Thursday, August 31, 2000

Following last week's bombshell, an attorney for Mohamed Al Fayed announced yesterday that he will sue under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain documents which "may may prove his son and Britain's Princess Diana were murdered in a car crash three years ago." [Reuters]

Salon: Bitter pill -- Pharmaceutical companies are apoplectic over Gore's prescription drug pricing proposal.

The battle over separation of church and state rages on in Kansas, where the ACLU has sued a county employee for spending public funds to promote religious agenda.

ABC reports on an aging dog, saved by a pacemaker willed to a veterinary school by a woman before her death.

In his new book, master cryptographer Bruce Schneier explains why "computer security" is an oxymoron. He also apologizes profusely for having gushed over strong encryption as the road to secure data in an earlier work. "People are also woefully lazy. Most users instinctively click the 'OK' boxes on their PC screens, seemingly indifferent to security hazards. That's how the love bug made the rounds, causing an estimated $10 billion worth of damage. 'If J. Random Websurfer clicks on a button that promises dancing pigs on his computer monitor, and instead gets a hortatory message describing the potential dangers of the applet,' Schneier writes, 'he's going to choose the dancing pigs over computer security any day.'" [Salon]

Wednesday, August 30, 2000

Reuters: Judge demands government documents in Los Alamos case -- "A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government to turn over classified documents that defense lawyers claim show ex-Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee is being prosecuted because of his Chinese origins, court officials said on Wednesday."

CNN: Park ranger poet inspired by depths of Mammoth Cave -- "McCombs, 31, won the prestigious Yale Younger Poets Prize last year for "Ultima Thule," his book of poetry about the 348-mile cave and the picturesque wooded Kentucky farmland that surrounds it." [More at Poetry Daily, including the complete "Floyd's Last Passage."]

Tuesday, August 29, 2000

Albuquerque Journal: State defends taking toddler -- In a case that has attracted international attention, New Mexico's Children, Youth and Families Department has been flooded with calls following the removal of three-year-old Anamarie Martinez-Regino from her family. Although prevented by law from discussing cases in detail, Deborah Hartz, secretary of that department, stated "It's not some errant social worker who does this. It's all about abuse and neglect and it's not one person alone making decisions." (How utterly reassuring!)

In documents filed by the state on Friday, a possible cause of the toddler's condition was listed as Munchausen by proxy syndrome, a condition where disease symptoms are fabricated by parents or caregivers. Given that the case involves a child who has apparently had an ongoing medical condition all her life (obesity and abnormal growth), this sounds like a long stretch and an effor to list something to help justify taking custody of the child.

Monday, August 28, 2000

Got your Internet License? Web co-founder supports user licenses and a global legal framework.

Bison and camels in Los Angeles -- Ongoing excavations at the La Brea tar pits provide a glimpse of La-la land in the last ice age. (I remember visiting the tar pits on an elementary school field trip -- very awesome, and very smelly. ;-))

Salon: Four little words -- How the record industry used a tiny legislative amendment to try to steal recording copyrights from artists -- forever. In light of the recent lawsuit against music-sharing service Napster, this is a fascinating read. I came away (as have others) with the impression that the record industry does not really give a hoot about "their" artists' copyrights; they appear to be more concerned with uninterrupted revenue stream and near-perpetual ownership of the artists' work.

Sunday, August 27, 2000

Utopia in Ecuador -- American ex-patriates carve out part commune, part business venture.

A new twist in combating hate groups: bankrupt them.

Saturday, August 26, 2000

CNN: Fayed promises new clues on Diana death -- A statement by Mohamed Al Fayed "pledged to unveil 'details about a $20 million fraud effort' by a Los Angeles attorney and former agents of the Central Intelligence Agency to sell Fayed classified documents that allegedly show there was a plot to have the princess murdered.... Fayed has repeatedly accused the British establishment of instituting a vast cover-up to hide what he alleges is their involvement in an anti-Muslim plot to have Diana and Dodi killed."

ABC: "Detectives in New Zealand have foiled a possible plot by Afghan refugees that targeted a nuclear reactor in Sydney, Australia, during next monthís Olympics." Melbourne's The Age has more on the story.

We're from the Government, and we're here to help you --

The state of New Mexico has taken custody of an obese three-year-old girl, removing her from her parents' home, citing concerns over the child's health. The girl has been receiving medical attention and controlled diet nearly her entire life, and doctors do not know what is causing her extreme obesity; yet they refuse to refer the family to specialists in any of several large cities in other states. Now the state's remedy is to take the child away from her family! The mother does not know where her daughter has been taken, although she has been informed she will be able to visit her. [Albuquerque Journal]

Things have been sketchy here for a few days. There were some major network outages Friday (cut fiber-optic lines), and I've been trying to deal with roofing contractors from Mars and our beloved phone company.

Friday, August 25, 2000

Salon: As the case crumbles -- The impending release of Taiwan-born nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee bodes ill for the government's case.

Thursday, August 24, 2000

CNN: "A woman protesting to a top Russian minister over the death of her son in the Kursk tragedy was apparently forcibly injected with a sedative, television pictures have shown."

A federal judge has ordered Taiwan-born nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee freed on bail, over vehement objections by the U.S. government.

Wednesday, August 23, 2000

Giant Sony promises to pummel upstart music-sharing service Napster. In remarks at Cal State Long Beach, Sony's senior vice president Steve Heckler declared, "We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC." Were these remarks delivered in a large stadium full of guys wearing knee-high black boots? Lighten up, dude! ;-)

Janet Reno has decided not to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Al Gore's 1996 fund-raising activities.

And, on the subject of campaign money, Green candidate Ralph Nader criticized Gore's populist credentials on Monday, challenging Gore to return the millions of dollars in corporate contributions that he and the Democratic party have received.

Internet spyware programs worry privacy advocates -- "The new generation of spyware is hidden inside programs that are downloaded from computer disks or Internet sites offering free programs to track stock quotes, speed up downloads or play games." [Nando/Scripps Howard] If you think your PC may be infected with ad-bots or spyware, visit Gibson Research and download the tiny, free "Opt Out" program, which will scan and sanitize your system.

California may finally end clear-cutting of forests. Governor Gray Davis, a friend of the timber industry, apparently views trees as just another "large crop." The ban, if enacted, would become effective January 1, 2001, and is noted to be unprecedented in the U.S. [Salon]

Tuesday, August 22, 2000

Edward Lazarus: Why states don't confess error in death penalty cases -- This provocative piece from mid-June gives the reader pause as to how we apply the "final solution."

Georgia has postponed executing a mentally retarded convict, but not because he is mentally retarded -- rather, because the state is evaluating whether the electric chair constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment." Alexander Williams was 17 years old at the time of the crime for which he was convicted. Of note, executing a prisoner for a crime committed as a child is in violation of international law. [Also see Amnesty International and National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.]

The U.S. government refuses to drop any charges in the case of Wen Ho Lee, in spite of an FBI agent's recanted testimony. Lee has been in jail since December for allegedly mishandling sensitive U.S. nuclear weapons data at the beleaguered Los Alamos National Lab; the data was later re-classified Top Secret after Lee was charged.

CNN: Make your e-mail disappear -- An add-on for Microsoft Outlook (and soon Outlook Express and other e-mail programs) created by a company called Disappearing encrypts your outgoing e-mail with an expiration date feature. The procedure is painless for the recipient, since the software retrieves a "key" for you so that you can read the message. After the specified date, your message is no longer readable by the recipient, "even if they have stored the message." Well, it isn't exactly rocket science to save the decrypted message (for perpetuity) as a plain text file. Maclen Marvit, CEO of Disappearing, says the product "is designed to solve what he terms one of the biggest problems of electronic communications: 'messages hanging around.'" The CNN article doesn't make it real clear why having illegible e-mail on your computer solves that problem. Next.

In another piece from CNN, e-mail snooping is becoming truly international, as Japan gives its police the right to tap phones and e-mail. Apparently the Japanese public did not embrace the idea but were not particularly vocal in opposing it following the 1995 sarin nerve-gas attack in the Tokyo subway. Buried in the article is reference to the fact that the FBI will ensure that it can "snoop on data crossing the backbone of Verio [a major U.S. ISP] after the company is acquired by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone." There are also comments about similar laws passed in the United Kingdom, and reference to the FBI's controversial "Carnivore" e-mail sniffing creation.

Monday, August 21, 2000

AP: San Diego electricity rates cut -- The deregulation of electricity rates in California had resulted in a doubling or even quadrupling of some customers' bills in the state's second-largest city. Public officials are raising an outcry, as some small businesses face the prospect of closing or laying off employees, or moving their businesses elsewhere, due to sky-high utility bills. New Mexico, which is flirting with deregulation, might do well to watch the lesson playing out in Southern California.

Saturday's gas pipeline explosion near Carlsbad has left ten dead and two in critical condition. The 50-year-old pipeline had recently been inspected. However, El Paso Energy stated that the particular section that blew, containing many junctions, turns and valves, could not be inspected internally. [ABC]

Reuters: Kursk crew pronounced dead, submarine flooded. Critics note that it took the Russians four days to accept outside offers of help, but only 48 hours for Norwegian divers to gain entry to the sunken submarine. "...Russian parliamentary member Andrey Kokosin said a delay in asking for outside help stemmed from 'inadequate reporting' from the very beginning by the Northern Fleet."

Salon: MasterCard vs. Ralph Nader -- "Apparently there are some things money can't buy, including a sense of humor. How else to explain MasterCard's decision to sue Ralph Nader and his presidential campaign for $15 million for running a biting political ad on TV?"

Saturday, August 19, 2000

Washington Post: Russians give up hope of saving sub crew -- "'Things just do not add up,'" said Aleksei Gusev, a retired submarine captain. 'It very much looks like what is going on now in the Barents Sea is not a rescue of our boys, but the funeral of a military secret.'"

ABC: Russia losing P.R. battle over sub disaster -- "The Kursk disaster has produced a collision between two objects every bit as formidable as a submarine and a sea bed: Russiaís lumbering post-Soviet military bureaucracy and its rambunctious, disillusioned post-Soviet press."

From the Monica Redux Dept.: Federal judge says he is source of leak about Clinton grand jury -- The leak had coincided with the day of Gore's acceptance speech -- great timing.

Gas pipeline explosion kills six campers near Carlsbad. [AP]

ABC: Shop at your own risk -- "Thousands of people have been hurt or killed while shopping in giant warehouse stores because of merchandise falling from shelves."

Hope dwindles for crew of sunken Russian submarine. [CNN]

Bruce Shapiro: The speech of his life? -- In his acceptance speech, Al Gore differentiates himself from the Bushes.

Lava lamp inventor dies -- Edward Craven Walker once said,"If you buy my lamp, you won't need drugs." He was also an avid naturist. [AP]

Tuesday, August 15, 2000

Gore on Gore: In A Dangerous Family, author, essayist and historian Gore Vidal looks at his cousin Al, corporate America, and the Nader candidacy. A must read!

CNN: Police defend use of pepper spray, rubber bullets at Democratic Convention protest -- Protesters and legal observers attempting to disperse were shot in the back with rubber bullets by the Los Angeles Police Department after a small group at the fringe of a free concert started throwing rocks. "Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks told CNN on Tuesday he thought the police response was 'outstanding.'" Civil liberties groups and veteran activists criticize the action as "starting a police riot."

Reuters: Russia plans third attempt to resuce stricken sub -- With oxygen running out for 116 trapped navy submarine crewmen on the bottom of the ocean, it is not clear whether Russia will accept offers of assistance from the U.S., Britain, or other countries.

Monday, August 14, 2000

ABC: Mars bars -- How to make bricks from Martian soil to protect interplanetary explorers from radiation.

Salon: War on protesters -- discusses the militarization of the police and the response to demonstrations in Los Angeles around the Democratic Convention.... Also questions the million-dollar bail (on four misdemeanor charges) for activist John Sellers in relation to the Eighth Amendment ("excessive bail shall not be required").

"The authorities, of course, claim that the arrestees are criminals: that the puppet-makers were really making weapons and that Sellers is a political Professor Moriarty (the fictional nemesis of Sherlock Holmes). But to judge from what they've publicly stated so far, they have little convincing evidence to bolster those charges. Until they can do better, we're left with tales of gross abuse and illegal detention, and the bitter aftertaste of autocracy."

Federal Computer Week: Toxic info to stay off web -- The Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have decided that information about potentially dangerous toxic sites and chemical spills will be removed from the Internet, a decision that seems to indicate fear of terrorism outweighs the public's right to information regarding their safety.

Saturday, August 12, 2000

Reuters: L.A. on Alert -- The Staples Center, site of the upcoming Democratic convention, resembles a war zone -- chain link everywhere. The Sheriff's Department acknowledges that 99% of protesters are non-violent and exercising their rights but promises to clamp down on troublemakers. However, some observers fear the L.A. Police Department will over-react:

"There is an atmosphere of intimidation that is unbelievable. What we are doing is creating a climate of fear," councilwoman Jackie Goldberg told a meeting of Los Angeles City Council on Friday. We are hearing from people [protest organizers] saying officers are following them home at night. That they are taunting them and saying 'We will get you.'"

The controversy over the fate of EgyptAir Flight 990 continues. Was it mechanical failure? Or was the plane intentionally plunged into the ocean?

Friday, August 11, 2000

ABC offers a good explanation of why huge parts of the West are ablaze. "...Protecting [rustic private] properties from wildfire can mean suppressing a natural cycle of smaller wildfires that are critical for burning up forest fuels and preventing uncontrollable infernos."

CNN: The last known prisoner of World War II has arrived back in Hungary after spending five decades locked away in a Russian psychiatric hospital.

Salon: Straitjacket for the Skies -- Air rage is a problem. The Body Restraint Package is "designed to lock down aggressors by clamping them to their seat."

Monday, August 07, 2000

CNET: Bugs afflict Microsoft, Netscape, Sun -- "Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Netscape Communications have started off the week battling two different security problems: one that exposes a computer's contents and another that makes computers vulnerable to a complete takeover."

David Horowitz: Why Bush Will Win -- "With a unified base, Bush is moving to the center, while Gore continues to alienate his base with the selection of Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate."

Reuters: Texas schedules double execution for Wednesday -- One of the two convicted murderers may be mentally retarded. Thirteen states prohibit executing mentally retarded individuals; Texas is slated to adopt similar legislation in six to eight months' time. "Since [George W.] Bush took office in 1995, 138 people have been executed in Texas, the most recent coming on July 26." Bush, billing himself as a "compassionate conservative," will likely come under further fire over Texas' high rate of executions.

Some southwestern Montana residents are forced to evacuate their homes, as Western wildfires continue to rage out of control.

AP: Sir Alec Guinness dies at 86 -- Guinness, a modest man by any account, loathed the "man of a thousand faces" moniker.

CNN: Gore chooses Lieberman as running mate -- Lieberman, highly regarded as a person of integrity, would be considered a "slam dunk" as V.P. candidate if he were Episcopalian instead of an Orthodox Jew. Why does this still even matter?

AP/Nando: Motorola unveils Web-enabled car device -- This is a hoot, since Motorola introducted the first car radios back in the 1920's. Let's hope web-enabled car devices don't turn into a Dumb Driver epidemic as we've seen with cellular phones.

ABC: Eight new planets found outside our solar system -- Telltale wobbles of light betray their presence.

Saturday, August 05, 2000

Salon/AP: Bail set at $1 million for Philly protest leader -- Police Commissioner John Timoney refers to a "cadre of criminal conspirators." The article notes that "John Sellers, 33, a leader of the Ruckus Society, was being held on $1 million bail for misdemeanors including conspiracy, reckless endangerment and related charges." Million-dollar bail for misdemeanors?? Seven-figure bail is usually reserved for the likes of serial killers. I do not advocate property damage, which has been an issue in Seattle, Washington, D.C., and now Philadelphia. But this is ridiculous.

Roger Cossack: What's wrong with civil disobedience? -- "The First Amendment to our Constitution guarantees that we not only have the right to protest by sign or voice, but that we also have the right to assemble. Of course, the tension that exists is always between these inalienable rights and how they are implemented."

Friday, August 04, 2000 CNN: Astronomers find new planet in Earth's 'backyard' -- The planet, possibly larger than Jupiter, is in a nearby solar system. The distance between it and its star (similar to Earth's distance to our sun) suggests to astronomers the possibility of Earth-like planets in that solar system.

Reuters: Lightning sparks more fires in Western U.S. -- "As of Friday, some 70 fires were burning 747,110 acres in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming."

As the Republican Convention winds down, the Philadelphia police are facing ugly allegations of brutality and misconduct. Arrestees, later released, allege beatings, witholding of bathroom privileges, shutting off water to cellblocks, and excessive bail ($1,0000,000 reportedly, in one case -- a little high for peaceful civil protest). The Philadelphia Police Department denies the allegations.

The Philadelphia Independent Media Center has breaking news relating to the convention, the protests, and the Philadelphia Police Department.

Rebutting the rebuttal: The FBI's chief negotiator during the Waco siege, Byron Sage, blasts documentary film maker Dan Gifford (Waco: The Rules of Engagement) as paranoid and misinformed. Gifford had recently been highly critical of the recent Danforth Report, which (again) exonerated federal agents of wrongdoing in the deaths of about 80 Branch Davidians in 1993. Sage, now retired, argues that the conspiracy theorists are wrong because they were not there and he was. Read it; it's almost believable.

Wednesday, August 02, 2000

Yes, we have no privacy

Reuters: Judge orders emergency hearing on Carnivore -- "A federal judge ordered an emergency hearing on Wednesday on a privacy rights group's request for the immediate release of details on Carnivore, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's e-mail surveillance tool."

Time notes, in A Big Brother You Might Want to Watch, that Internet service provider Earthlink is refusing to let the FBI install Carnivore on its servers . . . because the last time they did so, the snooping device broke their system!

Del Miller has a chilling piece at MacOpinion, The Number of the Beast. He writes, "There is increasing debate over the government's attempts to spy on our email, but I have a secret for you: It's too late." Miller convincingly argues that the government's insistence on denial of such capabilities, plus their "specious arguments" that doing so will not threaten our privacy, are eroding public trust and confidence.

Dan Gillmor takes a hard look at the Republican National Convention and the state of broadcast journalism.

Pirated needlepoint pattern uproar -- "They're housewives and they're hackers," Hedgepath said. "I don't care if they have kids. I don't care that they are grandmothers. They're bootlegging us out of business." [L.A. Times]

Washington Post: Brady Law's Effect is Discounted -- "A provocative new study published yesterday concludes that the 1994 Brady law restricting handgun purchases has had no effect on firearm homicide and suicide rates in states that previously had looser controls."

Reuters: Kansans Eject Anti-Evolution School Board Leaders -- "Charles Darwin and his theory got revenge in Kansas on Tuesday as voters turned out two of three state education leaders who last year led an effort to downplay the theory of evolution in school science classes across the state."

Tuesday, August 01, 2000

Reuters: Chemical weapon workers allege nerve gas leaks -- "The lawsuit asks that the Umatilla Chemical Depot in northeast Oregon be shut down until the Army and Raytheon take steps to ensure worker safety at the facility, which was built to store and dispose of thousands of tons of chemical weapons including sarin, a nerve gas, and mustard gas."

Funny money -- Georgia students busted for making counterfeit money on school computers. [AP]

Milosevic loses his head? -- A group of Dutchmen are in custody in the former Yugoslavia for allegedly traveling there to kill Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. In Belgrade, the opposition dismissed the charges as a propaganda stunt. [ABC]

CNN: Huge new telescope to scan skies for ET -- The SETI Institute will finally get its own installation, instead of having to buy time on radio telescopes. It is expected to become operational in 2005.