Salon: The failure of zero tolerance -- "This situation has led many to observe that a parallel tracking system is in effect in our nation's schools: one feeding mostly white, affluent and middle class students to college, the other feeding poor, minority kids to prison."

A white-hat hacker has shown he can crack Microsoft's Hotmail and Passport with one line of code, using cross-site scripting. Hotmail is Microsoft's free e-mail service; Passport is their sign-on repository for your personal data, sometimes including credit card numbers. For the technically inclined, here's a CERT advisory on cross-site scripting.

Dave Winer: Microsoft's Scripting Strategy -- Embrace, extend, extinguish...

Andrea Yates is apparently receiving better mental health care in prison than she was at home, now described as "normal" by her brother. Ironically, her recover to a normal mental state may ensure her execution by the State of Texas.

BBC: Astronaut warns of Earth impact -- Bird's-eye view of mankind's impact on our home...

Country folks often get the bum rap for being stupid. Out here, it's the out-of-town city idiots who have no sense. Some clown bought two acres next to us, clear-cut a lot of brush, lit it afire, then drove back to the city while his piles of embers were still smoldering. Morons! Fortunately the local volunteer fire department was glad to come out and douse the mess.

NY Times: Budget analysts see need to tap Social Security -- "Congressional budget analysts warned in a report made public today that the economic downturn and President Bush's tax-cut package would force the federal government to spend $9 billion from the Social Security surplus this year and billions more over the next three years." And we believed they wouldn't touch SS? Yeah, right. This is gonna really tick off a lot of people.

Reuters: Bullying seen as key factor in school shootings -- While I'd agree that bullying is a big problem, the survey and the conclusions drawn from it sound fishy.

Finally got the G4 tower back from the dealer yesterday (10 days seems a little long to me). They decided to stick a new modem in it for good measure, though the tech said they really can't diagnose all the possibilities of what might or might not be going on with the original modem. Huh? Screw the modem; I plugged the thing into the ethernet hub and it works 100 times better than it did with those flaky internal modems.

Reuters has finally picked up the hungry bears vs. humans story here in New Mexico. Fortunately for us, the incidents are occurring at some distance to the north and northeast. There's been a lot of coverage recently in the Albuquerque Journal, which we can't link to (and whose articles are now on paid subscription). One retiree up in Taos shot a bear in his kitchen in the middle of the night; the same bear later got into an aggressive standoff with tracking dogs and was shot. We're hoping things stay quiet in these parts. ;-)

Israel carries out another 'pinpoint' assassination. "Palestinian sources say Abu Ali Mustafa died when at least two missiles struck his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah, not far from the offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat." [BBC]

Reuters: IBM molecular circuit may mean tiny computer chips -- "International Business Machines Corp. said Sunday that its researchers have built a logic circuit -- a set of electronic components that performs a processing function -- based on a tiny cylindrical structure made up of carbon atoms that is about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair."

More FBI blunders in Lee probe -- "The FBI's investigation of Wen Ho Lee was more seriously bungled than officials have previously disclosed, with inept agents making amateurish mistakes and ignoring orders to consider other suspects, according to an unreleased portion of a classified Justice Department report." [Washington Post]

Infoworld: 'Offensive' Trojan horse can disable systems -- "Trojan.Offensive arrives in users' e-mail in-boxes as an HTML e-mail, although it could also be a Web page found on the Internet, if someone posted it there, Symantec said." The vulnerability is reportedly a 10-month-old security hole in Microsoft's java virtual machine. Turn this stuff off.

NY Times: Researchers say embryos in labs are not available -- "Tens of thousands of embryos are frozen at fertility centers, and a widespread assumption in the debate over stem cell research has been that scientists can use them." However, most are spoken for, leading to the ethical dilemma of whether to create human embryos solely for the purpose of harvesting stem cells. Although President Bush was satisfied with 60 existing "lines" of stem cells, in reality there may be only a few dozen lines, most of which have been exposed to mouse cells during development.

NY Times: Drug's problems raise questions on warnings -- "A more effective warning system is needed to alert doctors to drug side effects and problems, many in the medical profession say." Having a doctor rely on a year-old copy of the Physician's Desk Reference or letters from the FDA isn't adequate.

Suit alleges Paxil addictive -- The lawsuit claims that GlaxoSmithkline PLC concealed the risks of addiction to the second most popular anti-depressant medication in the U.S. [AP] The plaintiff experienced severe symptoms after discontinuing the medication. My recollection from school days is that you don't just abruptly stop taking these kinds of medications; they have to be discontinued gradually. The article doesn't make clear which occurred.

Ananova: Man dies playing all-night computer game -- The 22-year-old Thai man apparently succumbed in an Internet cafe after too many hours of 'Half Life: Counter Strike.' Okay, that does it, I'm turning this freaking thing off for the night...

The Times [UK]: "Bill Gates...is thought to have warned President Bush that any delay to the launch of Windows XP could cause the worst slump in US computer sales for nearly two decades."

MSNBC: "Two small software companies have developed third-party products that turn plain text into hyperlinks. Critics say they are essentially hijacking Web traffic for profit, and in the case of one product, turning Web sites into a mess of green blobs." Sheesh, it's 'smart tags' reincarnated, except not from Microsoft.

Paul Andrews: The revolution is knocking please let it in -- Traditional media is dying. "...What I see at ground zero is a transformation of the way people find, process and reward information."

Last November, Israel adopted a policy of 'pinpoint assassination' -- "We are not speaking about people who did something. We are speaking about people we know who will be involved in terrorist action in the near future." [Guardian] Hey, they can see into the future! Preventive killing ... what a concept, coming to a town near you. Oh, wait, it already has, in Seattle. [Via Joshua Allen]

Bush on the range -- "As he worked on splitting a 30-foot dead hackenberry tree, a doctor, a nurse and two agents were close by. A few yards away behind a stump sat 'the football,' the briefcase containing nuclear launch codes that remains at the president's side at all times." [Reuters] Ah, the bucolic life... I found this almost surreal.

USA Today: Windows XP promises much, demands more -- To clarify on a few comments below, Microsoft says 128 meg RAM minimum, 1.5 gig of free disk space, and at least a 300 mHz Pentium processor. This particular PC is running Windows 98 with 128 meg of RAM on a 433 mHz Pentium, and I'd call it okay-to-fast. I can't imagine trying to run Win XP on this box and not have it choke. Based on past experience, the minimums Microsoft prints on the box mean "it will run, sort of," with the net result you need a lot more resources. Hence my comment earlier about 1-gigahertz processors. No mention is made of the problematic "upgrade" procedure.

Guardian Unlimited: Lay off men, Lessing tells feminists -- "We have many wonderful, clever, powerful women everywhere, but what is happening to men? Why did this have to be at the cost of men?"

Dave Winer: "Men have lousy PR. As individuals we can shine, but we don't do anything to improve the reputation of our gender."

Wall St. Journal: PC sales continue to fall -- The family cited in the article has a bunch of computers at home, none of which is newer than two years; they don't plan on buying a new one any time soon. Hey, they work! :-)

A friend who teaches tech ed in secondary school has probably ten computers at home, all networked together, only one of which is "new." This is Microsoft's (and Intel's and Dell's) nightmare, and is helping push the move toward subscription based services ("renting" your operating system from Microsoft for annual fees). The two PCs here, in use while the Mac G4 is in the shop, are vintage 1995 and 1997, respectively. One of them even has (gasp!) Windows 95 still running on it. Hey, they work! Do I need Windows XP or Office XP and a ride in the locked trunk with Bill G.? No, thank you. ;-)

By the way, the folks out there who think they can buy the "upgrade" version of Windows XP and just install it over Windows 98 are likely in for a rude surprise: even Microsoft suggests it may not work. The only guaranteed route is a fresh install, which means paying full price for the full version. Gotcha... ;-) Oh, and while we're at it, unless you have a brand new 1-gigahertz Pentium with a half-gig of RAM, don't count on XP even working.

That's enough ranting about that topic. ;-)

Dan Gillmor: Abe Lincoln for Microsoft -- Microsoft should have picked better dead people to lobby for them.

LA Times: Lobbyists tied to Microsoft wrote citizens' letters -- "Letters purportedly written by at least two dead people landed on the desk of Utah Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff earlier this year, imploring him to go easy on Microsoft Corp. for its conduct as a monopoly." Say, these are the folks we want to trust with all our personal data? Wow. [This link will vanish into the Times pay-to-retrieve archives in a few days.]

ABC: Women waiting longer for mammograms -- "Why are so many radiologists getting out of mammography? Because it doesn't pay." That and the ever-present threat of malpractice litigation.

Washington Post: 'My kids were used as guinea pigs' -- "[The] Kennedy Krieger study...encouraged landlords to rent lead-contaminated homes to Martin's family and many of the 107 other poor, Baltimore families with young children in the research project." This is an outrage reminiscent of the Tuskegee experiments.

BBC: "The FBI has defeated an attempt to force it to reveal in detail how it bugged the keyboard of the son of a mafia boss." This case could set significant precedents, since the FBI is using technologies which "go beyond existing laws."

Also from BBC, Dr. Richard Leakey considers we may see extinction of 55% of Earth's species in the next 50-100 years. Not a very heartening legacy for future generations.

Now we have worms masquerading as anti-virus software. [USA Today]

For the clowns out there that think the "Code Red" worm is a joke, I just looked at my referrer log for this month. Normally, three people read this site, including myself. ;-) The log is 1.3 meg in size, and contains scores of entries like this:

137.151.18.92 - - [19/Jul/2001:12:45:03 -0600] "GET /default.ida?NNNNNNNNN [snip] %u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801% u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090% u6858%ucbd3%u7801% u9090%u9090%u8190%u00c3%u000 3%u8b00%u531b%u53ff%u0078%u00 00%u00=a HTTP/1.0" 404 280 www.virtualtome.org "-" "-"

The Microsoft antitrust case gets a new judge. The timing on this is pretty wild, since Windows XP is being released to PC makers today.

Death-row inmate released following DNA testing. [NY Times] We have no business executing people unless we can be positive they "got the right guy." And, even then, consider the botched executions.

Much of the world lives in "perennial moonlight", except it's man-made. [NY Times] We can see the stars here at night, but even so, there is a lot of artificial brightness obscuring the constellations.

I had occasion to download Aladdin Systems' free Stuffit Expander for Windows, needing to move a Stuffit archive over to one of the PCs. Very cool (and free); however, once run, it associates all archive file types with itself, such as .zip. Not nice, guys.

Speaking of "old," I keep finding typos I've missed. Hey, I got new glasses, too. Sheesh...

Mick Jagger may be becoming a spokesman for the aging. [ABC] This is enough to make me feel positively decrepit, especially having seen the Stones at the Long Beach Arena in 1962. Sigh...

Toxic sprouts -- Your salad may be killing you. [ABC] We used to think this stuff was good for us.

Racism is alive and well in Alaska -- "Federation leaders told the Civil Rights Commission on Thursday that Alaska's indigenous peoples regularly face a 'process of dehumanization,' and sometimes worse." [Reuters]

The 60 lines of stem cells blessed by Bush for further research have likely been mixed with mouse cells. [Washington Post]

The death of a teenager at an Arizona camp for troubled kids has been ruled accidental. Questions of criminal negligence remain, however. [AP]

Robert Scheer: Dog days for God -- "On a nonviolent level, there is the mischief of those who play at religion for more transparent political ends, such as our president, who cut off funding for international birth control education as punishment for groups, such as Planned Parenthood, that disagree with him on abortion."

After a very welcome respite, Gary Condit is back in the news. Where's Chandra?

The Associated Press apparently doesn't think much of Fair Use. Geez, do I have to go back and remove all the links and one-line quotes?

China is finally admitting aloud that it has an AIDS epidemic.

From the NY Times, How to avoid being attacked in the shower. No, it's not "Psycho," it's a computer model that explains why shower curtains "suck" inward.

The Albuquerque Journal, which I quit linking to due to their idiotic "pay us $50 to link to a story" policy, is now charging annual subscriptions to read an article on their site. Go fish...

There was some other stuff that I bookmarked recently, but it's vaporized when the PC took a dump.

To borrow from Garret, you do read this bottom-to-top, don't you? ;-:

Holy cow, what a week. I took the Mac G4 tower to the dealer for warranty repair, and it's still not back. Moving all the web site database stuff from backup onto an older PC was not exactly fun, but here we are. The irony will be the dealer calling tomorrow to say the computer is repaired.

Reuters: Chinese Internet publisher put on trial

Patent laws may control stem cell research, specifically a patent held by the University of Wisconsin. (NY Times, free registration required)

What's for dinner? Grade-A Thumper!

New solar system discovered, only 50 light years away.

By 2025, one in three people will not have access to sufficient water.

If you're famous, you can copyright your DNA; that way, you have legal remedy if someone illegally clones you. Geez...

Very soon it will be illegal to talk in your car. In the meantime, the fumes will kill you.

Palm buys Be.

President Bush, who is big on testing, is flunking abroad.

Dan Gillmor: Big Blue places $1 billion bet on Linux

Reuters: Missouri pharmacist accused of diluting medicine -- "A Kansas City pharmacist surrendered on Wednesday amid allegations he routinely diluted chemotherapy drugs prescribed for cancer patients."

BBC: Cloning humans may be easier than cloning animals. Uh-oh...

Reuters: L.A. judge rules artist can parody Barbie in artwork -- "The judge's decision is a powerful victory for all feminists who criticize Barbie's stereotype of women and the unquestioning acceptance that allows Mattel to sell these hyper sexualized hunks of plastic into millions of American homes."

AP: "The FBI wasted four years investigating nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee because it failed to correct misleading information provided by the Energy Department, according to a report prepared for the government."

NY Times: More than just a nuisance, the mosquito is a virtuoso of disease -- Time to move to the desert; the little beasts have been extra bothersome this summer due to all the humidity and rain.

Today is Fidel Castro's 75th birthday.

British scientists may have discovered a treatment for Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, the human variant of "mad cow" disease.

The local vet recommended 50 mg Benadryl (antihistamine) for one of the dogs who was having an allergic reaction after picking up a large toad in her mouth. Learn something new out here every day.

Life with one phone line is beginning to suck...

Scott Rosenberg: Bush's stem-cell fumble: "If intention doesn't make a difference -- and Bush believes that destroying embryos is immoral no matter what the original purpose behind their conception -- then he should have stood in front of the nation Thursday and called for the shutdown of fertility clinics." Of course, doing so would cost him the 2004 election.

Washington Post: "...Even if all the Bush-approved cell lines manage to survive and produce progeny cells for years to come, scientists still will be working with a fraction of the resources they would like to have."

BBC: Ice and oil: The risks -- "...There is something like a 50% chance of finding enough oil in the refuge to keep the US going for nine months."

Washington Post: Microsoft appeals antitrust ruling to high court.

The Qwest technician just left, having switched some wires "out there" somewhere. Let's see how long the euphoria lasts.

Reuters: G.M. unveils hydrogen fuel cell -- "GM described the fuel cell as a clean, quiet, ultra-efficient power generator that could serve as a reliable backup for housing developments, businesses and hospitals at risk of losing power because of blackouts."

NY Times: Bell companies blamed for D.S.L.'s woes -- "'They've taken their monopoly advantage and leveraged it to get 80 percent of the market in D.S.L.,' Mr. Plotkin said of the Bells. 'It's not what the 1996 Telecommunications Act was supposed to do.'" (Free registration required) I suppose Hades will freeze over before we'd see DSL (digital subscriber lines) out here.

Speaking of telecom issues, the phone service here seems to have miraculously recovered following a call to Qwest service. Thanks! Now, it would be nice if it would stay that way for more than a few days. One can hope...

Washington Post: FERC chairman to resign -- "U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Curtis Hebert said Monday he will resign his post at the end of August, ending a brief and controversial tenure highlighted by his rejection of price caps to keep California's power system from failing."

CNN: Team plans to clone up to 200 humans -- "He said his team is working with 200 couples who are infertile and the aim of the 'attempt' is to help them have a baby." Anybody ever hear of adoption? What do they plan to do with the mutant reject offspring?

BBC: Meet the Neanderthals -- "Reconstructions of Neanderthal skulls add to growing evidence that the creatures were not close relatives of modern humans."

Washington Post: Censure of Freeh was secretly rejected -- "Justice Department officials who reviewed the FBI's flawed investigations of the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, called for disciplinary action against FBI Director Louis J. Freeh and three other FBI veterans, but the recommendations were secretly rejected in the closing days of the Clinton administration."

TomPaine.com: Will Michael Powell be the first black president?

Between the heat and the crappy phone service from Qwest, it's hard to remain enthused about updating this site. Network connections are dropping like flies... Some day maybe we'll have wireless access out here in the boonies.

BBC: Senator's threat to block 'Star Wars' -- "Senator Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the BBC he believed they would have the votes to block the plans if the Bush administration failed in its current diplomatic efforts to win acceptance for the system."

Times of India: Russia may resume military ties with North Korea

Reuters: Cheney declines to give Congress energy documents -- "Vice President Dick Cheney has declined to turn over documents sought by Congress in an inquiry into how the Bush administration's energy policy was formed, according to letters from Cheney released on Friday."

Reuters: U.N. examines U.S. record on race for first time -- "The problem is not addressed. In fact the United States is reasserting with pride its constitutional standards which don't give people protection."

Salon: Is Katherine Harris' office resisting Florida election reforms? -- "We don't even know if she knows about this action.... Her argument to the Civil Rights Commission was that she just delegates everything. And it's true -- she's shown she knows absolutely diddly squat about elections."

Dinosaurs likely had noses -- 200 years of "artists' conceptions" may have been way off the mark. [Washington Post]

August already! Maybe the rain and humidity will let up...

The Government Wants to be Your Physician

Reuters: Florida doctor charged in OxyContin death -- "Dr. Denis Deonarine, 56, was charged under Florida's felony murder law, which allows authorities to file murder charges if someone dies during the commission of another felony, in this case, a trafficking charge for prescribing the drug, attorney Richard Lubin said." OxyContin abuse is the latest dangerous fad, with a high incidence of abuse. However, when law enforcement agencies begin to dictate what physicians may legally prescribe, I think we're in one hell of a lot of trouble. Someone in the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office either has a vendetta against Dr. Denonarine or is choosing the wrong way to achieve political fame.

From the Microsoft World-Domination Dept.

Dave Winer has written a lot about Microsoft's tendency to want to lock everyone in the trunk of the car (a great metaphor, BTW). In a recent open-source-software "summit meeting," Microsoft acknowledged they will use patents to crush developers. "That means if you produce software that uses some technique that Microsoft has patented, they'll either make you take the feature out or send you a bill." Considering that Microsoft does not innovate, but "borrows" technology (e.g., from Apple Computer), this is totally off the wall.

Offering a faint glimmer of hope, however, "a federal appeals court on Thursday rejected Microsoft Corp.'s request to re-examine part of its ruling in the landmark antitrust case against the firm...." [Reuters]

Dan Gillmor: "...Windows XP is the linchpin of Microsoft's plain-as-day attempt to control the Internet just as it now controls desktop computing -- and to put itself at the center of all manner of future commerce and communications."

Robert Scheer: Pity the fool -- "George Bush isn't mean, he just ain't too bright."