory for all of us that open up our e-mail and find lewd and malicious and fraudulent e-mail in our boxes every day," Kramer told the Quad-City Times in Davenport.

Anti-Gay Activists Target Gay Employees

I received this same email from Alan Keyes and Larry Klayman. -McLir

The email includes:
"What I'm talking about is that homosexuals who work for American companies, in increasing numbers, are demanding and getting the same benefits for their "partners" as a legally-married husband and wife.
In fact, a homosexual 'partner' can move in on Sunday and begin getting benefits on Monday! And these FREE benefits include free healthcare, bereavement and family leave benefits, free life insurance, the use of fitness facilities, AND sick leave. And to be "fair," these companies sometimes (not always!) extend the same benefits to live-in boyfriends and girlfriends of heterosexuals, too.
BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, MY FRIEND, IT WAS -- AND IS -- THE RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS WHO HAVE PUSHED FOR THESE POLICIES.
Of course, ANY kind of 'equal' treatment for non-married couples sends the message that 'Marriage is no big deal,' and 'Our company sees no value in marriage!'"
So you might think it was just a handful of companies that would act this way.
But NO -- I'm talking about companies YOU deal with all the time! Companies like:
American Express, Procter and Gamble, Bank of America, Barnes & Noble, the stock broker Charles Schwab, Coca-Cola, Compaq Computers, Kodak, Ford Motor Co., JP Morgan Chase, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Levi Strauss & Co., Microsoft, Qwest Communications, Shell Oil Co., Starbucks, The Gap, Inc., Time Warner Co., and Verizon Communications."

Frontline: Secret History of the Credit Card

Even if you make your credit card payments on time, the credit card bank can raise your interest rate automatically if you're late on payments elsewhere -- such as on another credit card or on a phone, car, or house payment -- or simply because the bank feels you have taken on too much debt.
This practice is called the "universal default" clause and increasingly is becoming a standard clause in credit card agreements. According to credit card executives, the logic behind universal default is that the bank is not being unreasonable in raising rates when it has reason to believe that the risk of being repaid by the customer has increased. [Note: Credit card banks can now easily track your everyday financial activities and monitor your credit score -- see below.]

There is no limit on the amount a credit card company can charge a cardholder for being even an hour late with a payment.
In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court in Smiley vs. Citibank lifted the existing restrictions on late penalty fees. Back then, fees ran to $5 or $10, and usually did not exceed $15. After the Court's decision, fees soared, reaching upwards of $30. Since then, the amount of revenue the companies generate from fees (including late charges, over-the-limit fees, and charges for returned checks) has doubled. Duncan MacDonald, one of the lawyers who worked on the Smiley case, predicts penalty fees could rise to $50 in another year.
[much more at Frontline site]

The Diebold Variations

*American Torture

"Request for guidance regarding the OGC's EC regarding detainee abuse, referring to 'interrogation techniques made lawful' by the 'President's Executive Order.'" comes from Records Released in Response to Torture FOIA Request.
Smoking Gun ? asks the ACLU--or just another stepping stone from Torture's Path ? As Ex-Military Lawyers Object to Bush Cabinet Nominee, and in Torture begins at the top, Joe Conason suggests that a recently disclosed FBI memo indicates that "marching orders" to abandon traditional interrogation methods came from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld himself and all the while Guantánamo torture and humiliation still going on, says shackled Briton.
According to some, Moral values apply to torture, too, and Christians must oppose torture. Meanwhile, the ACLU reports U.S. Marines Engaged in Mock Executions of Iraqi Juveniles and Other Forms of Abuse and Special Ops Task Force Threatened Government Agents Who Saw Detainee Abuse in Iraq. And as Torture and terrorism suggests, even the Religious News Service is beginning to squirm: "There is no indication among top Bush administration officials, including the president himself, that there are either suitable feelings of guilt or a willingness to assume responsibility for the acts..." [from MetaFilter.com]

What is The Hum?

Some residents of Taos, New Mexico suffer from it, and it seems to happen elsewhere, too. Listen to it here and here (.wav files, and not actually very dramatic). No one knows quite what the hum is, and even refutations don't really work. There are some "scientific" explanations, but The Hum Remains mysterious and sinister. [from MetaFilter.com]

Technically speaking, is it a `fetus' or is it an `unborn child'?

The Washington Post, in its Sunday story on the Peterson verdict, used the term "unborn child." The New York Times used both "unborn child" and "fetus." The Associated Press referred at one point to "the son she [Laci Peterson] was carrying" and in another to the "fetus." The Tribune was consistent in using "fetus."
Randy Weissman, deputy managing editor/operations, noted that that was consistent with the guideline in the Tribune's current stylebook.
However, a new edition of the stylebook, scheduled for publication shortly, will permit the use of "unborn child" when the fetus is in the third trimester of gestation.

Bill Moyers bids farewell to television

Although Moyers is nominally retiring -- he and his wife of 50 years, Judith Davidson Moyers, will continue to produce documentaries -- it is doubtful he will go silent. A day after the telephone interview from his Manhattan production studio, he sent a draft by e-mail of his final remarks on "Now." In the note that accompanied the draft, Moyers continued to circle like a warplane, pumping round after round into its intended targets.
"I learned the hard way an old lesson that the greatest moments in the history of the press came not when journalists made common cause with the state but when they stood fearlessly independent of it," he said. "Now we have those megamedia companies that won't speak truth to power and an ideological media that willingly lies for power. Scary!"

Ohio election-fraud case rejected over unusual technicality

[T]he 40 voters who brought the case likely will be able to refile the challenge.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer ruled that the request improperly challenged two separate election results. Ohio law allows only one race to be challenged in a single complaint, he said.
...The challenge before Moyer included the results of the presidential race and of Moyer's race against a Cleveland municipal judge.

Canada Consider Sharia Law in Family Disputes

“The Arbitration Act should continue to allow disputes to be arbitrated using religious law,” Ms. Boyd recommends in her report to the Ontario government.
She was appointed to study the issue after the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice requested the right to offer religious-based arbitrations for family disputes based on sharia, the code of Islamic law.
The proposal ran into opposition from women's groups, legal organizations and the Muslim Canadian Congress, who all warned that the 1,400-year-old sharia does not view women as equal.

Fire destroys cabin that inspired B-52's 'Love Shack'

Mats Sexton, author of "The B-52's Universe," said Pierson talked to him of her former house. "I remember Kate telling me about how many of the early songs were jammed on in the cabin, things like the sea creature sounds in `Rock Lobster' and many different guitar riffs and assorted lyrics," Sexton told the Athens Banner-Herald. "She spoke very fondly of that little place. In many ways, I think it was a symbolic part of the song `Love Shack."'

Lightning on Saturn '1 million times stronger' than on Earth

New data from the Cassini spacecraft shows that lightning on the ringed planet is a million times stronger than on Earth. But even terrestrial lightning can deliver between 100 million and one billion volts of electricity. Scientists compared the strengths of Earth and Saturnian lightning by detecting its radio signals. Cassini, the NASA probe currently orbiting Saturn, picked up radio signals from Earth lightning as far out as 89,200 kilometres. But as the spacecraft approached Saturn last July, it started detecting lightning signals at a point about 161 million kilometres from the planet.

Bush Prepares For Possible GPS Shutdown

President Bush has ordered plans for temporarily disabling the U.S. network of global positioning satellites during a national crisis to prevent terrorists from using the navigational technology, the White House said Wednesday.
Any shutdown of the network inside the United States would come under only the most remarkable circumstances, said a Bush administration official who spoke to a small group of reporters at the White House on condition of anonymity.

*Rumsfeld gave "marching orders" for torture, then lied about it

The documents also show that officers from the CIA, the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency lodged "heated" objections to the abusive methods of interrogation used by the military, denouncing them in previously secret memoranda as not only unethical but useless and destructive.
..."We had also met with Generals Dunlevy and Miller explaining our position (Law Enforcement Techniques) vs. DoD [Department of Defense].Both agreed the Bureau has their way of doing business and DoD has their marching orders from the SecDef [Secretary of Defense]."

Krugman: Privatization could wreck Social Security system

Right now, the revenues from the payroll tax exceed the amount paid out in benefits. This is deliberate, the result of a payroll tax increase - recommended by none other than Alan Greenspan - 20 years ago. His justification at the time for raising a tax that falls mainly on lower- and middle-income families, even though Ronald Reagan had just cut the taxes that fall mainly on the well-off, was that the extra revenue was needed to build up a trust fund. This could be drawn on to pay benefits once the baby boomers began to retire.
The grain of truth in claims of a Social Security crisis is that this tax increase wasn't quite big enough. Projections in a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office say that the trust fund will run out in 2052. The system won't become "bankrupt" at that point; even after the trust fund is gone, Social Security revenues will cover 81 percent of the promised benefits. Still, there is a long-run financing problem.
But it's a problem of modest size. The report finds that extending the life of the trust fund into the 22nd century, with no change in benefits, would require additional revenues equal to only 0.54 percent of gross domestic product. That's less than 3 percent of federal spending - less than we're currently spending in Iraq. And it's only about one-quarter of the revenue lost each year because of President Bush's tax cuts.

Think Tanker Masquerades as "Regular Folk" to Shill for Social Security "Reform"

When White House Budget Director Joshua B. Bolten introduced a "single mom" from Iowa to promote President Bush's plan to dismantle Social Security, she was presented as one of the "regular folks" in favor of private savings accounts. But Sandra Jaques, who addressed a White House economics conference on Thursday, "is not any random single mother," the New York Times' Edmund Andrews wrote. "She is the Iowa state director of a conservative advocacy group, FreedomWorks, whose founders are Jack F. Kemp, the former vice-presidential nominee, and Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader." FreedomWorks was formed by a merger in July 2004 of Citizens for a Sound Economy and Empower America. The American Prospect's Matthew Yglesias points out how a "little incidental dishonesty slip by" in Andrews' "otherwise excellent" article. Recently, the Times' Paul Krugman thought explaining the manufactured Social Security crisis was so important that he took "a break from my break" to debunk the hype: "Social Security is a government program that works, a demonstration that a modest amount of taxing and spending can make people's lives better and more secure. And that's why the right wants to destroy it."

Top 10 Net Hoaxes / Urban Legends of 2004

Unsurprisingly, the threat of terrorism and the conflict in Iraq figured prominently in the Netlore of 2004, alongside more "evergreen" topics such as sex, missing children, uncanny images and, of course, free money. In a somewhat less predictable result, the Top 10 wound up almost entirely free of political content despite a veritable tsunami of rumormongering in connection with the U.S. presidential election during the latter half of the year. Netlore aficionados will note that several of the items on the list, though long since debunked, are holdovers from previous years, proving yet again that "the truth never stands in the way of a good story."

Pfizer To Keep Celebrex On Market, But Stop Ads

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which said Friday it was considering warning labels for Celebrex or withdrawing the drug from the U.S. market, agreed with Pfizer's decision to halt advertising.
The move covers television, radio, newspaper and magazine advertising, Pfizer spokeswoman Mariann Caprino said.
"We discussed it with the FDA, and we all concurred that it was the appropriate step," Caprino told The New York Times.

Liza Featherstone: Down and Out in Discount America

On the day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year, Wal-Mart's many progressive critics--not to mention its business competitors--finally enjoyed a bit of schadenfreude when the retailer had to admit to "disappointing" sales. The problem was quickly revealed: Wal-Mart hadn't been discounting aggressively enough. Without low prices, Wal-Mart just isn't Wal-Mart.
That's not a mistake the big-box behemoth is likely to make again. Wal-Mart knows its customers, and it knows how badly they need the discounts. Like Wal-Mart's workers, its customers are overwhelmingly female, and struggling to make ends meet. Betty Dukes, the lead plaintiff in Dukes v. Wal-Mart, the landmark sex-discrimination case against the company, points out that Wal-Mart takes out ads in her local paper the same day the community's poorest citizens collect their welfare checks. "They are promoting themselves to low-income people," she says. "That's who they lure. They don't lure the rich.... They understand the economy of America. They know the haves and have-nots. They don't put Wal-Mart in Piedmonts. They don't put Wal-Mart in those high-end parts of the community. They plant themselves right in the middle of Poorville."

Genetically Modified Glowing Fish

Singaporean scientists genetically modify zebra fish to detect water pollutants by turning fluorescent. An American company realizes there's a consumer market for novelty glow-in-the-dark fish, and starts selling the US's first genetically modified pet. While the FDA, which oversees GM animals, 'finds no reason to regulate', California's Fish and Game Commission bans sales in the state over ethical concerns, and a coalition of watchdog groups files suit to support a national ban.
A year later, GloFish are still on sale, and California's reconsidering its sales block. With the first GM pet quietly swimming into homes, and others (like hypo-allergenic cats) close behind, are we ready for a designer pet invasion? [from MetaFilter.com]

Spaniards to Lose Siesta

For centuries in Spain, heading home mid-afternoon for lunch and a snooze was regarded as something of a national right.
Long days at work and late nights with friends have always been common here.
Spaniards used to take a siesta to make it all more manageable.
But the country's corporate culture now spurns the idea of daytime dozing as being unproductive, and the siesta is fast becoming an endangered institution.

*Vote Machine Employee in Ohio Dismantles Machine before Recount

As a statewide election recount got underway in Ohio last week, a Democratic congressman called on the FBI to impound vote-tabulating computers in at least one county and investigate suspicions of election tampering in the state.
Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), ranking Democrat of the House Judiciary Committee, sought the investigation after an Ohio election official disclosed in an affidavit (.pdf) that an employee of Triad Governmental Systems, the company that wrote voting software used with punch-card machines in 41 of Ohio's 88 counties, dismantled Hocking County's tabulation computer days before the recount and "put a patch on it."

Survey finds support for restricting Muslim-Americans' freedoms

Nearly one in two Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict civil liberties for Muslim-Americans, according to a nationwide Cornell University poll on terrorism fears.
The survey also found respondents who identified themselves as highly religious supported restrictions on Muslim-Americans more strongly than those less religious.
Curtailing civil liberties for Muslim-Americans also was supported more by Republicans than Democrats, the survey found.
The amount of attention paid to TV news also had a bearing on how strongly a respondent favored restrictions.

Vatican to Teach Satanism and Exorcism

The seminar, entitled "Exorcism and prayers of liberation," would seek to remedy the clergy's problems in dealing with "such delicate themes."
The courses, starting in February, will deal with demonology, the presence of the notion of the devil in sacred texts, and the pathology and medical treatment of people suffering from possession.

Iraqi's File Suit Against Rumsfeld in Germany

The Pentagon expressed concern Monday over a criminal complaint filed in Germany against US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, warning that "frivolous lawsuits" could affect the broader US-German relationship.
The complaint was filed in Berlin November 30 by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Berlin's Republican Lawyers' Association on behalf of four Iraqis who were alleged to have been mistreated by US soldiers. [from JuanCole.com]

Australia accepts Iraqi refugees from Nauru

Australia has accepted a group of Iraqi refugees from Nauru after a recent review found their home country not conducive to return. The UN refugee agency has welcomed this move, and urged the Canberra government to grant complementary protection to the rest of the group until the situation improves in Iraq.

For background on Nauru, listen to this great story from This American Life

Top Science Stories of the Year

The conclusive discovery by a pair of wheeled robots that Mars once had vast pools of water and possibly could have harbored life was chosen by the editors of the journal Science as the most important scientific achievement of 2004.
NASA's two Mars rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, landed on the Red Planet early in 2004 and have since found clear and conclusive evidence that Mars was drenched with water at some time in its history.

Unit's vehicles all had armor within day of soldier's query

The generals said it was part of routine, pre-deployment preparations in Kuwait before the unit proceeded into Iraq.
''When the question was asked, 20 vehicles remained to be up-armored at that point,'' Speakes said at a Pentagon briefing. ''We completed those 20 vehicles in the next day. ... In other words, we completed all the armoring within 24 hours of the time the question was asked.''

Margaret Atwood to be on Studio 360 this Weekend

COVER STORY: Biology
Kurt Andersen talks with novelist Margaret Atwood about how biology grabs headlines -- and the imagination of artists. They discuss Atwood’s childhood among scientists, and her most recent novel, Oryx and Crake, in which biotech runs amok with catastrophic consequences.
The daughter of an entomologist, Margaret Atwood grew up in the woods of Canada. She is the author of more than 25 books of fiction, poetry, and essays, including The Handmaid's Tale, Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin, which won the Booker Prize.
LISTEN TO THIS WEEK'S SHOW
Includes interview with Richard Dawkins

U.S. and Russian Nuclear Missiles are Still on Hair-Trigger Alert

"The security of both nations should not be dependent on the heroic act or good judgment of a single individual," said Sam Nunn, the former senator from Georgia.
Long active in anti-proliferation efforts such as the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Nunn is leading a campaign to persuade U.S. and Russian leaders to take their thousands of strategic nuclear warheads off hair-trigger alert, a status that remains in effect more than a decade after the Cold War ended.

Pentagon Proposes Loosening Its Environmental Policy

A draft of the proposal, which would replace a 1996 directive, eliminates the Pentagon's vow to "display environmental security leadership within DOD activities worldwide." It stresses, instead, the "national defense mission."
The new proposal replaces a list of concrete responsibilities with vague guidance to the military about how to prevent pollution and guarantee compliance with federal and international laws.

*Wikipedia: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls

After the 2004 U.S. presidential election there were allegations of data irregularities and systematic flaws which may have affected the outcome of both the presidential and local elections. Unofficial results currently indicate a victory by George W. Bush over John Kerry. Allegations range from significant exit poll and other data irregularities potentially characteristic of fraud, to complaints voting was not conducted equally for all citizens, for example, uneven voting machine distribution which might lead to long voting lines and disenfranchisement.

*Climate change hits bottom line

The WMO reported that the average temperature of the world's surface for 2004 was expected to be 0.44C higher than the mean for the period 1961-1990, making it the fourth hottest year since 1861, just behind 2003, but still well below the all-time record year of 1998.
And this year has been the most expensive ever for the insurance industry in terms of payouts for damage from natural disasters such as hurricanes and typhoons.
Climate change: The evidence and future predictions
At-a-glance According to preliminary figures

*Bush Uses Contradictory Economic Projections To Support Agenda

Throughout a two-day conference on the economy, President Bush and his allies extolled the virtues of his tax cuts and "pro-growth" policies, which they said have lifted the nation from recession and propelled it well above its international economic competitors. If Washington adheres to the path of fiscal restraint while following the president's tax prescriptions, it was suggested, policymakers could secure powerful economic growth far into the future.
Yet when the subject turned to the nation's legal or Social Security systems, the picture grew suddenly dark. Frivolous lawsuits have hobbled America's businesses and have put them at the mercy of their enlightened overseas competition, administration officials said. As for federal entitlements, a rising tide of retiring baby boomers will inevitably slow economic growth and bankrupt Social Security.

Biometric passports are 'a tall order'

Plans to begin issuing biometric passports next year may fail because the technology isn't good enough, experts have warned.Governments are racing to get the systems up and running before October 2005, a deadline imposed by the US Congress.
In 2002, Congress stated that if countries wished to stay in the US visa waiver scheme they would have to start issuing biometric passports.