Wednesday, January 31, 2001

Reuters: US taxpayers may be liable for California debts -- "Sen. Frank Murkowski of Alaska said the federal government may have to pay off some of the two utilities' debts because the Energy Department ordered out-of-state power suppliers to continue selling electricity to both."

San Francisco Bay Guardian: The real black-out -- "While the statewide media has consumers hyperventilating over rolling blackouts and corporate bankruptcy, a burgeoning citizens' movement is pushing for a public takeover of the state's electric system ñ beginning with San Francisco."

Paul Krugman: Smog and mirrors -- "To understand the enthusiasm of the administration for all things dirty, I believe, you need to see it as something that goes beyond simple calculations of cost and benefit. What it's really about is political momentum ó about eliminating Mr. Bush's legitimacy gap by winning a series of striking victories." (N.Y. Times, free registration required)

Tuesday, January 30, 2001

Washington Post: A leap for faith -- "The challenge for Mr. Bush will be to maintain this tone of careful moderation. It may sometimes prove difficult, for instance, to allow faith-based drug rehabilitation services without infringing upon religious freedom: How do you ensure that a secular alternative is just as readily available in the same community?"

Tom Teepen: Scaling the church-state wall -- "If big money is dangled, it is not hard to imagine a nasty fight eventually breaking out among religions for advantage in the scramble for public funds -- precisely the divisive competition the Founding Fathers sought to prevent by strictly separating church and state."

A new Illinois report suggests that the state should abolish capital punishment. "'No reforms can guarantee that honest witnesses are not mistaken or that dishonest police and prosecutors will not manufacture evidence of guilt or bury evidence of innocence,' the report says." [Chicago Tribune]

William Safire: The missile defense reality -- "...Intrepid opinion-mongers trekked into the Alps to learn how Chinese and Russian leaders react to Bush administration plans for a missile defense."

Prudence versus hysteria

Reuters: Police thwart 'Columbine-style' attack in California -- Authorities in Cupertino, CA, discovered "30 pipe bombs and 20 Molotov cocktails, along with multiple firearms with a large amount of ammunition, that [the suspect] allegedly planned to use in the attack."

Oakland Press: Third-grader suspended for showing gun-shaped medallion to classmates -- "State law requires a zero-tolerance policy for weapons in school. Even though the piece of metal looks like a charm for a necklace, it violates the law." The item in question is about the size of a half-dollar.

Boston Globe: Paper for school lands its author in Canadian jail -- "A 16-year-old boy whose hero is Stephen King spent his birthday, Christmas, and New Year's Day alone behind bars after writing a horror story for his drama class, in which the protagonist - a troubled teenager 'at the brink of insanity' - plots to blow up a school." The Ontario student involved suffers from a speech impediment and had apparently been tormented by his schoolmates.

The California story above is a nightmare. However, are the second and third stories providing us a hint of the price we have to pay for living in fear?

The Senate Judiciary Committee has blessed John Ashcroft. Now it's off to the full Senate.

Salon: The artful dodger looks at John Ashcroft's recent Senate testimony and wonders why it was OK to impeach Clinton but it's OK for Ashcroft to hold the highest law-enforcement position in the land.

Also from Salon, Power to the people -- "The electricity industry is blaming NIMBY neighbors for the crisis. Critics say they're trying to turn out the lights on democracy." ["NIMBY" means "not in my back yard."]

Monday, January 29, 2001

One nation under God ... but whose God?

Reuters: Bush sets up faith-based office at White House -- "President George W. Bush established a White House office on Monday dedicated to encouraging religious organizations to seek billions in federal dollars for helping address alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness and other social ills."

Bush also signed an executive order which he said would clear away regulatory barriers "that make private groups hesitate to work with government."

Rabbi David Saperstein noted, "While constitutionally permissible in theory, in practice this office is woefully unwise. It signifies unprecedented government endorsement of religion." (More detailed background at the New York Times.)

Let them eat lightbulbs

CNN: Bush - No help from Washington for California power crunch -- The Bush administration is adamant that it will not extend federal aid to California, starting its third week of high alert, fearing that doing so will spread California's woes to neighboring states. Bush reiterated his "it's a California problem created by Californians" mantra, while not seeming to address the national and international economic fallout that could result.

Meantime, Governor Gray Davis and the State Legislature seem to be moving closer towards morphing California into a power broker, a move which at first glance seems attractive, but which has been warned by some economists as having dire consequences. I personally suspect that part of the reason Bush is playing hardball on refusing help is that this will bolster his position that we must drill for more oil (except off the coast of Florida, thank you), reduce our dependence on that bothersome foreign oil, and build more power plants.

Saturday, January 27, 2001

Boston Globe: Greenspan's cautions -- "Much more has been made of Alan Greenspan's endorsement of a tax cut than of the cautionary remarks the Federal Reserve chairman made to the Senate Finance Committee about the need to be ready for unexpected developments in connection with such cuts. Congress and the Bush administration need to take those warnings seriously."

Washington Post: Lessons from California's shock -- Poorly implemented deregulation is worse than no deregulation at all. But well-implemented deregulation could encourage conservation, avoid blackouts, and put money in homeowners' pockets.

Life With Dubya, Week #1

Barbara Egbert: Wrong mentality -- President Bush claims to understand the "Western mentality." Egbert, a native Westerner, disagrees. "The "Western mentality" Bush subscribes to was also an Eastern mentality when strip-mining for coal came into vogue. It's the same philosophy that allows entire mountains to be crushed in search of a few ounces of gold, and cyanide heap-leach operations to be set up all over the inter-mountain West. It's the same philosophy that brought hydraulic mining to California in the 19th century, cut down practically every tree in the Tahoe Basin and still pollutes the Bay with mercury from New Almaden mines."

SJ Mercury News: Bush's hypocrisy index -- "...The real problem is twofold. The first is that Bush devotes far fewer resources to his supposed "No. 1 priority" than to tax relief for the best-off Americans. The second is that Bush punts almost entirely on what he has rightly identified as the biggest challenge facing public (and especially poorer) schools: the need to recruit 2 million new teachers over the next decade."

Newsweek: Davos is curious about Dubya -- "Who is George W. Bush? What should he do? And will he do it? The new administration isnít represented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which is hardly surprising since they are just finding their desks in Washington."

Boston Globe: Bush's cruel trip backwards -- President Bush has indicated that he will cut international aid to any family planning clinics that dare to even mention abortion. However, if international funding were restored to previous levels, "Nearly 12 million more couples in developing countries would gain access to modern methods of contraception. There would be 4.3 million fewer unintended pregnancies, 1.5 million fewer unintended births, 500,000 fewer miscarriages, and 2.2 million fewer abortions each year. There would be 8,000 fewer deaths from unsafe abortions, 7,000 fewer deaths from other causes related to pregnancy and 92,000 fewer deaths of infants."

The Bush brothers also seem to agree that oil drilling off the coast of Florida should be prohibited. Ecological and environmental concerns are cited as the basis. Why does this same logic not pertain to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska? Perhaps this has something to do with the large population (voters!) of the State of Florida.

Austin American Statesman: Let's stop rationing insurance for children -- "Bush forged an unholy, bipartisan alliance to push a popular -- if largely illusory -- property tax cut through the Legislature that later served as the foundation for his presidential campaign. So instead of investing in kids, the state's share of CHIP and Medicaid costs was kept at a minimum to pay for the tax cut that would make Bush president."

San Francisco Chronicle: Power crisis could teach Bush lesson: Ignoring California is not a smart idea -- "If Bush truly believes that our state's energy meltdown is not a national concern and a disaster with global implications, then he knows even less about California than his father, who also neglected the country's largest state to his lip-reading detriment."

Friday, January 26, 2001

The death toll from India's massive earthquake likely exceeds 2,000, with several thousand more injured and missing.

Time.com: What the men who run the world are thinking -- "Fears of a global slump may dominate the Davos gathering of the world's economic and political heavyweights."

ABC: Doctors plan human cloning effort -- "As revolutionary as it may sound, as fictional as it may sound, it will be done. Itís a genie that is out of the bottle and will be controlled."

AP: Bush won't fund stem cell research -- "Scientists say research with stem cells, master cells that are the building blocks for all other tissue in the body, could lead to revolutionary treatments for problems from Alzheimer's to paralyzing spinal cord injuries."

Reuters: Aging water, sewer systems drain U.S. cities -- Long-ignored water and sewage pipes, ranging in age from 50 to 100 years, are in need of overhaul. The cost, in billions of dollars, continues to rise the longer these issues are ignored.

President Bush has indicated he is willing to consider relaxing federal air-quality standards for California so that state power plants can produce more power. Governor Gray Davis has not indicated that relaxing these standards is an issue, but expressed gratitude that Washington was willing to consider the move. [Reuters]

A thirteen-year-old Floriday boy faces life in prison in the death of a six-year-old playmate. The boy, who was 12 at the time, was tried as an adult. [AP]

Over five hundred people have been killed in a massive earthquake in western India. [CNN]

Microsoft's recent major network outages turn out to be hacker-related, not the fault of a single lowly technician, as originally reported by Microsoft. A number of people in the industry are getting tired of Microsoft's tendency to stonewall when problems arise. [Wired]

Tuesday, January 23, 2001

Reuters: States shocked into voting reform after Florida -- However, since elections are run by local governments, whatever is undertaken will likely result in a patchwork.

In a probable prank by outgoing Democratic staffers, many computer keyboards in the Old Executive Office Building are missing the letter "W".

Monday, January 22, 2001

BBC: Lethal guinea pig kills virtual people -- Computer game-maker Maxis gets flack from users over gritty realism.

Saturday, January 20, 2001

L.A. Times: GOP leaders warn Bush of backlash from power crisis -- "One day after Bush insisted the [California electricity] problem must be solved primarily at the state level, several prominent GOP strategists said the new president's hands-off posture could send a dangerous signal to the nation's most populous state--and expose him to attacks from California Democrats led by Gov. Gray Davis."

Two hours after taking office, George W. Bush has moved to rescind numerous executive orders signed by former president Clinton in his last days and hours in office. The various orders, many of which made Republicans apoplectic, will be "reviewed" by the new administration.

Salon: A single nation of justice and opportunity -- Among President Bush's comments: "Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism. And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to share accomplishment." (I'm all for civility, while cynicism involves bitter mocking. However, civility is about being polite, not about trusting people. One can certainly be a skeptic and still maintain a civil tone.)

AP: California lawmakers approve $400 million power rescue plan -- Governor Gray Davis was expected to sign a bill yesterday allowing the state to act as an electricity broker, purchasing power from suppliers and selling it at little cost to nearly bankrupt major utilities. Shortages have "shut down the state's main gasoline pipeline and forced farmers to dump milk because the dairy plants were operating on reduced hours." In a scene reminiscent of pre-Y2K anxiety, many households are scrambling to purchase flashlights, batteries, firewood, and generators.

Anthony Lewis: "With all his flaws, Bill Clinton as president was a bigger man, a more generous man, than those who hated him. Maybe that played a part in their dislike: their recognition that he was more intelligent, more vital, more interesting than they could ever be." (N.Y. Times, free registration required)

Friday, January 19, 2001

AP: California tries to steady energy crisis -- "Saying insolvency was no excuse, state regulators slapped California's two largest utilities with an order Friday barring them from cutting off power to the 25 million people they serve." Both PG&E and So. Cal. Edison had indicated this week that they might cut service to customers beginning Saturday.

Italian scientists are nearly ready for human testing of a new AIDS vaccine.

David Lehman: A poetry-free presidency -- "The lack of a poet at Bush's Inauguration is a bleak omen of his administration's attitude toward culture -- but then again, what poet would agree to appear?"

Reuters: Clinton disentangles himself from sex scandal -- "President Clinton cut a deal on his last full day in office on Friday to disentangle himself from the fallout over his sex scandal, overshadowing inaugural celebrations for his successor, George W. Bush."

Linda Tripp, who will unlikely ever be anyone's confidante again, found that her term of service as a Federal employee ended today, as do the terms of virtually all political appointees when a new administration arrives. Tripp declined to resign, and was therefore fired. She is now suing the government, and her attorney calls the termination "vindictive, mean-spirited and wrong." (Sorry, our shipment of Sympathy was delayed today -- we're out.)

Washington Post: The Department of Depleted Uranium -- "DU is nowhere near the radioactive conspiracy some in Europe believe. But it is hardly just another weapon."

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

CNN: Net blamed as crisis roils California -- Here is a textbook example of the mind-set alluded to in the Salon article linked below. Certainly Internet data centers use electricity, but the study used to bolster these claims has been debunked by equally credible experts.

Salon: Turn off the Internet! -- As California's electricity woes deepen, some otherwise intelligent people, including representatives of the power companies, are casting the global network as an insatiable energy hog. No, a Palm Pilot does not use as much energy as a refrigerator.

In an effort to maintain the value of its crude oil, OPEC has agreed to cut its oil supply.

CNN: California Capitol scorched in fiery truck crash

The system is broken

Another innocent man, wrongly convicted of murder, is released in Texas after DNA evidence cleared him. Christopher Ochoa was coerced into confessing to a crime he did not commit, thereby implicating an innocent acquaintance who was later beaten in prison and left brain-damaged.

The likely murderer, who is also in prison, underwent a religious conversion and sent a hand-written confession to Governor George W. Bush. Bush ignored the letter.

Monday, January 15, 2001

Joan Walsh: Clinton's final days -- "As the newly liberated president travels the country to cement his legacy, he reminds us we'll miss him as much as he'll miss us."

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.

Washington Post: Bush marks King holiday in Texas -- "Facing deep suspicion among black Americans, President-elect Bush was marking the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday with a trip to a Houston elementary school to call for unity and to highlight his education proposals."

Friday, January 12, 2001

Killer 747s -- A number of Boeing 747s are being modified by the U.S. Air Force with a nose-mounted laser (in excess of one million watts), designed to shoot down enemy missiles. Of note, no human will touch the trigger -- it will be fired by a computer. How reassuring.

Are French laws over what may be posted on the Internet legally binding on a California company? An interesting conundrum...

Anthony Lewis: "The Senate should be a place of diverse opinions, no matter how extreme. But the role of the attorney general is different. That is the point of the controversy about the choice of John Ashcroft. The question is whether the country can have confidence in someone so extreme to enforce the law impartially and with respect for our legal tradition." (N.Y. Times, free registration required)

CNN: Bush Interior choice slammed for legal views -- The chorus of voices opposing confirmation of Gale Norton as Secretary of Interior is growing. Republicans are chastising critics for "coarsening the tone" in Washington. Norton's critics argue that she has spent a good deal of her career trying to undermine the very agency that she will presumably head. President-elect Bush "defended Norton to reporters on Thursday, saying she shares his environmental views." Buy a clue: that's why a lot of people are worried!

Reuters: HP co-founder William Hewlett dies at 87

Robert Wright: Rumsfeld proves dangerous -- Is the incoming Secretary of Defense scuttling the Clinton administration's rapprochement with North Korea for the sake of pushing a missile defense system?

The technology world is abuzz: What is "IT"? Also code-named "Ginger", the mystery may possibly be a motorized personal scooter. The secret project is headed by Dean Kamen, inventor of the first medical infusion pump and the iBot, a wheelchair that climbs stairs.

Reuters: Wallenberg may be alive -- "Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat spirited away by the Red Army in 1945 after saving thousands of Jews from the Nazis, may still be alive, Sweden said on Friday."

Thursday, January 11, 2001

Salon: Is John Ashcroft a geek's best friend? -- Paradoxically, Bush's nominee for U.S. Attorney General has been on the cutting edge in supporting electronic privacy and encryption, while at the same time maintaining a reputation of cultural Puritan.

Reuters: Unisys, Microsoft and Dell to create new voting system -- "Blue Bell, Pa.-based Unisys Corp. said on Thursday it will bring together hardware from No. 2 PC maker Dell Computer Corp. and software from Microsoft Corp. in the new voting system." It would be nice to say "farewell" to chad, but the idea of Microsoft having its finger in the electoral process (along with everything else) is a little unnerving. Will we see the dreaded "blue screen of death" at the polling places?

Reuters: Storm-lashed California braces for blackouts -- "With California buffeted by its worst storm in three years and two of its main utilities on the brink of bankruptcy, electric power officials on Thursday ordered four hours of rolling blackouts across the state to conserve dwindling energy supplies." CNN has more on the storm.

Washington Post: Civil rights commission looking into Florida vote irregularties

Reuters: Scientists genetically engineer a monkey -- "Scientists said on Thursday they had achieved the first genetically engineered monkey, a step that could hasten the development of cures for diseases ranging from cancer to Alzheimer's."

CNN: "The [Bush] inauguration has been designated a national security special event, the first to receive that designation." Officials are gearing up for potential demonstrations, as well as preparing for any type of terrorist activity. (Does this somehow reflect on the nature of the Bush ascendancy? ;-))

Scott Rosenberg asks "Why do otherwise intelligent people want to control the Internet?"

Salon: Baked Alaska? -- "Fearing a return to the days of James Watt, green activists mobilize to spike Bush's environmental nominees."

Sunday, January 07, 2001

"Uranium-tipped ammunition at the center of a health scare among NATO nations has been in use at two British firing ranges for more than 10 years, the Defense Ministry has acknowledged." [AP] (Also see September 3, 2000.)

Reuters: Bush vows to uphold states' rights -- "While I believe there's a role for the federal government, it's not to impose its will on states and local communities. It's to empower states and people and local communities to be able to realize the vast potential of this country." (Only if there is no presidential election involved?)

Earlier this week, President (yes, he's still President!) Clinton managed to really tick off Republicans by issuing a directive protecting 60 million acres of federal land from road construction and logging. Republicans in Utah, Idaho and Alaska are apoplectic and vow to overturn the directive.

Insurance companies are increasingly asking employers for private information about their employees when attempting to set up group medical plans.

Friday, January 05, 2001

Salon: New Mexico thumbs its nose at the war on drugs -- "A panel convened by Gov. Gary Johnson calls for the legalization of marijuana and a shift in focus from penal measures to treatment for drug offenders."

Dark days in California: Utility giants Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison have warned that they may file for bankruptcy within weeks. [Reuters]

The Linux 2.4 kernel has been released. Besides compatibility with new processors, there is now USB support. A related CNN article from November, 2000, notes that user interface issues and difficulty installing software are holding back the alternative operating system. Having fiddled with Linux on and off for several years, my reaction is, "Where are the great apps?".

Tuesday, January 02, 2001

CNN: Warhol revealed as passionate commentator -- "Pop artist Andy Warhol's work may have seemed without direction, but a closer look shows him to be a passionate, if eccentric, commentator on American society."

So long, Ray Walston and Jason Robards.

A new study shows that Los Angeles is built upon virtual jello.

AP: 1901 Colorado time capsule recovered -- "Theodore Roosevelt hoped that the people of 2001 would have the iron strength of the pioneers."

Mystery monolith appears in Seattle park. (Clarke and Kubrick would dig this!)

Civil rights groups plan to campaign against John Ashcroft, President-elect Bush's nominee for U.S. Attorney General.

Bush and HHS nominee Tommy Thompson may clash over human stem-cell research, a field with much promise in developing treatments for Parkinson's disease or growing replacement organs. Bush is poised to ban the research with the stroke of a pen. Harvard embryologist Doug Melton noted, "We hope that he spends at least as much time thinking about this as he does on death penalty cases, which from what I understand is maybe 10 or 12 minutes." [Salon]

With winter heating costs spiraling out of sight, the Albuquerque Journal ran a print piece the other day noting that many elderly New Mexico residents were forgoing medications and cutting back on meals in order to pay their heating bills. At the same time, CNN warns against seniors' setting thermostats too low, which may result in hypothermia.

Speaking of the Albuquerque Journal, they are one of a number of sites now trying to charge $50 to link to an article, in conjunction with iCopyright.com. This is really contrary to the nature of the web, and, as the Wired article notes, probably utterly unenforceable.

Monday, January 01, 2001

Happy New Year

U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist doesn't want a repeat of what we just went through over the 2000 election (neither do we). He also wants a raise for the SCOTUS justices.

Washington Post: A racial gap in voided votes -- "A Post analysis found that in many black precincts in Chicago, one of every six ballots in the presidential election was thrown out, while almost every vote was counted in some of the city's [white] outer suburbs."

Former California Senator Alan Cranston is dead at age 86.