Tuesday, October 31, 2000

Reuters: Comedian Steve Allen dies at age 78 -- "Legendary comedian and television pioneer Steve Allen, who was the first host of NBC's the Tonight Show as well as a prolific composer, jazz pianist and author, died on Tuesday at age 78, a spokesman saiid."

Washington Post: Next door to trouble -- "Yard rage" may give "road rage" a run for its money.

Saturday, October 28, 2000

Your Social Security number is for sale -- President Clinton has threatened to veto a bill banning the Internet sale of Social Security numbers, because the bill is riddled with loopholes which undermine its purpose. Aside from the bickering in trying to formulate such a bill or get it passed, the frightening fact is that Social Security numbers are available online, for a price.

People I speak with are often dismissive of privacy issues, shrugging, and suggesting that all their personal information is already "out there" anyway, so why worry. One of the bill's sponsors has good reason to not shrug. His stepdaughter was killed by a stalker who purchased her Social Security number on the Internet and then tracked her down.

These folks in Indiana should probably find a new town to live in.

"Economy class syndrome" -- another good reason not to fly coach

Santa Fe New Mexican: Study: Nuclear waste levels unknown -- This article follows on the October 21 pieces from Reuters and the New York Times, in which the federal government was reported to have increased tenfold its estimate of buried or dumped nuclear waste.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory is cited in the new report as having the third most transuranic waste (radioactive, mostly plutonium) buried or dumped in the ground. Most of LANL's radioactive waste disposal sites sit atop mesas, theoretically making it unlikely for radioactive material to leech into groundwater.

LANL announced this week that tritium (a radioactive contaminant) had been found in Los Alamos drinking water, although at levels 500 times below that deemed harmful by the government. "However, hydrologists say the finding shows there is a 'pathway for contamination from where they dump it to the regional aquifer,' said James Bearzi, chief of the New Mexico Environment Department's radioactive and hazardous waste bureau."

Eight New Orleans brain-surgery patients may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a variant of "mad cow disease."

The Bush campaign has pulled an ad depicting a nuclear explosion, reminiscent of the anti-Goldwater TV spots during the Lyndon Johnson campaign.

Pennsylvania's Supreme Court has struck down the state's "three strikes law," ruling that the statute placed burden of proof on defendants, not the state, in violation of the 14th Amendment.

In other legal news, Denver police have won limited search of bookstore records.

Friday, October 27, 2000

Reuters: Death penalty upheld in Texas sleeping lawyer case -- The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans "upheld a Texas death penalty for a man whose attorney slept through much of his trial in a case that has raised questions about the quality of Texas justice." Last year, in Houston, U.S. District Judge David Hittner had ordered the state to give the defendant a new trial or release him. However, Texas Attorney General John Cornyn appealed the ruling. (This is the "full and fair access to the courts" that George W. talks about?)

From the Utterly Clueless Department:

The AP top stories news page at news.excite.com has one of those "grab your eye" click polls: "Do you think that celebrating Halloween is a sin against Christianity?", with choices of "Yes", "No", and "Don't Know", and a big "Vote Now" button. If my memory is any good, Halloween is "Allhallows Eve," the night before All Saints' Day (Nov. 1), an official Christian church holiday.

Stratfor reports that Israel is beefing up its submarine force, having rushed delivery of a new German-built Dolphin-class ship. This move "most likely is intended to complete a nuclear land-attack capability to deter the current crisis from descending into region-wide war ñ or allow Israel to fight one, if necessary."

ABC: Microsoft hacked. Microsoft President and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said later this morning that the break-in was not damaging, although earlier reports suggested that source code for the next generation Windows and Office software had been stolen.

Update:Still later this morning, Ballmer said the hackers had reached key programs but had not changed them.

Of note, the "worm" (a type of virus) that is thought to have enabled the attack most likely was delivered to Microsoft's system as an e-mail attachment.

We'd best think twice before we call someone a "birdbrain":

Birds sing in their sleep, study finds -- "[The] findings suggest that singing is very serious business indeed for birds -- and they can also shed light on the theory that rehearsing new skills during sleep is important in the human learning process." [CNN]

My dogs and I may never set foot in Louisiana. (In fairness, at least Louisiana doesn't have rodents carrying bubonic plague or hantavirus. ;-))

Uganda continues to report new cases of Ebola. Lest we think these far-away dramas don't concern us, "...a trip to the United States by 24 Ugandan police officers has been suspended because of the Ebola outbreak. They were supposed to attend a training program beginning Friday." [AP/Salon]

Internet filtering software being pushed by Congress blocks more than pornography.

Thursday, October 26, 2000

Parents of obese girl want gag order lifted -- The child had been removed from her family by the State of New Mexico in August, over concerns that her obesity was life-threatening. A judge later imposed closed hearings and a gag order, saying it was in the best interests of the child. "The Journal and other news organizations have appealed the closing of the courtroom and the gag order. One appeal was denied and another is pending before the New Mexico Supreme Court." [Albuquerque Journal]

Suffolk County, New York, has banned the use of cell phones while driving.

Divers recover letter from Kursk -- The message, found on one of the bodies of the Kursk crew, indicates 23 crew members survived the initial blast that sank the submarine. "The letter may also turn into the most grisly and poignant indictment of President Vladimir Putin, who vacationed through the earliest days of the drama and reportedly rejected the first offers of international help in reaching the vessel." [ABC]

Saturn may have four more moons than originally thought. If the finding is confirmed, it will raise the total number of bodies orbiting the ringed planet to 22. [CNN]

A young Palestinian has blown himself up at an Israeli army post in the Gaza Strip.

Wednesday, October 25, 2000

Reuters: U.S. Intelligence analyst quits over Cole attack -- "A U.S. Defense intelligence analyst resigned the day after a bomb ripped into a U.S. warship in Yemen because he believed higher-ups had not given enough weight to analysis that could have warned of a potential attack, a U.S. senator said on Wednesday."

Israeli Prime Minister Barak's desperate efforts to keep his government intact may continue to fuel violence in the Middle East. [Stratfor]

The estimated number of near-earth asteroids has been dramatically increased due to data acquired from two New Mexico-based telescopes. The number of flying bodies more than six-tenths of a mile in diameter is now estimated at 1,100. [ABC]

This year's flu season may be grim, based on early cases and a shortage of influenza vaccine caused by production delays. "Flu vaccine makers have already acknowledged shipping doses to large corporations for employee-vaccination programs ahead of many doctors. Experts say that means high-risk Americans, not healthy young workers, could fall victim to influenza's threat." [CNN]

The "war on drugs" has left an entire class of parents as permanently unfit, often with the result that children are removed from the home and put up for adoption. [Salon]

Tuesday, October 24, 2000

Beyond Medicare and tax cuts -- Why this is a watershed election

Clinton: High court at pivotal point -- "'It is my honest opinion that the incredibly energetic debate that is going on now at the Supreme Court level about the role of the national government and the range of personal, privacy-related individual rights will only intensify in the years ahead and will be swung decisively one way or the other depending on the outcome,' Clinton said." [AP]

Lost on some voters is the fact that the Supreme Court "has been sharply divided on issues such as abortion, religion, race and states' rights, many decisions being made on 5-4 votes. That means one new justice could switch major rulings."

Three justices are currently 70 years old or older, so there is a high likelihood of at least one new justice being appointed by the winner of this November's election, and that single appointee has the potential to tilt the balance in Supreme Court rulings and affect our social climate for decades.

Governor Bush has said that, if elected president, he would use no "litmus test" in making a Supreme Court appointment; but that statement is widely disputed.

The conservative Free Congress Foundation has complained that if Gore were elected, he would appoint judges who think they can "force their values on the American people." The coin has two sides. If Bush is elected and appoints a conservative justice who favors scuttling affirmative action, overturning Roe v. Wade, and allowing government aid to religious schools, why is that not "forcing values" on the American people?

Saturday, October 21, 2000

Reuters: Government ups estimate of plutonium waste -- "The Energy Department has increased by 10 times its estimate of how much plutonium and other man-made radioactive material has been released in the ground or buried in poorly built containers, The New York Times said on Saturday." (The full Times piece can be found here.)

The World Resources Institute reports that the world's fresh water systems are in trouble.

The Alliance for Childhood is calling for a moratorium on computers in early childhood and elementary education.

CNN: Divers reach sunken Kursk submarine

Reuters: Jimmy Carter splits with Southern Baptists -- "A lifelong Baptist, former President Jimmy Carter is splitting with the Southern Baptist Convention, criticizing an 'increasingly rigid creed' issued by leaders of the largest Protestant denomination in the United States."

Friday, October 20, 2000

Reuters: Middle East peace in tatters as truce collapses

Salon: Let the Big Dog Out -- "Al Gore's cowardly refusal to run on President Clinton's legacy -- and let the most masterful politician of his generation campaign for him -- may cost him the election."

Thursday, October 19, 2000

Catch-up day -- it's been a zoo around here since Sunday...

CNN: Deaths mar countdown to West Bank deadline

The FDA reports today that an ingredient in popular decongestants may increase risk of stroke in some users.

Reuters: West Coast air chaos as LA radar crashes

Tuesday night's presidential debate was painful, if your name is Bush.

Roger Ebert on Bush: "....He reminded me of a student who had crammed for the exam, knew the names and the terms, but didn't deeply understand them -- who was substituting generalizations for answers."

A friend writes: "What we have to get back to is remembering that we never vote for the the man, or woman, but vote for their party. While it's fun to toss the candidates into a debate in hopes that it will turn out like watching a dog fight, this entertainment distracts from the reality that it's the party that gains control, not the candidate."

From Tuesday: Barak, Arafat vow to end violence

A new report by a legal aid group blasts the Texas justice system, particularly relating to capital cases, as "thoroughly flawed."

On Sunday, U.S. intelligence reported Iraqi troop movements, prompting warnings to Saddam Hussein.

Sunday, October 15, 2000

U.S. investigators are trying to obtain surveillance video from four cameras at the Yemeni port of Aden, where the USS Cole was attacked Thursday. The video tapes were seized by the Yemeni secret police.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak yesterday agreed to an emergency summit over current Middle East hostilities.

A first-ever Ebola outbreak has been reported in Uganda.

Attorney General Janet Reno has announced she will move to declassify documents related to the Wen Ho Lee case.

Thursday, October 12, 2000

CNN: Israel fires into Ramallah, seals Palestinian areas -- "Israeli forces fired into Ramallah and Gaza on Thursday, hours after a Palestinian mob killed at least two captured Israeli soldiers held at a Palestinian police station in Ramallah."

Reuters: Explosive-laden raft rams U.S. ship in Yemen -- "An explosives-laden rubber raft rammed a U.S. guided missile destroyer and exploded in the Yemeni port of Aden on Thursday, killing four U.S. sailors and injuring 31, five seriously, U.S. Navy officials said."

Wednesday, October 11, 2000

CNN: Milosevic allies spark power struggle -- Key allies of the ousted leader "have announced they are taking control of the countryís police force, and are resisting attempts to purge the top military leadership." Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic is reportedly "taking direct control of the 100,000-strong police force in Serbia."

Old jets may be flying with cracked electrical wiring. The FAA has no comment on its report, scheduled to be released later today.

Dr. Laura apologizes to gays and lesbians -- sort of.

Tuesday, October 10, 2000

Poor weather has hampered the annual Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. [This page insists on trying to run an "unsafe" Active-X control in MSIE in order to display the larger photos. Grrrr!] The America's Challenge gas balloon race scheduled for Monday has been postponed. CNN has more photos in their "interactive gallery," which at least works with secure browser settings.

Two excellent pieces from Stratfor --

The Middle East: Who is in Control? -- "As regional powers scramble to make sense of the renewed violence in the Middle East, a frightening picture is developing. It appears that no single faction is in control of the unfolding events. While various groups seek to place blame and others seek to find a solution, the crisis is developing a momentum of its own, independent of key powers."

From Milosevic to the Future -- "The truth in Yugoslavia lies somewhere between the grand aesthetic of the public drama and the more mundane details of deal making."

Monday, October 09, 2000

CNN: FBI pushes for cyber ethics education -- "FBI agents are spreading a new gospel to parents and teachers, hoping they'll better educate youths that vandalism in cyberspace can be economically costly and just as criminal as mailbox bashing and graffiti spraying."

Botched rescue attempt nets murder charge

Camille Paglia thinks we should vote for Nader and explains why a vote for the Green candidate is not a "wasted vote."

Reuters: Annan tries to head off Israeli-Palestinian war

Stratfor: A region on the brink -- "Draw a series of concentric circles from the West Bank outward and a stark reality becomes apparent: Each player in the region -- Israel and the Palestinian National Authority to the leaderships in Jordan, Egypt and Syria ñ is caught between the hard place of the conflict and the rock of its own instability."

The weather still sucks: cold, gray, cloudy. But at least it's not raining. ;-)

Sunday, October 08, 2000

This has been a total non-news day. It's cold, gray, rainy and muddy -- a great day to stay indoors, stoke the wood stove, and go nuts changing the page layout for the site. ;-)

Saturday, October 07, 2000

Bush: 2 + 2 = 5

Al Gore calls George W. Bush mistake-prone -- "In a campaign stop in Florida on Saturday, Bush appeared to lose his way in the figures when he sought to attack Gore's tax proposals." Realizing he had flubbed, Bush made a cute joke about Al Gore's calculator. "The crowd gave him a big laugh, relieving Bush of any need to further clarify his numbers." [Reuters]

This is funny? Bush has a 50-50 chance of sitting in the White House and has not got a clue what he's talking about a fair amount of the time.

Reuters: Kostunica sworn in as Yugoslav president -- "Vojislav Kostunica was sworn in as Yugoslav president on Saturday, bringing down the curtain on 13 turbulent years of rule by Slobodan Milosevic, and opening the way for Yugoslavia's return to the international fold."

CNN: Israel's Barak issues 48-hour deadline -- "Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak threatened Saturday to terminate the Mideast peace process unless Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat brings violent demonstrations to a halt within 48 hours."

Friday, October 06, 2000

Reuters: Milosevic concedes defeat to Kostunica -- "'I've just got official information that Vojislav Kostunica won the elections,' Milosevic said, adding that his Socialist Party would form a strong political opposition to the new administration." This face-saving remark may relate to the Constitutional Court's reversal earlier today of the election annulment. In any case, U.S. officials have made it clear that they will not support any continuing political role Milosevic might choose.

Bush on drugs

Reuters: Bush unveils $2.7 billion anti-drug plan -- Again casting the current administration as a failure for the last seven and a half years, the Republican candidate aims to create a drug-free society. Bush claims that the war on drugs was successful from 1979 to 1992, but that everything (naturally) went to hell in a handbasket when Clinton was elected. The $2.7 billion encompasses a number of proposed federal programs over a five-year period.

In The Thirty Years' War, the Harvard Political Review takes a hard look at whether three decades of hard-ball anti-drug tactics have paid off, concluding:

The War on Drugs is a toss-up. Originally conceived as a response to the excesses of the 1960s and as a convenient political ploy by an opportunistic Reagan Administration, the "get tough" policy quickly became ingrained in the public mind as an article of faith. Both Reagan and Bush used harsh and draconian drug policies to bolster their standing as tough, law-and-order Chief Executives. Fearful of alienating his New Democrat power base, President Clinton has kept a tough-on-crime demeanor even as he has moved towards more emphasis on treatment. The system is in dire need of an overhaul: drug rates have stubbornly refused to fall, African-Americans are being sent to jail in massive and disproportionate numbers, and treatment has fallen by the wayside in favor of incarceration. Looking ahead, Mauer is not optimistic: "Gore has not said anything to call for a substantial redirection of current administration approaches, and Bush is fixated with Texas' 'lock-'em-up' criminal justice model." Until at least 2004, it may just be business as usual.

Yugoslavia's Constitutional Court reverses election annullment.

AP: Alaskan schools seek teachers -- As salaries become less and less competitive, the state finds it hard to lure teachers, especially for positions in rural villages. (I'm fond of indoor plumbing, myself.)

Milosevic plans a continued political role, according to statements made by Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov.

CNN: Rogue planet find makes astronomers ponder theory -- "Eighteen rogue planets that seem to have broken all the rules about being born from a central, controlling sun may force a rethink about how planets form, astronomers said Thursday."

Thursday, October 05, 2000

Late update

CNN: Huge crowds celebrate apparent fall of Milosevic -- The news as of 10:30 P.M. EDT sounds as though it's all over. Demonstrators in Belgrade were estimated to number as many as 500,000 strong. Milosevic's whereabouts are unknown, and his last ally, Russia, appears to have deserted him.

Tumult in Belgrade

Reuters: State news agency calls Kostunica elected president -- "Yugoslavia's official Tanjug news agency, long seen as a mouthpiece of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, called opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica 'elected president of Yugoslavia' Thursday."

The Constitutional Court, stacked with Milosevic appointees, had issued a ruling declaring the recent election nullified, an action seen by most analysts as a last-ditch effort by Milosevic to retain power. Massive demonstrations have ensued.

Having lost control of security forces and the state media, it appears that Milosevic's only potential remaining lever of power is whether he retains the support of his domestic and international political allies.

More at CNN. AP has excellent photo coverage.

Wednesday, October 04, 2000

GTE California (now Verizon) has been billing customers rental charges on old rotary telephones since 1984, when customers were finally allowed to buy their own phones and rotary had largely been replaced by touch-tone. A lawsuit has been filed against Verizon, currently with only four plaintiffs, but with the possibility of over 116,000 additional plaintiffs in a class action suit.

Who won last night's debate? Gore, but barely. Bush did better than I might have expected, although his "deer in the headlights" look when foreign policy issues are raised is rather frightening. More than one pundit has written of yelling at his/her television set last night, trying to get Gore to stop talking. He is still difficult to listen to. I was not satisfied with Bush's response that he had "no litmus test" in appointing Supreme Court justices. Those appointments have far-reaching effects, including, but not limited to, Roe v. Wade.

Speaking of SCOTUS, arguments were heard today whether results of maternal drug testing should be reported to the police. Justice Scalia appeared to be in the minority in expressing support for the Charleston, South Carolina, program. A ruling on this, and other cases being heard, will occur early next year.

On a lighter note: Man leaves $500,000 to animal shelter, $5,000 to his dog. [CNN]

Tuesday, October 03, 2000

Compassion?

AP: Candidates ready for first debate -- "George W. Bush said he was ready 'to talk about hearts, compassion and vision' Tuesday night in his first face-off with Al Gore, the biggest event so far in a strikingly close presidential race." Will they also talk about issues? ;-)

Notwithstanding his grammatical gaffes or depth of knowledge, I have a problem with Bush's continual references to "compassion" and "character," particularly in regard to the inexorable machinery of capital punishment in the state of Texas. The issue here is not the existence of capital punishment, but Bush's refusal to involve himself in the review process and the utter sham of the state's Board of Pardons and Paroles.

In Bush's Big Lie, Alan Berlow writes, "...By far the best-documented evidence of Bush's character can be found by examining how he has handled irrevocable decisions about life and death: his decisions to approve the executions by lethal injection of 145 men and women during the past five and a half years."

Reuters: Supreme Court questions drug roadblocks by police -- "The U.S. Supreme Court questioned Tuesday whether police may erect roadblocks to catch drug offenders without violating the privacy rights of innocent motorists, asking if pedestrian checkpoints might be next." Counsel representing the city of Indianapolis (where vehicle stops are common) argued that the searches were constitutional and that "motorists enjoy a diminished expectation of privacy" versus pedestrians. (How about if I am on my horse?)

Monday, October 02, 2000

A bipartisan congressional panel has found a large hole in Bush's tax plan. "Nearly 27 million Americans would not get the full benefit of George W. Bush's tax cuts because they would become subject to another tax originally designed to prevent investors and the wealthy from sheltering too much of their income." [AP] The culprit is the Alternative Minimum Tax. Bush says he will be glad to get rid of the AMT and gladly noted that President Clinton had previously vetoed legislation to do that.

Animal rights group PETA has co-opted Jesus and the Shroud of Turin in its latest advertising campaign in support of vegetarianism. The ad shows the shroud, with the statement "Make a lasting impression - go vegetarian." This is sure to be a big hit in Rome, I can tell already.

Meantime, the "pro-life" contingent, more aptly named the "anti-choice" contingent, is waxing ever more shrill over the recent FDA approval of RU-486. Although the drug was deemed safe and effective in the U.S. in 1996 and has been used in other countries for over a decade, anti-choice critics charge that it has not been adequately tested, claiming that it will take "10 to 20 years" to determine if the drug is safe (and labeling the French experience as "hearsay"), at the same time denouncing it as "poison." These two lines of thought do not compute.

Salon: Battling for the heart and soul of home-schoolers -- "Conservative fundamentalists have set the agenda for kids taught at home -- now they're aiming to influence public education." A study earlier this year demolished the myth that most home-schooling families are conservative fundamentalists. In reality, only a relatively small percentage of these families cited religious views as the basis for deciding to home-school their kids.

While critics rail that our country is morally adrift, we do not need a Christian "reconstructionist" society, with resurrection (pun unintended) of biblical laws such as public stoning, never mind the fact that the Constitution expressly forbids such things. Once again, the voices of the zealots, in this case a legal defense group who has laid claim to the home-school movement, conjure up "our Christian forefathers," conveniently ignoring the fact that most of these individuals were deists, not Christians. In the misguided attempt to force their "values" on an entire populace, the religious right again does disservice to the groundwork on which this country was founded and to the religious diversity of its citizens.

Yes, I am in a cranky mood today. ;-)

I spent most of the morning revising Revisiting Ruby Ridge (originally posted in the news section for Sept. 30), out of concern for factual accuracy and due to some disturbing personal e-mail I received.

Sunday, October 01, 2000

AP: Two convicted men cleared by DNA -- "Two men cleared of rape convictions by DNA evidence are causing Texas officials to review old cases and question the reliability of eyewitness testimony."

CNN: Death sentence overturned after race-based testimony -- "A federal judge overturned a black inmate's death sentence because a psychologist told the jury during the punishment phase that the defendant's race could indicate a propensity for violence." This was the fourth Texas death-penalty sentence overturned due to such testimony, with three others being appealed. The former chief psychologist for the Texas prison system, now in private practice, had testified in "scores" of capital cases, and often cited race because, in his view, "blacks and Hispanics are overrepresented in violent crime statistics."

ABC: Bush addresses Christian Coalition -- "George W. Bush reaffirmed his support for the Christian Coalitionís values today in a three-minute videotaped address meant to soothe any hard feelings created by his absence from their convention."

Reuters: Pope canonizes Chinese martyrs; Beijing upset -- "Pope John Paul, in one of the most politically delicate acts of his pontificate, canonized 120 Chinese martyrs Sunday over Beijing's angry accusations that the move was an insulting glorification of imperialism."

Washington Post: Doctors' fears may limit use of abortion pill -- As the controversy over the recent approval of RU486 unfolds, many physicians may not prescribe the drug, out of fear of attacks by anti-choice individuals.