Fold/Spindle/Mutilate 2.1

By Scott Granneman Jan 21 2004 11:39AM PT

Well, it finally happened. Right before Christmas, I had a little visit from the FBI. That’s right: an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation came to see me. He had some things he wanted to talk about. He stayed a couple of hours, and then went on his way. Hopefully he got what he wanted. I know I did.

Let me explain. I teach technology classes at Washington University in St. Louis, a fact that I mentioned in a column from 22 October 2003 titled, “Joe Average User Is In Trouble“. In that column, I talked about the fact that most ordinary computer users have no idea about what security means. They don’t practice secure computing because they don’t understand what that means. After that column came out, I received a lot of email. One of those emails was from Dave Thomas, former chief of computer intrusion investigations at FBI headquarters, and current Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the St. Louis Division of the FBI.

Dave had this to say: “I have spent a considerable amount in the computer underground and have seen many ways in which clever individuals trick unsuspecting users. I don’t think most people have a clue just how bad things are.” He then offered to come speak to my students about his experiences.

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Supreme Court Justices Need Friends Too

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By Doug Gross

ATLANTA (AP) —

The state’s school superintendent has proposed striking the word evolution from Georgia’s science curriculum and replacing it with the phrase “biological changes over time.”

The change, which drew criticism from both liberals and conservatives, is included in more than 800 pages of draft revisions to Georgia’s curriculum that have been posted by the Department of Education on its Web site. The middle and high school standards are expected to be voted on by the state Board of Education in May, after public comments.

Superintendent Kathy Cox said the concept of evolution would still be taught under the proposal, but the word would not be used in the curriculum. The proposal would not require schools to buy new textbooks omitting the word evolution and would not prevent teachers from using it.

Cox, a Republican elected to the post in 2002, repeatedly referred to evolution as a “buzzword” Thursday and said the ban was proposed, in part, to alleviate pressure on teachers in socially conservative areas where parents object to its teaching.

“If teachers across this state, parents across this state say, ‘This is not what we want,’ then we’ll change it,” Cox said.

Educators and legislators criticized the proposal, saying science teachers understand the theories behind evolution and how to teach them.

“Here we are, saying we have to improve standards and improve education, and we’re just throwing a bone to the conservatives with total disregard to what scientists say,” said state Rep. Bob Holmes, a Democrat.

Former President Jimmy Carter had harsh words for the change on Friday, calling it an embarrassment and saying it exposes the state to nationwide ridicule.

“As a Christian, a trained engineer and scientist, and a professor at Emory University, I am embarrassed by Superintendent Kathy Cox’s attempt to censor and distort the education of Georgia’s students,” Carter said in a statement.

Social conservatives who prefer religious creation to be taught instead of evolution criticized the proposal as well.

“If you’re teaching the concept without the word, what’s the point?” said Rep. Bobby Franklin, a Republican. “It’s stupid. It’s like teaching gravity without using the word gravity.”

Carter, a Baptist and Democrat who had served as Georgia governor before he was elected president in 1976, said that existing references to evolution in Georgia’s curriculum have done nothing to damage religious faith in the state.

Cox spokesman Kirk Englehardt said the superintendent was reviewing Carter’s statement Friday morning and did not have an immediate response.

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Kerry’s recent campaign emphasis on the gasoline additive MTBE may have puzzled New Hampshire outsiders, but it certainly helped in the primary.

By Amanda Griscom

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By BOB HERBERT

an you spell Halliburton? R-i-p-o-f-f.

War-torn Iraq has been a gold mine for Halliburton, yet another treasure trove of U.S. taxpayer dollars for a company that has no peer in the fine art of extracting riches from the government.

But if you go through some of Halliburton’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the past several years, as I have, you’ll see a company that goes to great lengths — literally to the ends of the earth — to escape paying its fair share of taxes to the government that has been so good to it.

Annual reports filed with the S.E.C. since the mid-90’s — when Dick Cheney took over as chief executive and wrote the game plan for garnering government goodies — showed Halliburton subsidiaries incorporated in such places as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Liechtenstein, and Vanuatu.

Vanuatu? Who knew?

Vanuatu is a mountainous group of islands in the South Pacific. Its people support themselves mostly by fishing and subsistence farming. “Additional revenues,” according to the Columbia Encyclopedia, “derive from a growing tourist industry and the development of Vila [the capital] as a corporate tax shelter.”

(Read the article)

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By BOB HERBERT

an you spell Halliburton? R-i-p-o-f-f.

War-torn Iraq has been a gold mine for Halliburton, yet another treasure trove of U.S. taxpayer dollars for a company that has no peer in the fine art of extracting riches from the government.

But if you go through some of Halliburton’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the past several years, as I have, you’ll see a company that goes to great lengths — literally to the ends of the earth — to escape paying its fair share of taxes to the government that has been so good to it.

Annual reports filed with the S.E.C. since the mid-90’s — when Dick Cheney took over as chief executive and wrote the game plan for garnering government goodies — showed Halliburton subsidiaries incorporated in such places as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Liechtenstein, and Vanuatu.

Vanuatu? Who knew?

Vanuatu is a mountainous group of islands in the South Pacific. Its people support themselves mostly by fishing and subsistence farming. “Additional revenues,” according to the Columbia Encyclopedia, “derive from a growing tourist industry and the development of Vila [the capital] as a corporate tax shelter.”

(Read the article)

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“An End to Evil” by David Frum and Richard Perle

Undaunted by the Iraq debacle, uber-hawks David Frum and Richard Perle air their fevered wet dream of a national-security superstate that slaps down uppity Muslims, bombs North Korea, slices and dices civil liberties and scatters the Palestinians like birdseed.

Forget “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Put down “The Shining.” Retire that dog-eared copy of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Lurking Fear.” If you really want to feel the cold fingers of fear running up and down your spine, pick up David Frum and Richard Perle’s “An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror.” It’s the scariest book since the novel Saddam Hussein reportedly wrote while his underlings pretended to work on those nonexistent weapons-of-mass-destruction-related program activities — you remember, the ones the authors and their friends in the White House used to justify invading Iraq.

“An End to Evil” is like Bush on crack. It’s a kind of neocon orgy, a Bohemian Grove weekend for militaristic moralists, a chance to get naked and do tribal, Lord of the Flies dances — “Invade Iran! Kill Yasser! Drink Kim’s blood!” But if its recommendations are a little too extreme even for the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney-Paul Wolfowitz triumvirate, its underlying worldview is identical to theirs. It’s a kind of CAT scan of the Bush administration’s collective brain, an entity so weird it should be cryogenically frozen so future scientists can study it. Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and author of a recent encomium to his ex-boss, presumably represents the right brain, glibly spinning and selling, while neocon guru Richard Perle provides the left-hemisphere gray matter. With its trademarked combination of chipper propaganda, bullying bluster, intellectual dishonesty and radical policy prescriptions, “An End to Evil” offers a guided tour of the mind of George W. Bush, as filtered through the higher-grade neurons of its authors.

Here are some of the authors’ policy recommendations:

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A genetically modified weed has been developed that could someday be used to detect landmines. Sow it over a landmine field and Thale Cress, which in its original state turns brown when subjected to stressful conditions, will turn a warning red when its roots detect traces of explosives.

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A genetically modified weed has been developed that could someday be used to detect landmines. Sow it over a landmine field and Thale Cress, which in its original state turns brown when subjected to stressful conditions, will turn a warning red when its roots detect traces of explosives.

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The ongoing sparring match between Pixar CEO Steve Jobs and Disney CEO Michael Eisner ended in a surprise knockout Thursday when Jobs abruptly ended talks to extend Pixar’s 12-year-old animated film distribution deal with Disney. “After 10 months of trying to strike a deal with Disney, we’re moving on,” Jobs said in a terse statement. “We’ve had a great run together — one of the most successful in Hollywood history — and it’s a shame that Disney won’t be participating in Pixar’s future successes.” A shame indeed, but mostly for Disney which has now lost out on one of the few creative sources that could have kept it relevant. Disney hasn’t had blockbuster hit since “The Lion King” (remember “The Emperor’s New Groove”? How about “Treasure Planet”? Mmhm. Didn’t think so.) Worse still, Pixar’s films have been responsible for a big portion of Disney’s studio profits in recent years. Indeed, last year they comprised some 25 percent of Disney profits. It’s hard to believe, then, that Eisner would let Pixar go, even if the studio was, as many suspect, gunning for a deal in which it underwrites its own films and Disney gets only a 6% distribution fee. But that seems to be what happened. And, unless Jobs is bluffing, it doesn’t bode well for Disney. “It is impossible to know how bad this is for Disney,” Richard Greenfield, a managing director at Fulcrum Global Partners, told the New York Times. “You have to venture a guess from a creative standpoint the company is at risk.”

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404: Stolen SCO Code in Linux cannot be displayed

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January 30th 2004 ..Posted in.... Uncategorized

ASHINGTON, Jan. 29

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If ever there was a question in people’s minds whether the drug industry wrote the President’s Medicare bill, it can now been put to rest. Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA), the top author of the bill, is now negotiating a multi-million dollar deal to head PhRMA

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The Bush Administration announced “The new Medicare bill will cost about 35% more” than it had estimated during the debate over the bill. President Bush specifically “said he would not sign anything that exceeded $400 billion” while also opposing provisions to allow the government to negotiate lower drug prices and reimportation of medicine from Canada

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Ever wonder why prescription drugs cost so much? Knight-Ridder reports that “Drug companies spend about $1 billion a year – nearly a third more than they did five years ago – to market prescription drugs in general audience publications.” As astronomical as that figure is, the pharmaceutical industry spends “even more to advertise on television.” Besides adding costs, drug ads “aren’t always…good at informing readers of the risks.” Meanwhile, “The Food and Drug Administration, which is supposed to protect people from ads that exaggerate the benefits or soft-pedal the risks of prescription drugs, is hobbled by obsolete standards, inadequate staffing and a growing reluctance to get tough with drug companies.” Last year, “Only 18 FDA reviewers were assigned to scrutinize the roughly 37,000 drug ads and promotional materials that drug companies submitted.” While ads are supposed to include a brief summary of risk, many exceed 2,000 words and are incomprehensible to the average consumer. A prime example: “HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors interfere with cholesterol synthesis and theoretically might blunt adrenal and/or gonadal steroid production.”

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Jo Best
silicon.com

(SME=small and medium-sized businesses)

It seems SMEs are having sleepless nights these days. It’s not the economy that’s bringing on the Horlicks and Nytol – it’s Bill Gates. Small businesses are apparently worried about their over-fondness for the big man’s software.

Around half of small and medium-sized businesses with fewer than 500 employees are plagued by the fear that Microsoft’s products are their only viable software option, and 72 per cent are already looking into the other alternatives, says a report from the Yankee Group.

It’s an issue that troubles everyone, from tiny family businesses to larger industrial concerns, believes Michael Lauricella, from the analyst group’s small and medium business strategies advisory service. “While we expected some apprehension about over-dependence on Microsoft, we were surprised at the extent of this concern throughout the… market. Whether a five-person pizza shop or a 400-employee manufacturing facility, [SMEs] reported similar anxiety about Microsoft,” he said in a statement.

The analysts expect that the main benefactors of small business’ software insomnia will be other major players, such as SAP, Oracle, Siebel and IBM.

(Read the article)

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Leader

The Guardian

Thirty-six hours can be a lifetime in politics. On Tuesday morning there were journalists all over London fine-tuning obituaries of Tony Blair. By mid-afternoon yesterday the prime minister was being cheered so riotously that the Speaker had to threaten to suspend parliament. Barely had Mr Blair sat down than the obituary writers turned their attention to another subject altogether: the chairman of the hated BBC. The Labour loyalist who wondered aloud whether a dukedom might be an appropriate honour for Lord Hutton was only half joking.

The distinguished law lord’s final act of public service before retiring was to deliver a long and considered (if narrow) report into the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, notable for almost completely exonerating the government, civil service and intelligence services and for reserving its sharpest barbs for the BBC and its journalists, managers and governors. In those circumstances it was inevitable – and right – for the chairman, Gavyn Davies, to resign. Whether the overall balance of Lord Hutton’s conclusions was reasonable is more questionable.

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By MAUREEN DOWD

ASHINGTON

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Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian

A soft snowfall was swirling outside the high court just before Lord Hutton took his place on the bench. It’s a pity it did not last, because a blanket of fresh, white snow would have made the perfect backdrop to what followed: an extraordinary one-man show, a performance which had its audience snorting and occasionally gasping in disbelief. Transferred to the West End, the show could only have one name: Whitewash.

For six months the government had been accused of the darkest of crimes: leading the nation to war on a lie and bullying a dedicated public servant to his death. In 90 minutes Lord Hutton crushed those claims entirely. He exonerated Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, Geoff Hoon, John Scarlett and Kevin Tebbit more completely than any of them can have dreamed. The judge placed a little dollop of pure white snow on the reputation of each of them.

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It’s looking more and more like European antitrust regulators are moving ahead with plans to require Microsoft to unbundle its Windows Media Player from the ubiquitous Windows operating system. Sources close to the case claim the European Commission has concluded that the company is in violation of antitrust laws. If that is indeed the case, Microsoft could find itself subjected to fines and forced to remove its media-player software from Windows.

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