20021231
- 
CLONING
NEWS
- "Doubts
cast on reporter in cloning verification." ... "As
the alien-worshiping Raelian sect prepared yesterday to assemble proof
that a woman has given birth to the first-ever cloned human baby, some
research scientists raised questions about the impartiality and skills
of the Boston-based freelance journalist handpicked to verify the claim."
... "The journalist, Michael Guillen, a former ABC science reporter, has
maintained a close relationship with the Raelians, as well as other cloning
groups, for more than four years, often winning exclusive interviews while
aggressively popularizing their work, according to a Globe review of his
recent reporting efforts." -By Raja Mishra and Mark
Jurkowitz -Boston/Globe
20021230
Desalination
- 
- "Marin
thirsty for desalination: Officials say tapping
bay could solve water woes." ... "... the thorniest obstacle is that reverse
osmosis technology --the process of forcing water through a semi-permeable
membrane that blocks out salt molecules -- is still very expensive." ...
"Pushing water through the membranes takes a huge amount of electricity,
which is why most desalination projects are being built alongside electric
power generation plants." ... "Desalination has been a concept since the
fourth century B.C., when Aristotle made his proposal to condense seawater
vapor. The first crude plant was installed in 1862 in Key West, Fla., to
support military personnel at Fort Zachary Taylor." -By
Peter Fimrite -SFGate.com
20021229
CLONING
NEWS
- "Cloning
Claim Draws Fierce Denunciations: Vatican, Leading
Muslim Clerics, Jewish Rabbis Denounce Group's Claim That It's Cloned a
Human." ... "The Vatican joined leading Muslim clerics and Jewish rabbis
in denouncing as immoral, "brutal" and unnatural the claim that a cloned
baby had been born. Political leaders, meanwhile, stepped up calls for
a global ban on human cloning." ... "The reaction Saturday came a day after
a cloning company whose leader believes space aliens launched life on Earth
announced that a baby girl, nicknamed "Eve," had been born as a clone of
her mother." -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
- 
- CLONING
NEWS
- "Cloning
ban to face debate: Congress could take up
dilemma over experiments." ... "Real or hoax, the claim that the world's
first human clone has been born puts the next step squarely into Congress's
court: Will it ban baby-making via cloning?" ... "The nation has no specific
law against human cloning. But the Food and Drug Administration, which
regulates human experiments, contends that its regulations forbid human
cloning without prior agency permission - permission it has no intention
of giving." -By Lauran Neergaard
-AP via -Boston/Globe
20021227
OPINION
- "Jack
Whittaker Caps The Year Of The Scam." ... "... Whitaker,
the West Virginia man who won "$314.9 million" in the Powerball lottery
on Christmas day, is now most known for his participation in a long-running,
ever growing scam: the state lotteries." ... "First, the jackpot is not
$314.9 million--that's what it would be if paid out over 30 years. Whittaker
opted for a single lump sum payment of $170.5 million. That number gets
reported, too, but it seems to get buried." ... "State lotteries are a
sucker bet. They typically return about 55% of the money wagered. That's
much less than a casino or a racetrack. The various lotteries admit it,
but it's reported much less often than stories about winners, a staple
on the local news. No one ever publicizes the millions of losers, but they're
out there. You have to be in it to lose it." -By Dan
Ackman -Forbes
20021226
- 
- "Top
Arab TV network to hit US market." ... "Coming to
a screen near you: Al Jazeera in English." ... "The Arabic-language news
network, notorious for broadcasting the statements of Osama bin Laden and
his Al Qaeda colleagues, plans to open an English-language website in early
2003 and begin distributing English-language news programming by satellite
and cable late next year." ... "Although Al Jazeera staffers are proud
of what they have done to cover the other side of the US "war on terrorism,"
Western officials are suspicious of the channel's access. "They've skirted
the line between journalism and colluding with terrorists," says the Doha-based
official." ... ""They are not totally happy with us," says Ali of US officials.
Like any government, he says, "they want the media next to them, not to
tell the truth."" -By Cameron W. Barr
-CSMonitor
20021223
- "Yahoo
buys search firm Inktomi for $235M." ... "Yahoo
Inc. has purchased Inktomi Corp.
for about $235 million, the companies announced
today. Yahoo will add Inktomi's Web search technology to its portal sites
in hopes of becoming the premier destination for Web searches, it said."
... "Foster City, Calif.-based Inktomi has deals with Amazon.com Inc.,
eBay Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.com portal, according to its Web site.
Computerworld.com also uses Inktomi search software." -By
Tom Krazit -IDG.net
via -Computerworld
- "Yahoo
Buys Search-Software Maker Inktomi." ... "Internet
media company Yahoo Inc. YHOO.O on Monday said it would pay $235 million
to buy Internet search-software maker Inktomi Corp. INKT.O , strengthening
its position in the growing Web search business." ... "The cash deal of
$1.65 per share valued Inktomi, a high-flyer during the Internet boom,
at a 41 percent premium to Friday's close but at less than a third of its
value at its 1998 initial public offering." -By Ben
Berkowitz -Reuters/Business
- Discussion - "Yahoo
Buying Inktomi."
-Slashdot
20021220
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "Federal
database spy site fading away." ... "Call it the
incredibly shrinking government Web site." ... "As controversy grows over
the Defense Department's shadowy Total Information Awareness (TIA) project,
the project's virtual presence is steadily decreasing. If fully implemented,
TIA would link databases from sources such as credit card companies, medical
insurers, and motor vehicle databases for police convenience in hopes of
snaring terrorists." ... "First, biographical information about the TIA
project leaders, including retired Adm. John Poindexter, disappeared from
the Defense Department's site last month. A mirror
that one activist created from Google's cache shows the deleted information
included four resumes listing past work experience but no addresses or
contact information." -By Declan McCullagh-CNET
/News
- "Can
Tribune's FitzSimons Do It Again?" ... "Watch for
dramatic industry changes next year if the Tribune (nyse: TRB
- news
-people)
broadcasting czar, Dennis
J. FitzSimons, has his way. FitzSimons was named chief executive
officer last week, replacing John
W. Madigan as CEO of the No. 2 U.S. newspaper company (estimated
2002 revenue: $5.3 billion) behind Gannett (nyse: GCI
- news
-people).
FitzSimons' fame? The 20-year Tribune veteran, who formerly ran Tribune's
WGN-TV, put print-dominated Tribune on the television map, buying 18 of
Tribune's 24 stations since 1992. TV is now Tribune's fastest growing unit,
accounting for 26% of sales and 35% of operating profit." ... "Under FitzSimons,
TV will get even bigger as soon as he can rally the Federal Communications
Commission to repeal decades-old rules banning ownership of TV stations
in markets where it already owns newspapers or other TV stations." -By
Erin Killian -Forbes
-
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "Bush
Administration to Propose System for Monitoring Internet."
... "The Bush administration is planning to propose requiring Internet
service providers to help build a centralized system to enable broad monitoring
of the Internet and, potentially, surveillance of its users." ... "The
proposal is part of a final version of a report, "The National Strategy
to Secure Cyberspace," set for release early next year, according to several
people who have been briefed on the report. It is a component of the effort
to increase national security after the Sept. 11 attacks." ... "The President's
Critical Infrastructure Protection Board is preparing the report, and it
is intended to create public and private cooperation to regulate and defend
the national computer networks, not only from everyday hazards like viruses
but also from terrorist attack. Ultimately the report is intended to provide
an Internet strategy for the new Department of Homeland Security." -By
John Markoff and John Schwartz -NYTimes
via -Google-News
Search
Google:
<National
Strategy to Secure Cyberspace-[News]>
<Critical
Infrastructure Protection Board-[News]>
WhiteHouse.gov/pcipb
- "Draft
National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace." - [PDF]
- Version: "Draft
National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace."
CIAO.gov
- "Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office."
20021218
OPINION
-
- 
-
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "Snooping
in All the Wrong Places: Not only would the
Administration's plan to centralize every American's records destroy privacy,
the security payoff would be minimal." ... "The 2002 elections proved one
thing: The promise of security wins votes. The GOP campaigned on a pledge
to make the country safer, and it brought home one of the biggest midterm
victories in decades. That huge win may have emboldened the Bush Administration
to ignore widespread criticism of the Defense Dept.'s $240 million effort
to develop a Total Information Awareness system (TIA)." ... "The outrage
over TIA doesn't seem to have reached the President's ear, but it should.
It's not too late for him to realize the folly of such a plan. Funded by
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the project would
combine every American's bank records, tax filings, driver's license information,
credit-card purchases, medical data, and phone and e-mail records into
one giant centralized database. This would then be combed through for evidence
of suspicious activity." -By Jane Black
-BusinessWeek/Daily
- 
- Christmas
News
-
- "When
a 'Christmas Truce' put war on back burner." ...
"Christmas came to the battlefield in "the Great War to end all wars,"
and that story became the stuff of legend." ... "The History Channel tells
what happened when British and German soldiers laid down their arms to
meet in a No Man's Land strewn with the bodies of their fallen comrades.
Never before --and never again, probably -- was there ever such a celebration
as The Christmas Truce." -By Ann Hodges
-HoustonChronicle.com
Search
Google: <"The
Christmas Truce">
20021217
Christmas
- "Chain
Stores Take on Christmas Trees." ... "Operating a
roadside Christmas tree stand has never been a huge moneymaker, and now
that the big boys have moved into the market it's even tougher." ... "The
National Christmas Tree Association says 17 percent of the roughly 30 million
Christmas trees sold last year were at large chain stores, such as Wal-Mart,
Home Depot, Lowe's and Target. That's up from 14 percent in 2000 - the
first year the association began tracking sales at chain stores - and came
even as the overall market shrank a bit." -By Clarke
Canfield -AP
via -SeattlePI.NWsource
RealChristmasTrees.org
- "National Christmas Tree Association."
Christmas
-
- "The
gift of virus: In the spirit of the holiday
season, a tale of one man who clicked too soon but discovered that missent
e-mail can still lead to a wonderful life." ... "This holiday season, when
thoughts turn to family and friends, we are all perhaps a little more trusting,
and maybe a little more gullible. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
That's my one excuse for falling prey to a software virus that disguises
itself as an e-card." -By Nick Altebrando
-Salon
- 
- "C.I.A.
Chief Prospers From Bond With Bush." ... "When George
W. Bush was president-elect, he got some fateful advice about his daily
C.I.A. briefing from a man who would know." ... "Mr. Bush's father, the
only president to have served as C.I.A. director, was in the unique position
of having both given and received the secret morning updates, and often
told friends that his time in the 1970's at the C.I.A. headquarters in
Langley, Va., was one of the best jobs he ever had." ... "He unequivocally
instructed his son, said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff,
to develop a close relationship with the person who ran the spy organization
and oversaw the other intelligence agencies that make up America's covert
empire." (1, 2)
-By Elisabeth Bumiller
-NYTimes via
-AltaVista-News
20021216
- "United
pilots union 'stunned' by wage cut request." ...
"United Airlines' pilots union said on Monday it was "stunned" by a new
wage cut proposal the world's second-largest carrier put forth less than
a week after filing for bankruptcy, signaling possible litigation ahead."
... "United, a unit of UAL Corp. (NYSE:UAL),
late last week presented its labor unions with requests for wage cuts that
were more than double what it was seeking before filing the biggest bankruptcy
case in aviation history." ... "Of United's 83,000 member work force, about
80 percent is unionized. Nearly half of the work force is represented by
the International Association of Machinists." -By
By Kathy Fieweger -Reuters
via -Lycos -Finance
Search
Google: <International
Association of Machinists>
GoIAM.org
- "International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO/CLC."
-
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "The
web bites back." ... "Protesters are turning the
tables on government officials and businessmen who they say are making
the web less pleasant to use." ... "The web activists have found the personal
details of the man behind a federal surveillance system [John Poindexter]
and an e-mail spammer [Alan Ralsky] and are giving them a dose of their
own medicine." -BBC/News
Google Search
<"Alan
Ralsky">
<"John
Poindexter">
- Smallpox
News
- "Smallpox
Vaccine Transmission Raises Liability Issue." ...
"President Bush's decision on Friday to offer smallpox vaccinations to
up to 10 million health care workers, firefighters, police officers and
other emergency workers suddenly makes relevant the question of who pays
the medical costs of illness from accidental infection." ... "Tommy G.
Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, and other federal
experts on smallpox were asked on Saturday who would pay. They said they
expected standard health insurance to pay for such medical care." ... "But
they left unanswered the question of who would pay if the accidentally
infected individual was among the estimated 41 million Americans who had
no health insurance." -By Lawrence K. Altman
-NYTimes via
-AltaVista-News
- Christmas
News
- "Joyless
Christmas in Holy Land." ... "Known as the birthplace
of Jesus Christ, Bethlehem is epicenter for Christians in the holiday season.
But the mood could not be further from the traditional spirit of Christmas.
After more than two years of surging Israeli-Palestinian violence, fear
and despair hang heavy over the West Bank town." ... "Christmas festivities,
which before the 26-month-old Palestinian intifada used to bring in thousands
of pilgrims and tourists a day, as well as tens of millions of dollars
in revenue, have been canceled." ... "Only the midnight Mass at the Church
of the Nativity, which was built in the 4th century A.D. to mark the spot
where tradition holds that Jesus was born, will go ahead as planned. But
few people are expected to attend, given curfew restrictions." -By
Jim Maceda -MS
NBC
20021215
- Smallpox
News
- "Smallpox
vaccine costs raise questions." ... "Secretary of
Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, in a press briefing Saturday,
said most states are expected to pay workers' compensation for lost work
time for medical or emergency personnel sickened by the vaccine. Modest
death benefits are also available. Unions, however, say those amounts are
likely to be inadequate." ... "Thompson also said that health care workers
and private citizens who seek the vaccine would need their own health insurance
to pay for any care needed to treat side effects." -By
Julie Appleby -USATODAY
20021214
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "Keeping
Track of John Poindexter." ... "The head of the government's
Total Information Awareness project, which aims to root out potential terrorists
by aggregating credit-card, travel, medical, school and other records of
everyone in the United States, has himself become a target of personal
data profiling." ... "Online pranksters, taking their lead from a San Francisco
journalist, are publishing John Poindexter's home phone number, photos
of his house and other personal information to protest the TIA program."
-By Paul Boutin -Wired
20021213
-
- "UK
internet shopping 'breaks £1bn mark'." ...
"For the first time, UK consumers have spent more than £1bn ($1.6bn)
in just one month shopping online, according to a survey." ... "Online
sales have risen by 95% over the past year, IMRG said, compared with a
rise of just 6.1% in general retail sales." ... "US figures for the July
to September period this year showed online shopping sales were more than
$11bn, representing 1.3% of total US retail sales, an increase of 34.3%
on the same period last year." ... "In the UK, online sales over the same
July to September period reached £2bn ($3.14bn), representing 4%
of total UK retail sales, up 114.5% on the same period in 2001."-BBC/News
-
- Press Release - "imrg
e-retail sales index - internet shopping bursts £1bn barrier."
- Links to [PDF]:
"Internet
Shopping Bursts £1 Billion Barrier!" ... "Santa
is shopping online this year in a BIG WAY. Monthly internet shopping
soared into ten figures for the first time in November as Britain's 14.3
million online shoppers flooded e-retailers with £1,000 million worth
of orders, according to the IMRG Index." ... "The Index has risen almost
ten fold, from 100 to 993, during the 32 months it has tracked UK e-retail
sales, since April 2000, and the pace of growth it reveals continues to
accelerate. The November Index was based on sales of £218 million
reported by 77 participating e-retailers, which represents 22% of the estimated
market." ... "UK online shopping is growing three times faster than in
the USA, and is three times the proportion of total retail sales.
US retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2002 was just over
$11 billion, representing 1.3% of total US retail according to latest figures
from the US Department of Commerce, an increase of 34.3 percent from Q3
2001. UK e-retail during the same period was worth £2 billion
($3.14 billion), representing 4% of total UK retail, and was 114.5% higher
than Q3 2001." -IMRGorg
20021212
Microsoft
News - "Microsoft
reveals 'critical' security flaws." ... "In a security
bulletin published late Wednesday, Microsoft urged Windows users to download
a new version of Microsoft Virtual Machine, which is the part of Windows
that runs Java-language applications. The new version corrects eight vulnerabilities
discovered by Microsoft and outside experts."
-AP via -SiliconValley
20021211
- "eBay
hit by credit card scam." ... "The world's largest
online auction site eBay has been targeted by fraudsters using a shadow
site to steal credit card details from its 55 million customers." ... "The
scam involved sending e-mails to customers asking them to log on to a Florida-based
website - ebayupdates.com - and re-submit their financial details." -By
Stefan Armbruster-BBC/News
Microsoft
News - Microsoft.com
Security Bulletin: - "What
You Should Know About Microsoft Security Bulletin MS02-071:Security
Update for Microsoft Windows." .... "Why We Are Issuing This Update:
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise
a computer running Microsoft® Windows® and gain complete control
over it. An attacker would need the ability to log onto the computer to
carry out an attack. You can help protect your computer by installing this
update from Microsoft." ...
"The
following products require updating:
•
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
•
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Terminal Server Edition
•
Microsoft Windows 2000
•
Microsoft
Windows XP" -Microsoftcom/security
20021210
- "Jimmy
Carter's Nobel Prize speech [excerpts]." ... "Instead
of entering a millennium of peace, the world is now, in many ways, a more
dangerous place. There is a plethora of civil wars... and recent appalling
acts of terrorism have reminded us that no nations, even superpowers, are
invulnerable." ... "It is clear that global challenges must be met with
an emphasis on peace, in harmony with others, with strong alliances and
international consensus." ... "Imperfect as it may be, there is no doubt
that this can best be done through the United Nations."-BBC/News
20021209
-
-
- "Australia
trial could set Web precedent." ... "Australia's
highest court ruled on Tuesday that a defamation case sparked by a story
on a U.S Web site could be heard in Australia, opening a legal minefield
for web publishers over which libel laws they must follow." ... "The
landmark ruling that an article published by Dow Jones & Co was subject
to Australian law -- because it was downloaded in Australia -- is being
watched by media firms as it could set a precedent over where Internet
publication occurs." -Reuters
via -CNN /Sci-Tech
-
- "Soldier
Pleads in Classified Photo Case: Soldier Pleads
Guilty in Attempted Sale of Photos of Top-Secret Military Facility." ...
"A soldier has pleaded guilty to trying to sell a newspaper photographs
of a top-secret bunker where U.S. government leaders would be taken in
a nuclear attack." -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
20021207
- 
-
- "Military’s
use of satellites probed: Investigation launched
amid complaints of unfair advantages." ... "The General Accounting Office
is investigating the Defense Department’s use of commercial satellites,
after competitors complained that Washington-based Intelsat Ltd. has an
unfair advantage in a growing market." ... "Intelsat, incorporated in Bermuda,
is owned by companies and governments in 148 nations, including Iraq and
Iran. Its satellites help the U.S. military communicate with soldiers in
far-flung outposts." ... "The GAO investigation coincides with the Pentagon’s
increasing dependence on commercial satellite providers to provide extra
bandwidth, industry experts say. Government satellite programs have faced
delays and cost overruns even as information has become a key part of battlefield
strategy, they said." -By Renae Merle-WashingtonPost
via -MSNBC
- Law
Enforcement News - "Two
Van Gogh paintings stolen: Thieves enter Amsterdam
museum by roof; values unknown." ... "Thieves broke into Amsterdam’s Van
Gogh Museum overnight and stole two paintings by the legendary 19th century
Dutch artist, police said Saturday." -AP
via -MSNBC
VanGoghMuseum.nl
- 
-
- "Ex-Regents
official: U of Iowa should pay president more." ...
"The University of Iowa president’s salary is “severely limiting the pool
of people that will apply for the job,” former president of the Board of
Regents said." ... "The salary of $281,875, puts Iowa next to last among
public schools in the Big Ten Conference, after the Indiana University
at Bloomington, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac."
... "Mark Yudof, the president of the University of Texas system, was among
the highest-compensated university leaders last year. More than half of
his $787,319 in salary and benefits comes from private sources."
-AP via -QCTimes
- "Bigfoot
backers mourning: But they remain Yeti loyalists
despite family's admission of hoax." ... "Relatives of Ray L. Wallace,
a logger who propelled one of California's earliest publicized claims of
the creature's existence, have stepped forward in the shadow of his passing
to say their patriarch admitted to trickery that fueled one of American
culture's most enduring myths." ... "They say it was Wallace who stoked
a fury in 1958 by slipping into two, carved, 16-inch-long wooden feet,
then stomping around his Humboldt County site logging camp as a gag on
fellow workmen." ... "[H]is son Michael .... said 1967's famous "Patterson-Gimlin
Film" -- a grainy home movie that allegedly captures a startled specimen
fleeing a streambed -- may be only his obliging mother wearing a monkey
suit." -By John M. Hubbell
-SFGate.com
20021206
-
- "Pioneering
ABC TV Executive Arledge Dies." ... "ABC News chairman
Roone Arledge was remembered as an industry pioneer who ushered in the
era of primetime sports, mentored top broadcasters and developed new ways
to present the news." ... "Shows from "Monday Night Football" to "Nightline"
owed huge debts to Arledge, who died Thursday in New York of complications
from cancer, the network said. He was 71." ... "In 1961, he created "ABC's
Wide World of Sports," one of the most popular sports series ever, and
coined its tag line – "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.""
... "After disastrous starts, ABC created the newsmagazines "20/20" and
"Prime Time Live" under his watch." -By Tara Burghart
-AP via -WashingtonPost
OPINION
-
-
- "Digital
Robber Barons?" ... "... the wide-open, competitive
world of the dial-up Internet depended on the very government regulation
so many Internet enthusiasts decried. Local phone service is a natural
monopoly, and in an unregulated world local phone monopolies would probably
insist that you use their dial-up service. The reason you have a choice
is that they are required to act as common carriers, allowing independent
service providers to use their lines." ... "Last March the F.C.C. used
linguistic trickery — defining cable Internet access as an "information
service" rather than as telecommunications — to exempt cable companies
from the requirement to act as common carriers. The commission will probably
make a similar ruling on DSL service, which runs over lines owned by your
local phone company. The result will be a system in which most families
and businesses will have no more choice about how to reach cyberspace than
a typical 19th-century farmer had about which railroad would carry his
grain." -By Paul Krugman
-NYTimes via -Google-News
-
- "Update:
Bush Creates ".Kids" Domain." ... "President Bush
signed into law on Wednesday a bill that would create a ".kids" domain
name, and certify that the domain was "safe" for minors." ... "The .kids
domain will actually be a subdomain of the ".us" suffix, and so will only
apply to web sites based in the U.S, such as "www.example.kids.us". Since
the domain is under the purview of the U.S. country code, it will be overseen
by the Department of Commerce." -By Mark Hachman
-ExtremeTech
Law
Enforcement News
- "Feds
Raid Software Firm." ... "Federal agents who raided
a Quincy, Mass., software firm Thursday night continue to look for monetary
connections to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, but sources say the firm's
software appears safe." ... "Ptech Inc., a developer of business-process
modeling software, was raided late Thursday night by U.S. Customs Service
agents, according to law enforcement officials. But initial concerns that
the company's technology may have compromised the security of its customers,
which include the FBI, the Department of Energy, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, the Navy, the Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration
and the U.S. House of Representatives, now appear unfounded, according
to authorities." (1, 2)
-By Renee Boucher Ferguson, Dennis Fisher and Chris
Gonsalves -eWEEK
- "Firefighters
battle to control Sydney blazes." ... "Sydney firefighters
are hoping to control as many of the 70 fires surrounding the city as possible
over the next 72 hours before weather conditions are expected to deteriorate
again on Monday." ... "More than 4,500 firefighters, supported by around
80 aircraft, are now battling major infernos to the south-west, west and
north of the city." ... "New South Wales Rural Fire Commissioner Phil Koperberg
told media Friday that authorities expected weather conditions to abate
over the weekend but that Monday would be another very bad day with high
temperatures and wind gusts of up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) an hour."
-By Grant Holloway -CNN
/World
/Asia
20021205
- "Lovable
trickster created a monster with Bigfoot hoax." ...
"Bigfoot is dead. Really." ... "Ray L. Wallace was Bigfoot. The reality
is, Bigfoot just died," said Michael Wallace about his father, who died
of heart failure Nov. 26 in a Centralia [Washington] nursing facility.
He was 84." ... ""The fact is there was no Bigfoot in popular consciousness
before 1958. America got its own monster, its own Abominable Snowman thanks
to Ray Wallace," said Mark Chorvinsky, editor of Strange magazine and one
of the leading proponents of the theory that Mr. Wallace fathered Bigfoot."
... 
"Chorvinsky
believes the Wallace family's admission creates profound doubts about leading
evidence of Bigfoot's existence: the so-called Patterson film, the grainy
celluloid images of an erect apelike creature striding away from the movie
camera of rodeo rider Roger Patterson in 1967. Mr. Wallace said he told
Patterson where to go —near Bluff Creek, Calif. — to spot a Bigfoot, Chorvinsky
said." -By Bob Young -SeattleTimes.NWsource
"Intelligence:
Learning How to Share: Is this a new era of
closeness for the CIA and FBI?" -By Tamara Lipper
and Mark Hosenball 20021209
-MSNBC /-Newsweek
20021204
-
-
- "High schools
give it up for Pentagon: Law requires giving
recruiters access to juniors, seniors." ... "A little-noticed provision
in a new federal education law is requiring high schools to hand over to
military recruiters some key information about their juniors and seniors:
name, address and phone number." ... "The No Child Left Behind law, signed
last January, pumps billions into education but also gives military recruiters
access to the names, addresses and phone numbers of students in 22,000
schools. The law also says that schools must give the military the same
access to their campuses that businesses and college recruiters enjoy."
... "Students and parents who oppose the law can keep their information
from being turned over to the military, but they must sign and return an
“opt-out” form." -By Ken Maguire
-AP via -MSNBC
- "Buy,
Use, Dispose: A Spike in Disposable Products
Has Environmentalists Worried." ... "Scrub the floor, toss out the rag.
Use up your minutes, toss out the phone. Watch a movie, throw away the
DVD." ... "In a nation that places a high value on convenience, this is
all possible or will soon be possible for consumers willing to pay a little
more for products designed for one-time use. And the list is growing."
... ""The business model of the high-tech industry depends on us to continue
to buy, consume and throw away," he [executive director of Californians
Against Waste, Mark Murray] says. "That's the problem, they're not designing
these things to last, they're designing them to use and throw out."" -By
Amanda Onion -ABCNEWS.com
20021203
-
- "Ricochet's
Comeback Means Free Wireless Internet Access for Cities:
Municipal governments striking new deals to get free wireless access."
... "Denver-based Ricochet Networks offered Internet access to 51,000 subscribers
in 21 cities until its owner, Metricom, went bankrupt last year." ... "Aerie
Networks has resurrected Ricochet, spending $8.25 million for technology
and equipment that Metricom spent $1.3 billion developing." ... "Technological
Quid Pro Quo." ... "Now, Ricochet is offering cities free service and
giving their public employees modems to use on the job. In return, Ricochet
gets to use transmitters that fell into cities' control after Metricom
went bankrupt." -By Catherine Tsai
-AP via
-GovTech.net/news
-
"Doonesbury's
World: Comic Creator Trudeau Gives Rare Interview."
... "Frank Sinatra once called him "funny as a tumor," but the success
of cartoonist and political satirist Garry Trudeau tells a different story."
... 
"Trudeau's
Pulitzer Prize-winning comic strip Doonesbury, first penned in 1970, is
found in more than 1,400 newspapers worldwide and fills nearly 60 published
collections. Along the way, it inspired ventures into film, Broadway and
television. It gained Trudeau Academy Award and Drama Desk Award nominations,
as well as the Cannes Special Jury Prize." -ABCNEWS.com
TIA:
Total Information Awareness
-
-
- Law
Enforcement News
- "Why
the Pentagon will watch where you shop: New
Total Information Awareness project will sniff company databases for terrorists."
... "Should Uncle Sam know as much about you as MasterCard does?" ... "In
essence, that may be the key question posed by the Pentagon's new Total
Information Awareness (TIA) project." ... "This effort - whose Latin motto
[Scientia Est Potentia] translates as "knowledge is power" - aims to create
huge databases that sift through the purchases, travel, immigration status,
income, and other data of hundreds of millions of Americans. Its purpose:
to sniff out the terrorists among us." ... ""There are three parts to the
TIA project," says Edward Aldridge, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition,
technology, and logistics." ... "The first part of the technology is voice
recognition, which would include sifting through electronically recorded
transmissions and provide rapid translations of foreign languages." ...
"The second part is to develop a tool that would discover connections between
transactions, such as passports, airline tickets, rental cars, gun or chemical
purchases, as well as arrests and other suspicious activities." ... "And
the third part is collaborative - a mechanism to allow information-and
analysis-sharing among agencies." ... ""If [the testing] proves useful,"
Mr. Aldridge says, "TIA will then be turned over to the intelligence, counterintelligence,
and law enforcement communities as a tool to help them in their battle
against domestic terrorism."" -By Faye Bowers and
Peter Grier
-CSMonitor/buy
20021128
Thanksgiving
- "Marines
Celebrate Thanksgiving in Kuwait: Marines Make
Their Own Thanksgiving in the Deserts of Kuwait." ... "As the United States
prepares for a possible war with Iraq, the Marines have established Camp
Commando on the edge of a Kuwaiti military base to act as their command
headquarters. From here, they will be able to control the tens of thousands
of Marines who could arrive in Kuwait." ... "A few weeks ago, the base
was virtually sand." ... "For these soldiers mostly from the 1st Marine
Expeditionary Force, based in Camp Pendleton, Calif. it was yet another
Thanksgiving away from home." -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
20021127
- "Reporters
an early point of contention in Iraq inspections."
... "When the two leaders of the inspection program — Hans Blix and Mohamed
ElBaradei — met with Iraqi officials last week, they said they did not
want journalists tagging along, especially at suspected weapons sites."
... "But Iraq, which maintains one of the most restrictive press policies
in the Mideast, championed free access for journalists — at least as far
as covering the inspections is concerned." ... "U.N. officials appeared
concerned that reporters, lacking the inspectors' technical and scientific
expertise, might be too quick to report that no banned materials had been
before the experts had had time to draw their own conclusions."
-AP via -FreedomForum.org
- "President
signs bill to establish independent Sept. 11 probe, names Kissinger as
its head." ... "The commission has a broad mandate,
building on the limited joint inquiry conducted by the House and Senate
intelligence committees. The independent panel will have 18 months to examine
issues such as aviation security and border problems, along with intelligence."
... "However, Bush did not set as a primary goal for the commission to
uncover mistakes or lapses of the government that could have prevented
the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead, he said it should try to help the administration
learn the tactics and motives of the enemy."
-AP via -USATODAY
20021126
-
- "Fraud
fears still hamper online sales." ... "The number
of Britons doing Christmas shopping online is expected to soar this year
but the government says fear of fraud is still preventing sales reaching
their potential levels." ... "The government is keen to encourage more
net shopping, with Consumer Minister Melanie Johnson telling shoppers that
online retail can be safe if they follow a few simple rules." ... "She
is advising consumers to use websites they know or that have been recommended,
obtain suppliers' telephone numbers or postal addresses and keep copies
of order forms or e-mails."-BBC/News
20021122
-
- "Global
goofs: U.S. youth can't find Iraq: Young Americans
may soon have to fight a war in Iraq, but most of them can't even find
that country on a map, the National Geographic Society said Wednesday."
... "The society survey found that only about one in seven -- 13 percent
-- of Americans between the age of 18 and 24, the prime age for military
warriors, could find Iraq. The score was the same for Iran, an Iraqi neighbor."
-AP via -CNN
"National
Geographic: Roper Geographic Survey: Global Geographic Literacy
Survey." - The
Survey -NationalGeographic>News
20021119
- "Power
of Positive Thinking Extends, It Seems, to Aging."
... "Do happy people live longer? A growing body of evidence suggests they
may. Recent studies have correlated long life with optimism, with positive
thinking, and with a lack of hostility, anxiety and depression." ... "One
thing that remains unclear, however, is whether happiness can actually
cause longevity. Perhaps happy people live longer because they practice
healthy behaviors, or for some other unknown reason." ... "The second open
question is: What, if anything, can unhappy people do about it?" (1, 2)
-By Mary Duenwald -NYTimes
via -Moreover
20021118
OPINION
- 
- "New
York Times suggests Tiger Woods skip Augusta." ...
"The Times said that if Augusta National "can brazenly discriminate against
women, that means others can choose not to support Mr. Johnson's golfing
fraternity. That includes more enlightened members of the club, CBS Sports,
which televises the Masters, and the players, especially Tiger Woods.""
... "The editorial said Sanford I. Weill, the chief executive of Citigroup,
and Kenneth Chenault, chairman of American Express, should "lead the way"
for other prominent members and resign from the club."
-SFGate.com
20021115
"Guides:
Directories - Directory: Guide News: Pathfinder Meta Directory of
Subject Categorized Pathfinders & Hierarchy Trees of Internet Resources."
The /guides page has been substantially
updated with descriptive annotations of current useful guides including:
911
News Resource Meta Index - Archive.org
- Argus
- BUBL /LINK
- dmoz - 
Environment
-FAQs - FindLaw
- Google>Directory
>Groups -
HardinMD
- IPL - LII
- LookSmart -
MiningCo/About
- RDN.ac.uk - RefDesk
- ScoutReport
-VLib - WebRing
- Yahoo.
Accounting
News - "Glossary
of [Accounting] Terms, Acronyms, and Abbreviations."- | A
| B | C
| D | E
| F | G
| H | I
| J | K
| L | M
| N | O
| P | Q
| R | S
| T | U
| V | V
| W | X
| Y | Z
| Quick Ref
| -AICPA.org
20021114
- 
-
- "USDA
Orders Prodigene Biocorn Destroyed in Iowa." ...
"A small biotech company experimenting with a corn variety engineered to
produce insulin was ordered to destroy 155 acres of the crop in Iowa because
it may have contaminated nearby fields, the U.S. Agriculture Department
said on Thursday." ... "A growing number of U.S. companies are experimenting
with biotech corn to produce cheaper proteins and compounds for use in
pharmaceuticals. ProdiGene's biotech corn grown for pharmaceutical use
is not federally approved for human or livestock feed." ... "The USDA,
along with the Food and Drug Administration, is trying to determine if
the Texas-based company violated any federal regulations. ProdiGene could
face fines of up to $500,000 for each violation." -By
Randy Fabi -Reuters/Politics
-
-
- "Biotech
Firm Mishandled Corn in Iowa." ... "The biotechnology
company that mishandled gene-altered corn in Nebraska did the same thing
in Iowa, the government disclosed yesterday." ... "The disclosure raised
new questions about the conduct of ProdiGene Inc., a company in College
Station, Tex., that is now under investigation for allegedly violating
government permits in two states. The ProdiGene matter is proving to be
a black eye for the biotech industry, which has been trying to reassure
the public it can be trusted not to contaminate the food supply." -By
Justin Gillis -WashingtonPost
20021113
Microsoft
News -
-
- "Briton
Indicted as Hacker: Entry to U.S. Military
Systems Called Biggest Ever Detected." ... "An unemployed British computer
system administrator was indicted yesterday in Alexandria and New Jersey
on eight counts of computer fraud for alleging [sic] penetrating about
100 U.S. government computers, shutting down networks and corrupting data
in what U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty called "the biggest hack of military
computers ever detected."" ... "From February 2001 to March 2002, two federal
grand juries alleged, Gary McKinnon, 36, of London, exploited a known security
problem with Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000 to break into 92 computers
at NASA, the Pentagon, and more than a dozen military installations in
14 states." -By Brooke A. Masters-WashingtonPost
>TechNews
20021112
Comics
/ Links
- 
- "Spider-Man
creator sues Marvel: Stan Lee says he’s being
cheated out of movie profits." ... "The creative force behind Spider-Man,
the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men filed a $10 million lawsuit Tuesday,
charging his old comic book company is cheating him out of millions of
dollars in movie profits." ... "Marvel has reported millions of dollars
in earnings from the film but has told Lee the company has seen no “profits”
as defined by their contract." -Reuters
via -MSNBC
Comics
/ Links
-
- Discussion - "Stan
Lee Sues Marvel Comics." -Slashdot
20021111
- "Intel's
$10 Billion Gamble: Tech's ailing, yet the
chip king is opening plants and entering new markets. Its bet: that no
competitor can afford to keep up." ... "The labyrinthine vastness of Intel's
nearly completed D1D semiconductor factory in Hillsboro, Ore., is every
bit as breathtaking as the microscopic intricacy of the microprocessors
it will soon start making." ... "By investing heavily during a tech recession,
Intel thinks it can leap a generation ahead in chip know-how and manufacturing
ability." ... However, the piece opines, that "even if Intel widens its
dominant 81% market share for PC microprocessors, it won't generate enough
incremental sales to use all that new capacity, nor will it get back to
growing at its historical double-digit rates." ... "The transistors on
the chips pounded out at D1D will be smaller than 90 nanometers across--so
small that ten of them would fit in the diameter of a human hair--vs. 130
nanometers at the current state of the art." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Brent Schlender with associate Noshua Watson
-Fortune
20021109
TIA:
Total Information Awareness - -
"Pentagon
Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans."
... "As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described
the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence
analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information
from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions
and travel documents, without a search warrant." ... "Historically, military
and intelligence agencies have not been permitted to spy on Americans without
extraordinary legal authorization." ... "In order to deploy such a system,
known as Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed,
some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland
Security Act that is now before Congress. That legislation would amend
the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies
could do with private information." (1, 2)
-By John Markoff -NYTimes
via -LawMeme
TIA:
Total Information Awareness -
- Discussion - "Search
Warrant Not Reuired." -LawMeme
- Microsoft
News - "The
Microsoft case: Antitrust overseers are named." ...
"Microsoft yesterday established a committee of directors to make sure
it obeys the law — a move mandated by a federal judge's Nov. 1 ruling in
the company's antitrust case." ... "Meeting a requirement to set up the
compliance committee, Microsoft appointed Harvard Business School professor
James Cash to lead the group, which also includes Merck Chief Executive
Raymond Gilmartin and former U.S. Labor Secretary Ann McLaughlin Korologos."
-By Kim Peterson -SeattleTimes.NWsource
20021108
"Page
From Pearl Harbor: Movie Special Effects May
One Day Help Train U.S. Sailors." ... "Besides the perils of combat, sailors
must be trained to deal with any danger that could threaten their ship
— and lives of crew mates —anytime while at sea." ... "That means naval
recruits have much to learn during their nine weeks of boot camp at the
Naval Training Center (NTC) in Great Falls, Ill. And to really help cement
that training into sailors, the Navy is looking for a bit of high-tech
help from a special effects firm called i.d.e.a.s. — Innovation, Design,
Entertainment, Art and Storytelling." ... "The Navy recently contracted
i.d.e.a.s., based at (but independent from) the Walt Disney-MGM Studios
in Orlando, Fla., to help plan for an advanced virtual reality training
and testing "update" called Battle Stations 21." -By
Paul Eng -ABCNEWS.com
20021107
- Microsoft
News - "MS
Palladium: A must or a menace? At the USENIX
Security Conference held here recently, Microsoft developers touted the
company's upcoming Palladium architecture as technology that would enhance
privacy, stymie piracy and increase a corporation's control over its computers."
... "Others, however, see a more nefarious role for the security software."
... "Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and co-founder
of the GNU project for creating free versions of key Unix programs, lampooned
the technology in a recent column as "treacherous computing."" ... ""Large
media corporations, together with computer companies such as Microsoft
and Intel, are planning to make your computer obey them instead of you,"
he wrote. "Proprietary programs have included malicious features before,
but this plan would make it universal."" -By Robert
Lemos -ZDNet>News
- "Wi-Fi,
Heading for Air Supremacy." ... "It turns out wireless
networking start-ups are hot these days. Really hot. Silicon Valley's high
rollers are throwing what little money they have left at wireless entrepreneurs...."
... "There is no shortage of entrepreneurs to back. Vivato, a San Francisco
start-up, announced this week it has developed an antenna system that boosts
the signal strength of Wi-Fi radio beams by focusing them more narrowly.
Vivato claims its antennas can expand the range of Wi-Fi signals from a
few hundred feet to 2,000 feet indoors and four miles outside." -By
Leslie Walker -WashingtonPost
>TechNews
20021106
- "Big
Cable's Package-Pricing Ploy: Consumers could
be saving money by selecting their premium channels a la carte,
but don't expect to hear it from your cable outfit." ... "... a federal
rule took effect in early October, 2002, that could let savvy cable customers
cut their monthly bills in half." ... "The rule, a provision of the 1992
Cable Act, says cable operators can no longer require subscribers to buy
multitier packages of programming to get pay-per-view events and premium
channels, such as as HBO, Starz, and Showtime."
-BusinessWeek
- ELECTION
2002 - "Media
rely on 'real votes' to project winners." ... "Voter
News Service, the media consortium whose flawed data led to erroneous projections
on Election Night 2000, withheld results from national and state exit polls
Tuesday because it could not guarantee their accuracy." ... "Exit polls
survey voters after they leave polling places. Without them, television
networks had to rely on vote counts to project winners in congressional
and gubernatorial elections." ... "Voter News Service (VNS) said the problems
with the exit polls lay in the software that crunches information from
questionnaires filled out by voters." ... ""If you see a number that looks
suspicious to you, you check it out. If the process is not calculating
every element properly, you have to adjust or you have to fix the program,"
VNS executive director Ted Savaglio said. "We saw things that we didn't
like, and we just didn't feel we could publish the poll."" -By
Martha T. Moore with contributions from Charisse Jones -USATODAY
20021105
- ELECTION
2002 - "VNS
Abandons National Exit Polls." ... "Voter News Service
was forced to abandon state and national exit polls designed to help analyze
Tuesday's midterm election results and also saw its vote-counting operation
slow to a crawl." ... "The failures were a major setback for VNS - a consortium
consisting of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and The Associated Press. VNS had
completely rebuilt its system in response to the 2000 election, when television
networks twice used its information to make wrong calls in the decisive
Florida vote for the presidency." ... "VNS said the exit poll information
was being collected but not being properly analyzed by the organization's
new computer system." ... "VNS had other problems: computer screens briefly
froze when workers phoned in exit poll information, and more people than
expected failed to call with completed questionnaires, Savaglio said."
-By David Bauder
-AP via -FindLaw/LegalNews
- ELECTION
2002 - "Voting
into the void: New touch-screen voting machines
may look spiffy, but some experts say they can't be trusted." ... "A fast-talking,
fact-toting woman who can recount dozens of stories of voting machines
going disastrously haywire, (computer science professor Rebecca) Mercuri
goes into a region whose election has been held up and proceeds to hold
forth. Mercuri tells everyone she can, from election judges to county supervisors
to the local media, that the supposedly "state-of-the-art" machines they've
all been sold are nothing but a "a bill of goods."" ... "Mercuri's chief
complaint with the touch-screen system is that its inner workings are often
a complete secret. When a voter touches the screen to make a choice, there
is no confirmation that the machine has actually registered the correct
selection. In the old punch-card and fill-in-the-circle paper systems,
voters can see their choice marked on paper. And in the event of a recount,
election officials can, as a last resort, manually count those slips of
paper. Since the new electronic systems leave no paper trail, there's no
chance of a recount." (1, 2,
3)
-By Farhad Manjoo -Salon
20021104
- "Conquering
Cancer: Despite a spate of setbacks in testing
new cancer drugs for the broadest possible market, mysterious miracle cures
are emerging in a few patients." [Forbes/Magazine.
20021111
Cover
Story:
"Miracle Pill: She was 18 and dying of lung cancer.
This pill saved her life--but failed to help almost everyone else.
Should it be approved?"] ... "Her options dwindling, she began taking Iressa,
an experimental drug [Iressa] from AstraZeneca, in January of this year.
Within a few months all of the remaining tumors had vanished." ... "But
in one small trial the AstraZeneca drug didn't much help 90% of the cancer
patients. Worse, Iressa failed to extend the lives of patients with lung
cancer in two much larger tests involving over 2,000 people." ... "The
problem is particularly complex. At least 200 defective genes play a role
in causing cancer, and two dozen of them are the targets of over 500 experimental
drugs now in development. In any one patient probably only 5 or 6 of the
200 genes are involved, and in the next patient a different mix of genes
is at work. Yet drugmakers haven't figured out how to tell which particular
bad genes are the driving force in an individual patient's case." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By
Robert Langreth 20021111
-Forbes /Magazine
Google
Search: epidermal growth factor egf
20021103
-
-Microsoft
News - "Microsoft
focus on Brussels after U.S. decision." ... "After
a court victory for Microsoft in the United States, the battle now shifts
to Europe where Competition Commissioner Mario Monti may soon impose his
own set of sanctions against the software giant." ... "Monti will make
a preliminary decision by the end of the year whether to act against Microsoft
Corp ... for allegedly abusing dominance in its Windows operating
system." -By David Lawsky
-Reuters via -Forbes
20021102
OPINION
-
- Microsoft
News - "Money
talks, Microsoft walks: Bill Gates lets out
a big "Whew!" as the court decides that what's good for Microsoft is good
for America." ... "This is the way the Microsoft antitrust suit ends: Not
with a bang but a whimper." ... "With their proposed settlement last autumn,
the hollow men of the Bush Justice Department had already gutted whatever
remnant of serious penalty or constraint against Microsoft that had been
won during the five-year legal process. Now, with that settlement largely
rubber-stamped by Federal District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the endless
process is, if not over, close to a finale." -By Scott
Rosenberg -Salon
20021101
"Age
arises, indirectly, as an issue with races' newcomers."
... "Once they were young whippersnappers running against senior citizens.
Now Walter Mondale and Frank Lautenberg, summoned by party leaders to keep
the Senate in Democratic hands, are fending off suggestions that they are
too old." ... "Nobody is actually using the words "too old" about New Jersey's
Lautenberg, 78, and Minnesota's Mondale, 74. They say, "You can either
move into the future or get stuck in the past," as Mondale's Republican
opponent, Norm Coleman, put it this week in Minnesota. Or "Doug Forrester
isn't a man for yesterday, he's a leader for tomorrow," as former New Jersey
governor Tom Kean says in an advertisement for Lautenberg's GOP opponent."
-By Jill Lawrence -USATODAY
20021031
- "Three
women's compelling stories." ... "In the days before
Chechen rebels took hundreds of theatergoers hostage last week, Russian
journalist Anna Politkovskaya was in the US to accept an award for on-the-job
bravery." ... "They specifically asked for Ms. Politkovskaya – who is critical
of the war – as a negotiator." ... "Her abrupt departure from the US drew
attention to the award she came to collect –the Courage in Journalism Award,
given annually by the International Women's Media Foundation. The other
winners for 2002 are Canadian Kathy Gannon, bureau chief in Afghanistan
and Pakistan for the Associated Press; and Sandra Nyaira, political editor
for The Daily News, Zimbabwe's only independent newspaper. Their lives,
like Politkovskaya's, are compelling." -By Kim Campbell
-CSMonitor/buy
IWMF
Courage in Journalism Awards -IWMF.org
- "International Women's Media Foundation." - ""...No press is truly free
unless women share an equal voice...""
"Should
death penalty apply to 16-year-olds? Florida
votes on the issue, while capital punishment for juveniles draws attention
in the sniper case." ... "In an important moment of candor, US Supreme
Court Justice John Paul Stevens last week criticized the high court's refusal
to examine during the current term the constitutionality of applying capital
punishment to juveniles." ... ""In the last 13 years, a national consensus
has developed that juvenile offenders should not be executed. No state
has lowered the age eligibility to either 16 or 17 since our decision [permitting
the execution of 16-year-olds] in 1989," Justice Stevens said in a dissent
joined by three other justices. "In fact, the movement is in exactly the
opposite direction."" ... "Next Tuesday, voters in Florida will have an
opportunity to verify or invalidate Stevens's observation." -By
Warren Richey -CSMonitor/buy
20021030
- "U.S.
soldiers train for battle in streets of Iraq." ...
"Since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon has been preparing soldiers
and Marines to fight battles in villages, towns and cities. Those cluttered
landscapes had been largely ignored as a training ground since the days
of World War II, when GIs slugged their way across Europe by seizing hundreds
of hamlets in close combat with the German Army." ... "The reason for the
renewed focus: By the end of this decade, three-quarters of the world's
population will live in metropolitan areas. And that's where the U.S. military's
top commanders expect to fight, in part because no conventional army would
want to battle America's high-tech, smart-bomb equipped force in the open."
... "At bases from Fayetteville, N.C. to Seattle, the Army and Marines
have built scale models of downtown areas to simulate the complexities
of urban fighting. Several blocks in size, these artificial cities are
used to teach soldiers and Marines a range of skills, from how to spot
booby-trapped buildings to fighting enemies who would have no qualms about
using civilians as human shields." -By Dave Moniz
-USATODAY
-West
Coast Port Lockout
- "Union
Blames Co.'s for Dock Trouble: Dockworkers'
Union Files Documents Blaming Shipping Companies for Slowdown." ... "Shipping
companies are mismanaging cargo at major Pacific ports so federal prosecutors
can blame longshoremen for a work slowdown, the dockworker's union contends."
... "The union made the allegation in documents filed Tuesday with the
Justice Department." -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
-West
Coast Port Lockout
- "Union
points finger at shippers, Justice Department in filing."
... "The West Coast dockworkers union blames mismanagement by shipping
companies for slow movement of cargo, saying Pacific Maritime Association
members are trying to make longshoremen look bad." ... "In documents filed
yesterday with the Justice Department, the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union also said the department appears to blame longshoremen
for the backlog. The union says the department has not asked the maritime
association to respond to union charges that its mismanagement is keeping
ports clogged." -By Frank Vinluan -SeattleTimes.NWsource
-West
Coast Port Lockout
- "Longshore
union blames owners for port backlog: Letter
to feds refutes charges by management." ... "A combination of increased
traffic, a lack of skilled labor, equipment shortages and breakdowns and
other logistical problems that are the responsibility of employers explains
the decline in number of cargo containers processed, said the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union." ... "The union made its case in a letter
to the Department of Justice, which had requested a response to an allegation
of a slowdown made by the owners' group, the Pacific Maritime Association."
-By George Raine -SFGate.com
"Bumps
ahead on Easy Street? As the US population
grows older, the needs of retirees are likely to intensify. Early lessons
from the 'oldest' county in America [Charlotte County, Florida]." ... "The
changes taking place in Charlotte County involve every aspect of the community
–social-service organizations, businesses, architects, builders, churches,
and schools." ... "Across the country, the question of how best to meet
the needs of older citizens will intensify as demographics change. As communities
begin drawing up blueprints for a graying society, they will be undertaking
a vast experiment." ... ""There are literally no societies in the world
that have had people living two and three decades after they've retired,"
says David Colburn, provost of the University of Florida and co-author
of a new book, "Florida's Megatrends."" (1, 2).
By
Marilyn Gardner -CSMonitor/buy
20021025
- "Disney
to Offer New Internet Access Service [Through Microsoft]."
... "That could create a curious conflict, since MSN's news service is
provided by MSNBC, Microsoft's joint venture with NBC News, not Disney's
ABCNews.com.
Mr. Eisner said in an interview that Disney had already decided to accept
adjacent cooperation and competition. Last year, Disney merged its ESPN.com
sports Web site with the sports section of MSN. That deal helped ESPN.com
rise to be the clear audience leader among sports sites on the Web." -By
Saul Hansell -NYTimes
via -Google-News
20021024
- Sniper
- "The
Subject On Everyone's Screen." ... "The Internet
is abuzz with wild speculation and outrage over the rifle shootings that
have killed 10 people and terrorized the Washington area. In a pattern
that's becoming familiar when big news breaks, the Internet is where people
turn to vent their emotions, share thoughts and drill down for information
they might have missed or can't get from TV and newspapers." ... "Google,
the Internet's top search engine, said "sniper" has zoomed to the top of
its list of fast-rising search terms. Lycos said "Washington sniper" was
its 10th most common search query last week, and that searches pertaining
to "sniper rifles" had tripled. More people also are entering "bulletproof
vest" into the query box at Lycos.com." -By Leslie
Walker -WashingtonPost
>TechNews -Washtech
20021023
-
- Iowa
pregnancy privacy challenge.
- "Judge
Drops Pregnancy Records Request." ... "A Buena Vista
District Court judge has vacated an order that would have required Planned
Parenthood to turn over pregnancy records." -By Pat
Mack -KTIV
- "N.Y. Times
to buy Post's 50% share of IHT." ... "The International
Herald Tribune will be acquired by one of its two current owners, The New
York Times Co., which will buy out the 50 percent interest of The Washington
Post Co. under a plan announced Tuesday." ... "The sale, which follows
some contentious, behind-the-scenes negotiations between two of the world's
most famous newspapers, should not have any immediate effect on the IHT.
"The world's daily newspaper," as the IHT calls itself, will continue to
be published in 22 printing sites around the world and distributed in more
than 180 countries." ... "After Katharine Graham's death last year, she
was replaced by her son Donald, who is chief executive of the Post company.
Though the elder Sulzberger remains as IHT co-chairman, his son Arthur
Ochs Sulzberger Jr., is now chairman of the Times company." -IHT.com
20021022
-
- Iowa
pregnancy privacy challenge.
- "Judges
Lifts Pregnancy Records Order: Judge Lifts
Order for Pregnancy Records Sought in Investigation of Abandoned Baby."
... "A judge on Tuesday lifted an order that would have required Planned
Parenthood to provide pregnancy-test records that authorities had hoped
would lead them to the mother of a dead baby boy."
-AP via -ABCNEWS.com
"Attack
On Internet Called Largest Ever." ... "Around 5:00
p.m. EDT on Monday, a "distributed denial of service" (DDOS) attack struck
the 13 "root servers" that provide the primary roadmap for almost all Internet
communications. Despite the scale of the attack, which lasted about an
hour, Internet users worldwide were largely unaffected, experts said."
... "DDOS attacks overwhelm networks with an onslaught of data until they
cannot be used. According to security experts, the incident probably was
the result of multiple attacks, in which attackers concentrate the power
of many computers against a single network to prevent it from operating."
-By David McGuire and Brian Krebs -WashingtonPost>TechNews
-Washtech
Discussion
- "Internet
Backbone DDOS "Largest Ever"."
-Slashdot
20021021
- OPINION
- "Can
You Trust Your Computer?" ... "Who should your computer
take its orders from? Most people think their computers should obey them,
not obey someone else. With a plan they call "trusted computing," large
media corporations (including the movie companies and record companies),
together with computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel, are planning
to make your computer obey them instead of you. Proprietary programs have
included malicious features before, but this plan would make it universal."
... ""Treacherous computing" is a more appropriate name, because the plan
is designed to make sure your computer will systematically disobey you."
... "Programs that use treacherous computing will continually download
new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically
on your work. If Microsoft, or the U.S. government, does not like what
you said in a document you wrote, they could post new instructions telling
all computers to refuse to let anyone read that document. Each computer
would obey when it downloads the new instructions. Your writing would be
subject to 1984-style retroactive erasure. You might be unable to read
it yourself." -By Richard Stallman
-NewsForge via -CorpWatch.org
20021018
- "JudgeOrders
White House Papers' Release: Cheney Lawyers
to Ask Appeals Court to Keep Energy Task Force Records Secret." ... "The
Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, the plaintiffs in this case, are two of
several groups that have alleged that the administration improperly met
with private officials from the energy industry last year while shaping
its energy policy. Environmental groups say they were largely excluded
from the meetings." ... "The Bush administration has said repeatedly that
the separation of powers doctrine shields those documents from outside
review because they might show the administration's internal, deliberative
process." -By Neely Tucker
-WashingtonPost
20021017
- Enron
News - "CHRONOLOGY-
California power crisis investigations." ... "A former
top Enron Corp. electricity trader pleaded guilty Thursday to inflating
prices during the California energy crisis, confirming the suspicions of
state officials who are demanding billions of dollars in refunds." ...
"Timothy Belden, who was employed by Enron as the head of its western power
trading unit in Portland, agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy
to commit wire fraud, federal prosecutors said."
-Reuters via -Fortune
- 
- "Texas
woman victim of Bali blast." ... "Karri Casner, 23,
of Flower Mound, was vacationing at Kuta Beach at the time of the explosion
and has not been seen since Saturday." ... "Another Texan, Jake Young from
Midland, has been reported missing in the explosion, but has not yet been
found." -AP
via -HoustonChronicle.com
- "Rivals:
Microsoft is up to old tricks: Without protocols,
competing gadgets, software won't work as well on Windows." ... "As Microsoft
awaits court approval of its landmark antitrust settlement with the government,
the company has angered some competitors by tightly limiting the technical
data it promised to release." ... "In order to gain access, a company would
have to use Microsoft's "Passport" identity authentication system, then
request and sign two forms -- one of them promising secrecy -- just to
see the license terms and find how much Microsoft is charging for the information."
-AP via -CNN
20021015
- 
- "Iowa
Workers Find 11 Bodies in Grain Rail Car." ... "Workers
at a grain elevator in [Denison] Iowa discovered what appeared to be the
decomposed bodies of 11 people in a rail car that came across the border
from Mexico four months ago, police and immigration officials said on Tuesday."
-Reuters via -ABCNEWS.com
20021014
OPINION
-
- Iowa
pregnancy privacy challenge.
- "Doctors’
files: Closed!" ... "To the pleasant surprise of
just about anyone paying attention, officials from anti-abortion Women’s
Choice Center in Bettendorf stood behind Planned Parenthood. The dog put
its arm around the cat." ... " “Whether women go to a private clinic, Planned
Parenthood or a pro-life clinic, they come under the assumption that their
case is private,” Women’s Choice director Lynn Grandon said last month."
-By Barb Ickes -QCTimes
- "Illinois
puts death penalty on trial." ... "Clemency hearings
are scheduled to begin this week for almost every prisoner facing the death
penalty in the US state of Illinois." ... "The cases of 142 murderers -
convicted of killing around 250 people - will be reviewed with the possibility
that the state's Governor George Ryan will commute all their sentences
to life in prison." ... "Governor Ryan, who leaves office in January, was
the first to declare a moratorium on executions three years ago after three
murder convictions were overturned with new examinations of DNA evidence."-BBC/News
"MakingIt.com
-By Keith
Robinson current comic at: makingit
via Reuben.org. ... "A Survival Guide
for Today." ... "About Making It." - "About
Making It." archives.
- Added to the Comics
Links.
20021011
- "Technology
Shapes Get-Out-The-Vote Efforts: Candidates,
Parties Using E-mail and Wireless Devices To Organize Supporters." ...
"Keenly aware that the role of the World Wide Web in the 2000 elections
fell far short of the hype, campaign consultants now are selling the Internet
less for its vote-getting power than as a command-and-control tool to reach
out to the faithful." ... ""The Internet is a medium that's best used to
preach to the choir, not to convert," said Dan Manatt, director of YDemsCan.net,
a Democratic political action committee that supports candidates aged 40
and younger. "The political landscape online is changing subtly in that
it's really starting to tilt toward the medium's strengths."" ... "In Iowa,
a state hosting several pivotal and tight races, both parties are counting
on technology to gain that extra edge." (1, 2)
-By Brian Krebs-WashingtonPost>TechNews
20021010
- Iowa
pregnancy privacy challenge.
- "Officials
yield in demand for records of pregnancy." ... "Tom
Miller, Iowa's attorney general, asked the Iowa Supreme Court on Wednesday
to send the case back to a lower court so the Buena Vista County attorney
can withdraw a court order demanding pregnancy-test records from the Planned
Parenthood clinic in Storm Lake." ... "Still, Planned Parenthood of Greater
Iowa's legal fight isn't over, officials warned." -By
Staci Hupp -DesMoinesRegister
- "As
sniper hunt grows, role of media blurs." ... "Police
scold reporters for 'interference,' but thank them for publicizing citizen
hot line." ... "In the D.C. case, the local CBS affiliate, WUSA, Channel
9, uncovered the fact that police had found a note – scrawled on a tarot
card – near the scene of Monday's shooting. It read, "Dear Policeman, I
am God."" ... "That set off [Montgomery County Police Chief Charles] Moose,
who said at yesterday's press conference, "I ask my community, do you want
the police department to work the case or do you want Channel 9 to work
the case? Let me know because there is no room, in my mind, for both of
us."" -By Kim Campbell
-CSMonitor/buy
20021009
- "Profiler:
Sniper case publicity a balancing act." ... "One
of the lead investigators in the Washington, D.C.-area sniper shootings
lashed out at the media Wednesday." ... "Montgomery County, Maryland, Police
Chief Charles Moose was upset that information about a tarot card left
near the scene of the most recent shooting -- and inscribed with the message,
"Dear Policeman: I am God" -- had been leaked to the media."
-CNN
"ATF Online - Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms." ... "Through its National Integrated Ballistic
Information Network (NIBIN) Program, ATF deploys Integrated Ballistic Identification
System (IBIS) equipment into State and local law enforcement agencies for
their use in imaging and comparing crime gun evidence. This equipment allows
firearms technicians to acquire digital images of the markings made by
a firearm on bullets and cartridge casings; the images then undergo automated
initial comparison. Go to the NIBIN.gov
site - Photo
Link."
"[NEW] Read the new NIBIN publication - [PDF:]ATF
P 3315.2 - Bullets, Casings and You" - http://www.atf.treas.gov
20021005
"Google
Degraded? Geeks Aghast." ... "... critics posting
to weblogs and search engine discussion sites claim that, for the first
time since its launch in 1998, Google results have been degraded rather
than improved by the latest tweak to its proprietary scoring algorithm
for Web pages, known as PageRank." ... "But search engine discussion boards
tend to be populated by webmasters and consultants trying to outfox PageRank
in hopes of getting to the top of Google results." (1, 2)
-By Paul Boutin -Wired
20021004
"Wal-Mart
Delivers a Sub-$200 PC." ... "The SYSMAR710 is not
aimed at the power user, nor does it target the gaming or enthusiast crowds.
Instead, the folks at Lindows.com, Microtel, Via Technologies, and Wal-Mart
hope to capture what they believe are emerging markets: consumers with
broadband connections who want an inexpensive second or third PC for the
home, and businesses that require only a basic machine for Internet, e-mail,
and office applications and that is easily integrated into an existing
network." -By John R. Delaney
-PCMag.com
20021003
"DNA
Decoding Might Aid in Malaria Fight." ... "Scientists
have determined the complete genetic codes of the single-cell parasite
that causes malaria and of the mosquito that transmits it to people, a
feat they said would allow them to launch a high-tech assault on one of
the world's deadliest and most intractable scourges." ... "Malaria kills
more than 2 million people annually --the vast majority of them children
younger than 5 -- and has spread in recent years as affordable drugs have
lost their effectiveness and mosquitoes have perfected their resistance
to the most widely used sprays." -WashingtonPost
20020929
- STEM
CELL NEWS-
"Nancy
Reagan Fights Bush Over Stem Cells." ... "Mr. Bush
sharply limited such research. At 81, the former first lady is obliquely
but persistently campaigning — through friends, advisers, lawmakers and
her own well-placed calls and letters — to reverse the president's decision."
... "Mrs. Reagan believes that embryonic stem cell research could uncover
a cure for Alzheimer's, the disease that has wiped out her husband's memory.
She was dismayed, friends say, when the White House took issue on Monday
with a new California law that encourages embryonic stem cell research."
... ""A lot of time is being wasted," she told a friend last week who was
given permission to pass her words on to The New York Times. "A lot of
people who could be helped are not being helped."" -By
Alessandra Stanley -NYTimes
via -Google-News
- 
-
"The
Making of John Walker Lindh: How did a quiet,
bright young boy from suburban America end up alongside the Taliban in
Afghanistan? This is a story of love, loathing and an often reckless quest
for spiritual fulfillment." ... "He is the Traitor to the general public,
which sees a Taliban soldier who attended the training camps and allegedly
shook the hand of Osama bin Laden. He is a Lost Soul to his family's friends
and defenders, who see a brilliant kid from a nice family who went off
to find purity and peace and found fanaticism and war. But a TIME investigation
of his path to jihad, relying on dozens of witnesses, reveals an even more
complex person than the caricatures would allow. When Lindh is sentenced
this Friday as part of a plea bargain, a judge will have to decide which
of his identities matters most in determining how much of the rest of his
life he should spend in jail." (1, 2,
3,
4,
5,
6)
-By Timothy Roche, Brian Bennett, Anne Berryman, Hilary
Hylton, Siobhan Morrissey and Amany Radwan, with reporting by Frank Sikora,
Alex Perry, and Hannah Bloch
-TIME.com
Quad
Cities
- "Q-C
educators report few attempts to ban books." ...
Across the U.S., though, "from 1990 to 2000, 6,364 challenges to books
were reported to the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom.... the most
challenged material for 2001 was the Harry Potter series, for its focus
on wizardry and magic." -By Stephanie Massick -The
Dispatch
20020928
"Turkey
seizes weapons-grade uranium." ... "Turkish paramilitary
police have seized more than 15 kg (33 lbs) of weapons-grade uranium."
... "Officers in the southern province of Sanliurfa, which borders Syria
and is about 250 km (155 miles) from the Iraqi border, acted on a tip-off."
-Reuters via -CNN
/Asia
"Turkish
police seize smuggled uranium." ... "It is not yet
clear where the uranium, estimated to be worth $5m on the black market,
was being taken, but it is unlikely there would have been a market for
it within Turkey." -By Tabitha Morgan-BBC/News
"FBI
Failed to Classify Reports Before Moussaoui Had Them."
... "The incident is the latest in a string of FBI mistakes related to
document control, which FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has identified
as one of the chief shortcomings at the bureau. Authorities are implementing
a computerized "virtual document" system aimed at improvement." -By
Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost
20020927
"New
Software Quietly Diverts Sales Commissions." ...
"In many versions of the software, a purchase will look as if it was made
through the software maker's site even if the shopper came in through another
site that has its own affiliate agreement with the online store in question.
Those affiliate sites include small businesses and even charities that
use affiliate links as fund-raisers." ... "Some version of the diversion
software is used by some of the most popular music trading sites that have
tried to fill the void left by the collapse of Napster, including Morpheus,
Kazaa and LimeWire. The companies say their software has been downloaded
by tens of millions of Web surfers." -By John Schwartz
and Bob Tedeschi -NYTimes
via -Google-News
Discussion
- "Stealware:
Kazaa et al Stealing Link Commissions." ... ""The
insidious part is the stealware program remains even if you delete the
original P2P software. And you supposedly gave your permission when you
clicked through the EULA."" -By goombah99 via
-Slashdot
20020926
- "Experts
skeptical of reports on al-Qaeda-Baghdad link." ...
"A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the new
assertions an "exaggeration." Other intelligence experts said some of the
charges appeared to be based on old information and that there was still
no "smoking gun" connecting Iraq with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United
States." ... "Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism chief," ....
"... accused the Bush administration of overstating uncorroborated information
from al-Qaeda detainees. "They're cooking the books," Cannistraro said."
-By Barbara Slavin and John Diamond
-USATODAY
Google
Search: Vince Cannistraro (+CIA)
"Fraction
of U.S. Docs Behind Most Malpractice Cases." ...
"Five percent of American physicians are responsible for more than half
of the malpractice cases in the US, consumer advocacy group Public Citizen
said on Wednesday." ... "The study comes ahead of a House of Representatives
vote on Thursday on a bill that would limit payments made in malpractice
cases." -Reuters/Health
20020925
-
"Banned
Books Week fights for free flow of ideas: The
fight for freedom of expression and ideas has seemed to grow in the past
year, say library advocates." -By Rebecca A. Petersen
-Ames Tribune
OPINION
- "House
GOP bill protects bad doctors, HMOs and nursing homes from accountability;
patients lose crucial rights." ... "Just 5 percent
of American doctors are responsible for half the malpractice in the United
States, according to a new analysis of federal data by the consumer group
Public Citizen." ... "The analysis was released as the U.S. House of Representatives
is scheduled to consider legislation that would make it more difficult
for injured patients to hold their doctors accountable for negligence."
-Citizen.org
Press Release
- "Five
Percent of Doctors Responsible for Half of All Medical Malpractice, Study
Finds." ... "Repeat Offender Doctors Would Get
New Legal Protections for Negligence From Anti-Patient Liability Bill Scheduled
for U.S. House Floor Vote Thursday." [italic in
original] ... "The bill, H.R. 4600, comes in the wake
of incorrect assertions by doctors and the business lobby that a recent
spike in medical malpractice insurance premiums was caused by "excessive
lawsuits." The bill would reduce doctors liability for catastrophic
injuries and would provide immunity from punitive damages for reckless
conduct by HMOs, nursing homes, drug companies and medical device manufacturers."
... ""The medical community alleges that medical liability litigation constitutes
a giant lottery, in which lawsuits bear no relationship to
the care given by a physician," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook.
"In reality, a small percentage of doctors are responsible for the bulk
of malpractice in the United States, and only better oversight by state
medical boards, not draconian limits on patients legal rights, can
reduce the tens of thousands of deaths and injuries they cause."" ... "Public
Citizen analyzed a public use file from the National Practitioner Data
Bank, which includes information about malpractice judgments and settlements
since September 1990. The analysis found that 4.8 percent of doctors in
the United States (40,118) who have paid two or more malpractice awards
to patients are responsible for 51.1 percent of all the reports made to
the Data Bank. Those doctors have paid out nearly $21 billion in damages,
more than 53 percent of the total damages paid. The analysis also found
that 1.7 percent of doctors (14,293) are responsible for 27.5 percent of
all malpractice awards; 14, 293 have made three or more payments, totaling
$11 billion." -Citizen.org
Google
Search: National Practitioner Data Bank
"Bush
Is Thwarted on Worker Rights in Security Dept. Measure."
... "A moderate Republican senator gave Democrats the margin they needed
today to keep President Bush from firing workers in a new Homeland Security
Department, setting up a veto battle with an administration that sees such
a transformation of federal work rules as vital to national security."
... "Under the agreement, the administration could loosen the civil service
rules governing promotions and dismissals, but federal employee unions
could object. If the two sides reached an impasse on such changes, the
Federal Services Impasses Panel, a board of seven presidential appointees,
would arbitrate. The panel provides such arbitration under a similar arrangement
covering workers at the Internal Revenue Service." -By
David Firestone -NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
20020924
"Judge
rules federal death penalty unconstitutional." ...
"A federal judge in Vermont declared the federal death penalty unconstitutional
on Tuesday, becoming the second federal judge to do so this year."
-Reuters
"Judge
bans federal death penalty." ... "U.S. District Judge
William Sessions said the law does not adequately protect defendants' rights."
... ""If the death penalty is to be part of our system of justice, due
process of law and the fair trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment require
that standards and safeguards governing the kinds of evidence juries may
consider must be rigorous, and constitutional rights and liberties scrupulously
protected," he said." -AP
via -Salon
- "Judge
Concludes Energy Company Drove Up Prices." ... "An
administrative law judge concluded today that the El Paso Corporation illegally
helped to drive up prices for natural gas in California during the state's
power crisis in 2000 and 2001, the first time any federal regulatory official
has determined there was widespread manipulation of energy supplies." ...
"Executives at El Paso, which is based in Houston, said the ruling "is
unsupported by the evidence and is inconsistent with FERC policy."" -By
Richard A. Oppel, Jr. with Lowell Bergman -NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
20020923
- STEM
CELL NEWS
- "Calif.
Approves Stem Cell Research." ... "In a move that
runs counter to Bush administration policy, California has adopted a new
law that opens the state's doors to stem cell researchers." ... "Gov. Gray
Davis signed legislation Sunday that expressly permits the research, which
has been strongly opposed by anti-abortion groups and the Roman Catholic
church because it involves the use of fetal and embryonic tissue."
-AP via -Guardian.co.uk
20020922
"Former
N.Y. Cop Gets 5 Years in Immigrant Torture." ...
"Former police officer Charles Schwartz was sentenced to five years in
prison late on Saturday, avoiding a fourth trial on charges involving the
torture of Haitian Abner Louima in a precinct bathroom."
-Reuters via-Miami/Herald
20020921
- "At
the Heart of Rwanda's Horror: General's History
Offers Clues to the Roots of Genocide." ... "... Augustin Bizimungu, former
chief of staff of the Rwandan army, sits with 53 others in a detention
center in Arusha, Tanzania, awaiting trial by the U.N.-mandated International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He is accused of being an architect of the
state-sponsored genocide that killed more than 800,000 people." ... "Over
100 days in 1994, after the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana,
Rwanda's Hutu majority carried out the organized slaughter of the country's
Tutsi minority and Hutus who sympathized with them." -By
Emily Wax -WashingtonPost
"Bush
backs independent 9/11 panel: Policy shift
made amid warnings, revelations." ... "The Bush administration yesterday
endorsed setting up an independent commission to investigate the failures
of US intelligence, law enforcement, and other agencies before the Sept.
11 attacks, reversing the administration's position in the face of mounting
support in Congress for such an inquiry." ... "President Bush had adamantly
opposed an independent inquiry, saying it would compromise national security
and distract from counterterrorism efforts." -By Susan
Milligan -Boston/Globe
20020920
"Murky
Lives, Fateful Trip in Buffalo [New York] Terrorism Case."
... "Faith, the handful of young men told friends and family, propelled
them to leave their homes here in the spring of 2001 and seek religious
instruction in Pakistan. What they brought back, according to the government,
were the beginnings of an education in terrorism acquired instead at a
fortified military camp in Afghanistan run by Al Qaeda." (1, 2,
3)
-By Susan Sachs with John Kifner & Marc Santora
-NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
"Bush
to Outline Doctrine of Striking Foes First." ...
"On Friday, the Bush administration will publish its first comprehensive
rationale for shifting American military strategy toward pre-emptive action
against hostile states and terrorist groups developing weapons of mass
destruction. The strategy document will also state, for the first time,
that the United States will never allow its military supremacy to be challenged
the way it was during the cold war." ... "The document, titled "The National
Security Strategy of the United States," is one that every president is
required to submit to Congress. It is the first comprehensive" -By
David E. Sanger -NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
Google
Search: "The National Security Strategy of the United States"
20020919
"Media
future: Risk of monopoly? Rewriting ownership
rules could affect the balance between commercial and public interests."
... "The American media could be poised to undergo another round of massive
consolidation, and consumer activists are incensed." ... "The Bush administration
has begun the most extensive review ever of the rules that govern the nation's
networks, television stations, and cable systems. The rules were originally
designed to ensure that no single Citizen Kane got a lock on the nation's
marketplace of ideas. They restrict such things as one company owning two
major TV stations in the same town." -By Alexandra
Marks -CSMonitor/buy
"U.S.
Failed to Act on Warnings in '98 of a Plane Attack."
... "The United States intelligence community was told in 1998 that Arab
terrorists were planning to fly a bomb-laden plane into the World Trade
Center, but the F.B.I. and the Federal Aviation Administration did not
take the threat seriously, a Congressional investigation into the Sept.
11 attacks has found." ... "The Congressional report was the first disclosure
that there was specific intelligence about terrorist plans to crash airplanes
into the trade center, though officials said that those plans did not appear
to be connected to the Sept. 11 attack." -By James
Risen -NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
20020918
- "Sierra
Leone: The path from pariah to peace: How one
African country went from a bloody 10-year civil war to a stable democracy
in just two years." ... "President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, elected in May,
faces a tall order. The underlying causes for the civil war – unequal access
to resources, abuse of power, and regional instability – continue to haunt
Sierra Leone. Illegal diamond smuggling continues. Peace here is fragile."
... "Nonetheless, Sierra Leone is deemed a success story. Its transformation
is a lesson in what can be accomplished with enough international attention,
money, and goodwill." -By Danna Harman
-CSMonitor/buy
"Intelligence
intercept led to Buffalo suspects: Message:
'Goodbye, you won't hear from me again'." ... "That intercept, a government
official told CNN Tuesday, was a key reason the FBI decided to move against
eight U.S. citizens suspected of undergoing terrorist training at al Qaeda
training camps in Afghanistan. Two of the suspects remain on the loose."
... "This source said authorities were concerned what the message might
have meant, while also emphasizing that the FBI has no evidence the suspects
were planning an imminent attack." -By Susan Candiotti
-CNN /Law
20020916
- "IAEA
Says Can't Prove Iraq Making Nuclear Weapons." ...
"The United Nations nuclear watchdog said Monday it had information [satellite
images] that could indicate Iraq was attempting to revive its nuclear weapons
program, but on-site inspections were needed to draw clear conclusions."
-Reuters via -ABCNEWS.com
20020915
-
-
- "War
Could Unshackle Oil in Iraq: U.S. Drillers
Eye Huge Petroleum Pool." ... "A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from
Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other
countries, and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry
officials and leaders of the Iraqi opposition." ... "The importance of
Iraq's oil has made it potentially one of the administration's biggest
bargaining chips in negotiations to win backing from the U.N. Security
Council and Western allies for President Bush's call for tough international
action against Hussein. All five permanent members of the Security Council
-- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- have international
oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad."
-By Dan Morgan and David B. Ottaway
-WashingtonPost
"3,000
Evacuated After Derailment [Spills 10,000 Gallons of Sulfuric Acid Near
Knoxville, Tennessee Sunday]." ... "The highly corrosive
acid, used in manufacturing, was transported as a liquid, but vaporized
into a gas upon release." -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
20020913
"IRS
Shifts Focus To Pursuit of Rich Scofflaws:
Confidence in System Said to Be at Stake." ... "The Internal Revenue Service
is shifting its audit and enforcement forces to focus more resources on
tracking down high-income cheaters who fail to report income, hide it offshore
-- or, in some cases, don't file tax returns at all." ... "This shift in
priorities comes as Congress and regulators throughout the government have
found that cheating and dishonesty are more widespread among individuals
and corporations than they thought. There is a real risk, officials say,
that honest Americans who pay all their taxes may decide they are chumps
for playing by the rules." -By Albert B. Crenshaw-WashingtonPost
9-11
Meta Index
- "A
Monitor Guide to Books of September 11: A year
after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the publishing
industry has produced more than 300 related books. No single event has
ever generated so many, so quickly."
-CSMonitor/buy
20020912
arrogate, arrogating, arrogated <M-W>
20020908
- Iowa
pregnancy privacy challenge.
- "Sheriff
demands records of Iowa clinic: Pregnancy data
sought in probe of infant death." ... "Two Storm Lake doctors' offices
and the hospital provided names of expectant mothers who could not be accounted
for. Yet when deputies showed up with a subpoena for the names and addresses
of women who had undergone pregnancy tests, Planned Parenthood resisted."
... "The clinic, which serves six counties, does not perform abortions."
... "Sheriff's deputies trying to find the mother have inquired at schools
and churches and have run DNA tests on a few women who were thought to
have been pregnant. -By Hannah Wolfson
-AP via -Boston/Globe
20020907
- "Illinois
governor may commute death sentences." ... "Gov.
George Ryan is considering commuting every death row inmate's sentence
to life in prison...." ... "The governor suspended executions in January
2000 after a string of death row inmates were released."
-AP via -CNN
20020906
"Top
Secret Gaffe: Terror Suspect Moussaoui Given
Sensitive Information." ... "The government mistakenly gave alleged terrorist
Zacarias Moussaoui classified documents related to al Qaeda, ABCNEWS has
learned." -By Jackie Judd-ABCNEWS.com
"Congress
gets top-secret files detailing Iraqi threat." ...
"Daschle, a war skeptic who had earlier complained that the Bush administration
had failed to answer key questions, called the session ``very helpful.''"
... "But the briefing was unlikely to alter Daschle's view that Bush should
seek the United Nations' support for any military operation." -By
Ron Hutcheson and Jodi A. Enda -Miami/Herald
20020904
"Rumsfeld's
Search for a Way to Fight a New Type of Foe." ...
"The deadliest strength of America's new adversaries is their very fluidity,
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld believes. Terrorist networks, unburdened
by fixed borders, headquarters or conventional forces, are free to study
the way this nation responds to threats and adapt themselves to prepare
for what Mr. Rumsfeld is certain will be another attack." ... "Al Qaeda,
for example, has leaders and budgets and command-and-control and has proved
it can inflict terrible damage, yet it cannot be attacked in a traditional
battle." -By Thom Shanker
-NYTimes via
-AltaVista-News
20020903
- "As
stalkers go online, new state laws try to catch up:
One of the first trials for 'cyberstalking' in the US opens in Illinois
this week." ... "Upwards of 100 new cases are reported each week of someone
using the Internet to intimidate another person." ... "This week ... one
of the first cases of cyberstalking in the US will be played out in a suburban
Chicago courtroom." -By Terry Costlow
-CSMonitor/buy
"Buffy
star marries Freddie Prinze Jr in secret ceremony."
... "Sarah Michelle Gellar has married Freddie Prinze Jr in a secret ceremony."
-Ananova.com
"Delaware
judge blocks sale of Napster to Bertelsmann."
-AP via -MercuryNews
20020902
WEST
NILE VIRUS
- "Transmission
of West Nile In Ga. Transplants Probed." ... "Health
officials said yesterday that they believe the nation's blood supply is
safe from West Nile virus, even though they are aggressively investigating
what may be the first known transmission of the disease through tainted
blood or tissues." ... "All 638 known U.S. cases of West Nile this year,
including 31 deaths, are believed to have resulted from mosquito bites."
-By Alan Cooperman -WashingtonPost
20020830
- WEST
NILE VIRUS
- "West
Nile Case Suspected In Canada." ... "Ontario health
officials said Friday they believe three people sick in the province have
the West Nile virus, which would be Canada's first human cases of the mosquito-born
illness that has killed 24 people in the United States this year."
-AP via -Guardian.co.uk
20020828
- "Afghan
Opium Output Seen Eclipsing Golden Triangle." ...
"Afghanistan will take back its crown this year from the notorious Golden
Triangle [Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand] in Southeast Asia as the world's
top producer of opium, the raw material used to make heroin, a Thai anti-narcotics
official said on Wednesday." ... "Afghanistan lost its top spot in recent
years as a result of strict Islamic rule by the Taliban regime and the
U.S. led war which toppled the movement." -By Sasithorn
Simaporn -Reutersvia
-Miami/Herald
20020827
"Officials
ban soda pop sales in Los Angeles County schools."
... "... studies that show the percentage of American adolescents who are
overweight has nearly tripled in the past 20 years. The trend has been
blamed on junk food and lack of exercise." ... "Critics of the soda ban
argued that sugary drinks were only part of a larger health and junk food
problem and some Los Angeles school administrators predicted that they
will have trouble paying for such things as dances and band uniforms."-Reuters
via -MercuryNews
- "More
E. coli cases from [Oregon's Lane] county fair."
... "Disease detectives continued tracking the source Monday of the biggest
E. coli outbreak in Oregon history that has sickened as many as 42 mostly
young people who attended the Lane County Fair." ... "The illness often
causes kidney failure and sometimes requires dialysis and transfusions,
according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some
people develop chronic kidney failure or neurologic impairment, such as
seizures or stroke. Some require surgery to remove part of the bowel."
... "Hemolytic uremic syndrome is the most serious illness associated with
the virulent strain of E. coli, O157:H7, that sickened the fairgoers. The
strain infects about 73,000 people and kills about 61 each year in the
United States, according to the CDC." -By Tim Christie
-RegisterGuard
"'Suspicious
powder' sent to Gore office." ... "An FBI official
told CNN that investigators believe the white powder was sent as a hoax,
but the bureau has not confirmed that officially."
-CNN
20020826
"THE
END USER You, on radio: New Webcasting software
makes pirates more elusive." ... "... there is new free Webcasting software
such as Streamer (www.chaotica.u-net.com)
and Peercast (www.peercast.org) that
do away with central servers and create peer-to-peer networks that are
extremely difficult to trace." ... "If you want to broadcast on Streamer,
all you need is a plug-in for Winamp, available from Shoutcast [short
URL].... Install the plug-in into the folder that contains Winamp,
and Winamp will send what you're playing to Streamer, which will broadcast
it. (The software is Windows-only for now.)" -By Lee
Dembart -IHT.com
20020825
"Parties
pursue senior voters: Say population key to
control of House." ... "Americans 65 and older vote in higher percentages
than any other age group during every election, and are widely expected
to go to the polls in especially large numbers this year because they have
been hardest hit by falling stock prices, shrinking retirement portfolios,
and rising prescription drug prices." ... "In the last midterm elections,
in 1998, Americans age 65 and older accounted for about 16 percent of the
voting-age population, but 23 percent of those who went to the polls. By
comparison, 18- to 24-year-olds made up 13 percent of the electorate, but
about 5 percent of those who cast ballots. In recent years, the percentage
of younger voters has fallen, while the senior vote has continued to grow."
-By Sue Kirchhoff
-Boston/Globe
20020823
WEST
NILE VIRUS
- "Louisiana
confirms 24 new [human] West Nile cases." ... "...
bringing the 2002 total for the state at the epicenter of the outbreak
to 171, a state health official told CNN Friday." ... ""The CDC has recommended
that hunters shooting game birds use gloves to pick up the animals, [but]
... there's no evidence just by handling a dead bird or touching a dead
bird you can contract (West Nile)," said Butch Kinerney, spokesman for
the U.S. Geological Survey." -CNN
20020822
"Microsoft
Provides Provisional Patch for Office Flaws." ...
"... three vulnerabilities, which could be exploited by a malicious Web
site or HTML e-mail, stem from the ActiveX controls of OWC, Microsoft said
in its bulletin."
-By Jay Lyman NewsFactor
20020820
FBI.gov
is Seeking Information about Saud A.S. al-Rasheed:
"The
FBI has issued a BOLO (Be On The Lookout) for an individual by the name
of Saud A.S. Al-Rasheed." ... "On August 15, 2002,
materials previously recovered during the war on terrorism were found to
be related to several of the September 11th hijackers. These same materials
contained an image of a Saudi Arabian passport #C161433 issued to Saud
A.S. Al-Rasheed, Date of Birth: 01/30/1981; Place of Birth: Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia. The passport was issued at Riyadh on May 29, 2000. Al-Rasheed's
current whereabouts are unknown." ... "Law enforcement agencies are requested
to stop and detain Al-Rasheed and to contact their local FBI office. He
is considered armed and dangerous." -FBI.gov
- "Texas
Powder Scare Turns to Dust." ... ""There is no hazardous
material, no substance in the package itself, just dust," Lt. Rene Alaniz
told Reuters." -Reuters
- "Police:
Suspicious Powder Only Dust." ... "Authorities said
air monitoring equipment showed sewer gas in the building may have caused
the irritation." -AP
via -Guardian.co.uk
WEST
NILE VIRUS
-
- "Expect
long West Nile fight: As the Iowa equine infection
count hits nine, an expert says a human vaccine is years away." ... "The
best thing people can do is wear insect repellent and take other precautions
against mosquitoes, said Dr. Steve Ostroff, a leading epidemiologist for
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta." ... "Ostroff
said researchers are working on a human serum, but they aren't close to
bringing it to market." -By Tony Leys
-DesMoinesRegister
"Coming
up next: Ambushed on "Donahue"! More dangerous
than Grand Theft Auto 3 --a defender of video games is given the trash
talk-show treatment. Here's what he really wanted to say." ... "Despite
all of the publicity about school shootings, the rate of juvenile violent
crime in the United States is currently at a 30-year low. When researchers
interview people serving time for violent crimes, they find that they typically
consume less media than the general population, not more. A 2001 surgeon
general's report concluded that the strongest risk factors for school shootings
centered around the quality of the child's home life and their mental stability,
not their media exposure." (1, 2,
3)
-By Henry Jenkins -Salon
- "70
treated in Texas after white powder found." ... "McALLEN,
Texas [map] (CNN) -- Authorities were transporting some 70 people to
hospitals Tuesday after some of them suffered a reaction to a white powder
found in an office, said Lt. Rene Alaniz of the McAllen Fire Department."
... "A spokeswoman for Rio Grande Regional Hospital, one of two expecting
to receiving patients, said staff was told the substance was non-toxic."
-CNN
20020819
"Book
gangs of New York: The biggest, baddest literary
crime boss on the mean streets of Manhattan declares war." ... "It was
crazy and we all knew it. But could I turn my back on the man who had rescued
me from a dreary future of card catalogs at the NYPL?" -By
Sam Apple and Rebecca Jacobs -Salon
- "Iowa
prepares to battle Medicare: Gov. Tom Vilsack
will unveil a plan to contest compensation formulas. A court fight is possible."
... "Gov. Tom Vilsack plans to announce today that Iowa will mount a direct
legal challenge to Medicare formulas that shortchange the state an estimated
$1 billion a year." ... "Iowa ranks last in the country in the annual Medicare
spending per person." -By Tony Leys
-DesMoinesRegister / News
20020815
WEST
NILE VIRUS
- The dramatic spread of the West Nile virus across the U.S. has been graphically
documented by CNN.com.
It
has managed to cover over half of the contiguous United States since the
first known outbreak in New York City in 1999. That outbreak killed
seven people and hospitalized 55.
The
virus spreads from mosquitos to migrating birds and back to mosquitos.
20020814
WEST
NILE VIRUS
- "Hear NPR's Joanne Silberner's report on how West Nile virus
fits into the family of mosquito-borne diseases."-NPR
/News / ATC
20020813
- Iowa
pregnancy privacy challenge.
- "Is
pregnancy a privacy issue?" ... ""This was a heinous
crime that demands justice," said Jill June, director of Planned Parenthood
of Greater Iowa. "I feel horrible and this needs to be solved and we want
to help, but what they are asking for is illegal and unethical. This is
a blatant violation of a patient's rights to privacy."" ... "Local prosecutor
Phil Havens argues that privacy is not an absolute right. "If the rights
of society are greater, then those rights should prevail ... We have a
dead baby and there is no way we can investigate the crime without knowing
who the mother is."" -By Waynce Loewe -CourtTV.com
via -CNN
Enron
News - Enron
101 - macromedia flash cartoon explaining in remarkably
simple, pointed, and direct terms, Enron's saga, from rise to fall. -NoMoreEnrons.com
"More
'hams' in training for emergency response." ... "To
begin accessing the airwaves, an aspiring ham needs just a two-way radio
and an FCC Technician Class license. For the license, students need to
pass a 35-question multiple-choice exam that covers basic operational techniques
as well as radio theory and rules of communication." ... "They must demonstrate,
for instance, that they know what frequencies they may operate on and how
to identify themselves properly when making a transmission. Passing this
test allows the amateur operator access mostly to short-distance communication
on local VHF and UHF frequencies." ... "From there, with a little bit of
training, the frequencies are virtually unlimited." -By
Aaron Bingham -CSMonitor/buy
20020812
WorldCom
News - WorldCom
: Communications Library - Claims: "This
glossary is the definitive source of information on terms and issues related
to the technology and business of telecommunications."
A
- B
- C
- D
- E-
F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- X
- Y
- Z
0
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8-
9
20020810
"U.S.
Seeks to Limit Conservation Law." ... "The Bush administration
is arguing that a major environmental law does not apply to the vast majority
of oceans under United States control, a move that environmentalists say
could allow military maneuvers, oil and gas pipelines, commercial fishing,
ocean dumping and scores of other activities to escape public environmental
review." ... "That view is being challenged by the Natural Resources Defense
Council, which asserts that in addition to the territorial waters, the
act covers all activity within the nation's "exclusive economic zone,"
which extends 200 miles from shore." -By Katharine
Q. Seelye -NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
20020809
"Toonopedia.com
- "A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge." aka: "Don Markstein's
Toonopedia™" ... He calls the site "the world's first hypertext encyclopedia
of toons...." Includes images of comic book covers. Defines
a "toon" as "a cartoon or cartoon character — "cartoon" referring not just
to the animated kind, but also to such "still cartoons" as comic books,
newspaper strips, magazine cartoons, etc." -By Donald
D. Markstein
20020808
- "Banjo
Blues: A [Houston] Chronicle writer gets canned for running a Web
site." ... A Houston Chronicle journalist, Steve
Olafson, aka, Banjo Jones
of 'Brazosport News', was reportedly fired for keeping an anonymous
weblog. -By Richard Connelly
-HoustonPress
"Microsoft
rapped over privacy failings." ... "Microsoft misled
consumers over its ability to protect the private information of users
of its Passport software, a US Government watchdog has said." ... "The
US Federal Trade Commission said Microsoft made false claims to consumers
about its ability to keep their personal information safe."
-BBC /News
"Microsoft
settles privacy complaint with U.S. over 'Passport' Internet service."
... "Responding to a formal complaint filed last year by privacy groups,
the FTC determined that Microsoft made deceptive claims and misrepresented
the security surrounding the design and use of Passport, which promises
consumers a single, convenient method for identifying themselves across
different Web sites." -By Ted Bridis
-AP via -Boston/Globe
"Groups
sue to stop Navy from using sonar, fearing harm to mammals."
... "The Navy said in July that the $300 million system is important to
national security because nations such as Russia, Germany and China are
developing super-quiet submarines to avoid traditional detection methods."
-SeattlePI.NWsource
"Environmental
groups say anti-sub device harms whales and other ocean mammals."
... "For the past seven years, environmental groups and dozens of internationally
known scientists have said active sonar is inappropriate for the ocean
because whales and other marine mammals comprehend through sound. Interference
from active sonar could disrupt the animals' ability to migrate, find food,
mate, care for their young and avoid predators, they say." ... "The new
technology would greatly increase the range and accuracy of the Navy in
locating and identifying quiet and potentially hostile submarines." -By
Jane Kay -SFGate.com
"resonance" - Google: <sonar
resonance>
20020807
"Environmentalists
sue in San Francisco to block Navy sonar." ... "In
July, the fisheries service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Association, gave the Navy a five-year exemption from the Marine Mammal
Protection Act. That allowed the Navy to use Surveillance Towed Array Sensor
System Low Frequency Active sonar, or SURTASS LFA." -By
Colleen Valles -AP
via -SFGate.com
20020806
"How
Ned Flanders became a role model." ... "Ned Flanders,
the endlessly optimistic neighbour of Homer Simpson, has emerged as an
unlikely icon for churchgoers, who say they are embracing their inner nerds."
-By Giles Wilson -BBC
/News
20020805
- "Japan's
old shy away from retiring." ... "Thanks to a low-fat
diet, reliable healthcare and high standards of living, the average Japanese
girl born last year will live for nearly 85 years, while boys will not
breathe their last until just over 78." ... "But with one of the lowest
birthrates in the world, politicians, demographers and civil servants warn
that the retirement age will have to be extended to save Japan's pension
and healthcare systems from collapsing under the weight of an ageing and
shrinking population." ... "Japan is home to the world's oldest woman,
Kamoto Hongo, 115 this year; the oldest man, 113-year-old Yukichi Chuganji;
and the community with the highest proportion of centenarians, the 33 per
100,000 people of Okinawa." -By Jonathan Watts -Guardian.co.uk
"Coming
soon: 'Freddy vs. Jason'." ... "In a continuing effort
to exploit its franchises, New Line Cinema has greenlit "Freddy vs. Jason,"
signing Brad Renfro to star alongside Robert Englund, who'll be back for
his eighth performance as Freddy Krueger, Variety reports."
-Reuters via -CNN
"Water
& Gas: An American pricing paradox." ... "...because
many Americans buy bottled water in amounts of one liter or less, a gallon
of the product can ultimately cost consumers' more than $6." ... "In the
case of purified (as opposed to spring) bottled-water brands such as Pepsi's
Aquafina and Coke's Dasani, the water ... comes straight from municipal
water authorities." ... "For customers who use large amounts of water,
rates are set between $2 and $3 per thousand gallons, only slightly different
from rates set for regular consumers." -By Noel C.
Paul -CSMonitor/buy
20020803
"Internet
is cheap way for campaigns to snag voters, dollars."
... "The Internet still can't match the influence of TV ads, but the gap
is closing, said Nick Nyhan, a consultant for the Washington, D.C.-based
E-Voter Institute, which monitors Internet uses in politics." -By
Jack Hagel -AP
via -Boston/Globe
"'Element
118' team seen as remiss: Lawrence Berkeley
researchers didn't check physicist's data." ... "An internal investigation
of a recent fraud case at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory calls it
"incredible" that scientific team members failed to double-check one colleague's
false claim that they had discovered a new element." ... ""Not a single
collaborator" on the 15-member scientific team bothered to check out physicist
Victor Ninov's assertion, in 1999, that his analysis of their experimental
data proved the reality of a new element, element "118."" -By
Keay Davidson -SFGate.com
20020802
"Microsoft
EULA asks for root rights - again." ... "Windows
XP Service Pack 1 and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 contain a new condition
which asks you to allow Windows to go and install future updates." -By
Andrew Orlowski -TheRegister.co.uk
20020731
"Factiva
CEO: Surfers will pay for news." ... "The chief executive
of content-aggregating business Factiva says that Internet users will get
used to paying for content in the next couple of years." ... :"In order
for publishers to continue to pay journalists they're going to have to
start charging, and that's a good thing. Valuable information has a price,"
Hart told ZDNet Australia on a recent visit to Sydney." ... "Factiva, a
50:50 joint venture between Dow Jones and Reuters born in 1999, aggregates
8000 commercial sources and posts 120,000 new articles every day, of which
some customers might just want two or three articles that that are relevant
to them." -By Rachel Lebihan
-ZDNet.co.ukt>News
$ Factiva.com
"Senate
Rejects Medicare Drug Plan, OKs Generics." ... The
generics bill "passed with a bipartisan landslide 78-21 [Senate] vote."
... "The House however has not yet taken up legislation on generic drugs,
fiercely opposed by the influential brand-name pharmaceutical companies,
but a strong Senate vote can sometimes create momentum in the House." ...
"The bill closes loopholes and stops abuses in drug patent law that have
delayed generics' entry into the market. Critics said it will stifle innovation
and research by brand-name companies, but backers said it will restore
the competitive balance between the two sectors." -By
Joanne Kenen -Reuters
- "Russian
man arrested on charges of fixing ice dancing at [2002] Olympics."
... Believed to be a "Russian crime boss," ... "the charges allege [Alimzan]
Tokhtakhounov attempted to influence judges to award the gold medal to
the French team of Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat. The French pair
did end up winning the ice dancing competition." -By
Christopher Newston -AP
via -NandoTimes
Discussion
- "IBM
Getting PwC Consulting for $3.5 Billion."
-Slashdot
20020730
"IBM
Buys Monday On Tuesday." ... "IBM says it will pay
$3.5 billon in cash and stock for PwC Consulting. Two years ago, Hewlett-Packard
tried to buy the consulting firm for around $18 billion." ... IBM "plans
to acquire PwC Consulting, the business-management and technology consulting
and services unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers." ... "As a result of the agreement,
PwC Consulting has withdrawn its plan for an initial public offering--as
well as its plan to rebrand itself with the rather strange name of Monday."
-By Diane Rezendes Khirallah
-InformationWeek
"Scam
sweep targets 19 online fraudsters: Consumers
bilked out of millions of dollars." ... "Work-at home schemes, auction
fraud, deceptive use of junk e-mail, securities fraud and other schemes
were targeted by a broad Internet law-enforcement effort including state
attorneys general, local law enforcement authorities and a passel of federal
agencies." ... "In one case, a Florida company named Stuffingforcash.com
told consumers they could earn up to $2,000 per week stuffing envelopes
at home after paying an initial $45 deposit, but then failed to send the
promised envelope-stuffing materials." -Reuters
via -CNN
20020729
Enron
News - "Enron
art committee spent millions in final months." ...
"Most of the works are now in storage, awaiting sale. And while art lovers
lament the loss, others view the spending spree as symbolic of the arrogance
of Enron's leadership." ... ""To be amassing a collection of art while
the ship is sinking - it's the symbol of the thing," said Dr. W. Michael
Hoffman, director of the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College
outside Boston." -AP
via -NandoTimes
20020727
"The
Dark Side of Hacking Bill." ... "Watch as they rifle
through your files, dismantle your network, and delete all those songs
and movies you can't prove have a legal right to exist on your hard drive.
Hope the special effects don't include the accidental destruction of your
data when your computer becomes a stunt double in Hollywood's latest blockbuster
attempt to protect its copyrighted material." ... ""Basically, [California's
Congressman] Berman is going to legalize all of the antisocial Internet
activities that we have been trying to stamp out for the last decade,"
said Paul McNabb, chief technical officer of security firm Argus Systems
Group." (1, 2)
-By Michelle Delio -Wired
20020726
- "Ethical
hacker faces war driving charges." ... "A Houston
computer security analyst has been charged with hacking after demonstrating
the insecurity of a county courts wireless LAN." -By
John Leyden -TheRegister.co.uk
Messaging
- "Music
Bill Is Bully on IMs." California's Democratic Congressman
Howard
Berman has submitted legislation that permits copyright owners to hack
citizens private computers. ... "If the attack was somehow a case of mistaken
identity, recourse would be difficult. Individuals would have to petition
the Attorney General for a private investigation. After the initial request,
the agency would have four months to look into the matter." ... "Along
with making it open season on individual users, open-source programs and
decentralized networks, the bill also gives a free pass to chat applications
run by the very media companies that would most benefit from open-source
networks being shuttered." (1, 2)
-By Brad King -Wired
"Yale
accuses Princeton of Web prying: Admissions
data at issue; dean placed on leave." ... "Yale alleges that in April,
Princeton admissions personnel used Social Security numbers and birth dates
to go online 18 times and secretly access information on the admissions
status of 11 prospective Yale students. Princeton apparently had the personal
information because the Yale applicants had applied to both schools." -By
Mary Leonard -Boston/Globe
20020725
"Bill
would allow hacking of P2P services: Media
companies could thwart users from swapping files." ... "The bill would
permit recording companies and other copyright holders to hack onto networks
to thwart users looking to download free music, and would protect them
from lawsuits from users." -Reuters
via -CNN
"Green
light for Red Planet." ... "In May next year, Europe
will embark on its first mission to explore the Red Planet." ... "Mars
Express will take advantage of Earth's closest approach to Mars for three
years to leave our planet." ... "Launching then cuts both the journey time
and the amount of fuel required for the voyage." -By
Helen Briggs -BBC
/News
ESA.int
- "European Space Agency."
"Deep
Linking Takes Another Blow." ... "Using a search
engine to locate stories on newspapers' sites violates European Union law,
according to a recent ruling by judges in Munich's Upper Court." ... "The
law in question is the "Database Directive," a piece of European Union
legislation that grants copyright protection to database creators for "selecting
and arranging" the information contained in a database, even if the creator
does not hold the copyrights on the collected information." (1, 2)
-By
Michelle Delio -Wired
"Legislation
Related to the Attack of September 11, 2001."
20020724
-
"Buying
Trouble: Your Grocery List Could Spark a Terror
Probe." ... "As John Ashcroft's Citizens Corps spy program prepares for
its debut next month, it seems scores of American companies have already
become willing snitches. A few months ago, the Privacy Council surveyed
executives from 22 companies in the travel industry—not just airlines but
hotels, car rental services, and travel agencies—and found that 64 percent
of respondents had turned over information to investigators and 59 percent
had lowered their resistance to such demands. In that sampling, conducted
with The Boston Globe, half of the businesses said they hadn't decided
if they'd inform customers of the change, and more than a third said outright
that they wouldn't. Only three said they would go public about the level
of their cooperation with law enforcement." -By Erik
Baard -VillageVoice
ed. 20020724-30
-
WEP <Google>
- Wired Equivalent Privacy
-
"whackers"
- wireless hackers -Google:
<whackers
wireless>
"Action
Comics, No. 1 - June, 1938 - 10¢."
The entire comic book, digitized. -American
Studies at the University of Virginia
20020723
"Could
Hollywood hack your PC? Congress is about to consider
an entertainment industry proposal that would authorize copyright holders
to disable PCs used for illicit file trading." ... "Sponsored by Reps.
Howard
Berman, D-Calif., and
Howard
Coble, R-N.C., the measure would permit copyright holders to perform
nearly unchecked electronic hacking if they have a "reasonable basis" to
believe that piracy is taking place. Berman and Coble plan to introduce
the 10-page bill this week." ... "The legislation would immunize groups
such as the Motion Picture Association of
America and the Recording Industry Association
of America from all state and federal laws if they disable, block or
otherwise impair a "publicly accessible peer-to-peer network.""
-By Declan McCullagh-CNET
/News
"No
more JPEGs - ISO to withdraw image standard." ...
"The ISO standards body will take the unprecedented step of withdrawing
the JPEG image format as a formal standard if Forgent Networks, a small
Texan company, continues to demand royalties on a seventeen-year old patent."
-By Andrew Orlowski
-TheRegister.co.uk
- "China
ranks third in Internet usage." ... "Surging Internet
usage has made China the No. 3 user of the Internet in the world, a new
[Chinese] report asserts, with more than 45 million citizens now logging
on regularly even as the government struggles to control subversive content."
-AP via -CNN
20020722
"Study:
Women have better emotional memory." ... ""The wiring
of emotional experience and the coding of that experience into memory is
much more tightly integrated in women than in men," said [Turhan] Canli,
the lead author of the study. "A larger percentage of the emotional stimuli
used in the experiment were remembered by women than by men.""
-AP via -USATODAY
"Giant
squid washes up on beach." ... "Scientists in Australia
are investigating what may be a new species of giant squid, after one of
the deep sea creatures washed up on a Tasmanian beach over the weekend."
-CNN
"Interviewing
for values: Ending up with a job at an unethical
firm is no fun. But the risk can be minimized by giving your next potential
boss an 'ethics audit.'" ... "The wannabe employee should dig into at least
three areas, ethics experts agree: a company's social responsibility record,
its financial practices, and, especially, its culture." -By
Laurent Belsie -CSMonitor
20020719
"Wireless
(In)security: Are Your Networks Snoop-Proof?" ...
Wireless "equipment is typically shipped with its security software—known
as WEP, or Wired Equivalent Privacy—turned off. Using WEP means users have
to fire up a browser, log onto a wireless access point and choose security
keys." ... "But even when WEP is turned on, it's no match for the toughest
wireless hackers, or "whackers." WEP can be "broken" by anyone with a wireless
laptop, a widely available encryption-buster program and enough time."
(1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7)
-By Gary A. Bolles -CIOinsight
- "Clinic's
case lacks proof, judge warns: Planned Parenthood
could have trouble appealing a ruling on pregnancy tests." ... "A lack
of evidence early in its case could hurt Planned Parenthood's chances of
winning a dispute over pregnancy-test records, according to a judge's ruling."
-By
Staci Hupp -DesMoinesRegister
"Roll
up for the floppy television: Flexible TVs
coming soon thanks to plastics technology." ... "The technology stems from
the discovery in 1989 of the compound p-phenylenevinylene which glows greeny-yellow
when given an electric charge." ... "A little tweaking over the following
decade produced compounds to emit blue and red light: the roll-up TV was
born." -Reuters
via -MSNBC
Google
Search: Cambridge Display Technology - [CDT]
Google
Search: Light Emitting Polymer - [LEP]
"Yahoo
admits mangling e-mail." ... An attempt by Yahoo
to minimize e-mail viruses has led to altered words within html e-mail
messages. Simple text e-mail viruses are reported to avoid the problem.
... "This has led to the appearance of strange words such as "medireview"
instead of "medieval" and "reviewuate" instead of "evaluate"."
-BBC /News
Google
Search: medireview
"Corporate
Scandal Trading Cards: Collect 'em all!" -By
David Plotz -Slate
"JPEG
Patent Claim Sparks Concern." ... "Government examiners
first issued the patent,
which covers a "coding system for reducing redundancy" to a San Jose, California,
company called Compression Labs. The approval came more than a decade before
the digital imaging technology known as JPEG reached mass-market popularity."
-By
Joanna Glasner -Wired
20020718
"Blowing
broadband out of the water: Ohio university
installing super-speedy Internet hookup." Switched-gig, or gigabyte,
ethernet, "In all, 16,000 computers, including machines in every dorm room,
will be linked over the coming year to a fiber-optic network that delivers
data at up to one gigabit per second." -AP
via -MSNBC
Discussion
- "Suddenly
a JPEG Patent and Licensing Fee."
-Slashdot
OPINION
- "Fair
Use advocates silenced by Big Brother." ... "Advocates
trying to speak for regular Internet users were basically told to sit down
and shut up during a "public" workshop on digital rights management dominated
by IT heavyweights and Big Hollywood at the U.S. Department of Commerce
Wednesday." ... "Brett Wynkoop of NY for Fair Use did get a comment on
the
record because he sat at the table with Big Hollywood and Big IT and commandeered
the microphone at one point, which meeting moderator Phillip Bond, undersecretary
for Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce, later objected to. "We
have a structure here," Bond said more than once when fair use advocates
tried to take the floor." -By Grant Gross
-NewsForge via
-TheRegister.co.uk
ta.doc.gov
- "Technology Administration."
DOC.gov - "U.S. Department
of Commerce."
NYFairUse.org - "New
Yorkers for Protecting Fair Use of Copyrighted Material."
"West
Nile virus found for first time in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska _ farthest
west." ... "The West Nile virus has spread to Texas,
Oklahoma and Nebraska -- the farthest west it has been found -- prompting
officials to begin spraying creeks, ponds and anywhere there is standing
water to eradicate mosquitoes that carry the deadly virus." -By
Jamie Stengle -AP
via -SFGate.com
- "[Iowa]
Judge: Planned Parenthood must release pregnancy records."
... "A state judge upheld his decision that pregnancy test records aren't
confidential and ordered Planned Parenthood to turn over records to help
investigators find the mother of a newborn whose body was dumped in the
trash." -AP
via -CNN
20020717
"Hacker
mailing list goes corporate: Symantec buys
BugTraq for $75 million." ... "Now, the question becomes: will computer
hackers continue to publish their material on the list, now that it is
owned by one of the world largest security companies?" -By
Bob Sullivan -MSNBC
"Tech
activists protest anti-copying." ... "Enthusiasts
of free software disrupted a Commerce Department meeting Wednesday, insisting
on their right to debate the entertainment industry over anti-copying technologies."
-By Declan
McCullagh [Google] -CNET /News
"Meet
the Nigerian E-Mail Grifters." ... "... sources close
to some of the so-called Nigerian e-mail scam's perpetrators insist that
those overwrought messages fuel a thriving industry, employing thousands
of people around the world who successfully manage to extract money from
a multitude of Internet pen pals." (1, 2) -By Michelle Delio
-Wired
"Nigerian
Letter Scams." -IFCCFBI.gov
20020716
"FCC
OKs Sharing of Phone Company Customer Data." ...
"Telephone companies will be allowed to share, without consent, private
customer data with affiliates that offer communications-related services,
under rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission...." ... "The
decision drew a sharp rebuke from the lone Democrat on the panel, who argued
that companies would be allowed to sell information without customer consent
to the highest bidder who has just the faintest association with providing
telecommunications services." -By Jeremy Pelofsky
-Reuters via -Yahoo
-News
20020715
"House
OKs life sentences for hackers: The House of
Representatives on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would allow
for life prison sentences for malicious computer hackers." ... "By a 385-3
vote,
the House approved a computer
crime bill that also expands police ability to conduct Internet or
telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order." -By
Declan
McCullagh-CNET
/News
"New
breed of TV ads popping up." Broadcasters and advertisers
are increasingly experimenting with Internet-style 'popup' advertisements
"superimposed over part of the TV screen." -By Matt
Kempner -AJC
"Pfizer
to purchase Pharmacia." ... "July 15 —
In the biggest corporate combination in more than a year, Pfizer Inc. agreed
to buy Pharmacia Corp. for stock valued at $60 billion,..." ... "The deal
will create an industry behemoth with over $48 billion in revenue and a
research-and-development budget of more than $7 billion. The new combination
will be the world’s largest drug maker by far and the leading pharmaceutical
company by revenue in every major market around the globe." -By
Robert Frank and Scott Hensley -WSJ.com
via -MSNBC
"Patent
Fight Erupts Over Gene Machine: Rival Challenges
Firms on DNA Sequencer." ... "The suit takes aim at the biggest weapon
in their gene-detecting arsenal: the rapid-fire, refrigerator-size machine
that dissects and catalogues DNA. The device, called a sequencer, helped
jump-start the effort, completed last year, to produce a complete map of
the human code for life. It sells for up to $300,000." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Michael Barbaro -WashingtonPost
"Tobacco
as Cancer Research Tool: Plants Aid in Development
of a Vaccine to Fight Tumors." ... "The project is designed as a test of
whether the long-heralded, much-delayed era of "personalized medicine"
is finally at hand -- and whether a long history of commercial failure
can be overcome to deliver such customized treatments at a tolerable price."
(1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Justin Gillis -WashingtonPost
20020714
"What
your doctor doesn't know could kill you: A
computer program that provides vast amounts of information for diagnosing
and treating patients could revolutionize the practice of medicine. So
why won't physicians use it?" ... "The software, called the Problem Knowledge
Coupler (PKC), was conceived by an old Vermont friend of his, Dr. Lawrence
L. Weed. Instead of listing the symptoms of a disease and asking a doctor
to choose the closest fit, as some medical Web sites do, Weed's program
asks a doctor to first answer a long list of questions about the patient's
troubles. Then, up comes the most likely diagnoses and ways to test them
out. The program helps doctors match (or "couple") the patterns of a patient's
problems with the relevant knowledge that exists, perhaps buried deep in
a textbook or journal article, to recognize and treat those problems."
(1, 2,
3)
-By
Chris Gaither -Boston/Globe
"RV
Camping: When Home Gets 10 Miles a Gallon." ... "Already
nearly seven million households own these vehicles, according to the Recreational
Vehicle Industry Association, and baby boomers are the fastest-growing
segment of the market. Over the last four years, nearly 1.2 million RV's
have been sold, more than in any similar period." (1, 2)
-By Nicholas D. Kristof
-NYTimes via
-AltaVista-News
20020713
"She
Built a Business in 'No Time.'" ... "Based primarily
on the Internet, Spitzer has created a successful business called no-time,
selling bracelets, armbands, mouse pads and similar items emblazoned with
variations on the logo: "no time for...."" -By Leander
Kahney -Wired
20020712
"'Antiques
Roadshow' dealer sent to prison: An antiques
dealer was sentenced Thursday to a year in prison and ordered to repay
$830,000 for staging phony appraisals on the PBS series "Antiques Roadshow"
and defrauding Civil War collectors." -CNN
"USAToday.com
home page hacked: Sarcastic headlines inserted
atop popular news site." ... Some of the false headlines included: "“Another
shocking ruling from the 9th Circuit Court - Pentagon Unconstitutional?”"
and "“Oops says the Pope/Christianity a Sham!”" -By
Bob Sullivan -MSNBC
"Hackers
Alter USA Today's Web Site." ... One of the falsehoods
included was that "the shape of the Pentagon [was] being declared unconstitutional
because it too closely resembles the Jewish star of David." ... On the
serious side,"at least one of the bogus stories carried a falsified Associated
Press identifier." -By Jim Krane
-AP via -WashingtonPost
"Apparent
hacker attack strikes [USATODAY] Web site." ... "The
USA TODAY Web site was taken out of service for three hours early Friday
after hackers apparently penetrated the site and vandalized the homefront."
-USATODAY
"Getting
into the game." ... "I began writing about video
games sort of the way Alice stumbled upon Carroll's rabbit hole. I was
simply following the inescapable, supremely compelling "white rabbits"
in my life, namely my kids. I wanted to know why these two would disappear
to stare at these games for as long as I'd allow." -By
Gloria Goodale -CSMonitor/subscribe
20020711
- "China
To Offer Hand Delivered E-Mail." ... "China Post,
the official postal service for the world's most populous nation, said
Thursday it will introduce a new service enabling people to write mail
on their computers, send it to the post office over the Internet like e-mail,
then have it delivered anywhere in China by human mail carrier."
-AP via -WashingtonPost
"First
synthetic virus created." ... "The US researchers
built the infectious agent from scratch using the genome sequence for polio."
... "Dr Wimmer said assembling the polio virus showed that eradicating
a virus in the wild might not mean it was gone forever because biochemists
could now reconstruct those viruses from blueprints." -By
Dr. David Whitehouse -BBC
/News
Discussion
- "Build
Your Own Virus." -Slashdot
"Malaysian
addicts get natural high: ... from cow dung:
Faced with some of the world's strictest anti-drug laws, some addicts in
Malaysia are sniffing fresh cow dung to get high." ... "Trade Minister
Rafidah Aziz was quoted in The New Straits Times newspaper Wednesday as
saying she wanted the government to deal with addicts who sniff cow dung,
glue and even polystyrene smoke." ... "She did not elaborate."
-AP via -CNN/Asia
20020710
"Militants
wire Web with links to jihad." ... "Most of the information
on the Web sites is written in Arabic and encrypted, or scrambled. The
encrypted data is then hidden in digital photographs, which makes it difficult,
if not impossible, to find or read, officials say. The groups regularly
change the addresses of their Web sites to confound officials." -By
Jack Kelley -USATODAY
"Rare
Michelangelo drawing found in box in N.Y. museum."
... "A chalk and wash drawing found in a box in a New York City design
museum is a work by Michelangelo worth more than $10 million, museum officials
said Tuesday." ... "The 17-by-10-inch drawing on cream-colored paper was
made using black chalk, brush and brown wash with incised lines."
-AP via -AJC
Messaging
- "AIM
5 Beta Goes Public." -By David
Worthington -eWEEK
20020709
"Official:
Stolen IDs Used for Terror." ... "Terrorists use
stolen credit cards, passports and Social Security numbers to pay for their
operations and create false identities to hide behind, Dennis Lormel, chief
of the FBI's financial crimes unit, told a Senate subcommittee." ... "Stolen
credit card numbers and identity theft affect up to 700,000 Americans each
year, the Justice Department says." -By David Ho
-AP via -WashingtonPost
"Citing
Risks, U.S. Will Halt Study of Drugs for Hormones."
... "A large federal study of hormone replacement therapy [HRT] in postmenopausal
women was abruptly halted, researchers say, because the drugs caused a
slight but significant increase in the risk of invasive breast cancer."
... "An estimated six million women take the drugs, estrogen and progestin,
to replace the hormones lost at menopause." ... "The data indicate that
if 10,000 women take the drugs for a year, 8 more will develop invasive
breast cancer, compared with 10,000 who were not taking hormone replacement
therapy. An additional 7 will have a heart attack, 8 will have a stroke,
and 18 will have blood clots. But there will be 6 fewer colorectal cancers
and 5 fewer hip fractures." -By Gina Kolata
-NYTimes via
-AltaVista-News
20020708
"Sites
bow to Microsoft's browser king." ... "The call for
Web authors to comply with standards comes as a new wave of competitors
seeks to dislodge Microsoft from its perch as the No. 1 browser maker.
IE is used by more than 85 percent of all Web surfers by many counts, and
may go even higher. One recent study
showed it with 95 percent share." -By Paul Festa -CNET
/News
- "Iowa
D.A. Seeks Data on 100s of Prenatal Patients." ...
"The president of Iowa Planned Parenthood may be jailed for refusing to
provide a county attorney--investigating the gruesome death of an abandoned
newborn--with the names of 100s of clinic patients whose tests indicated
that they were pregnant." ... "In this case, law enforcement is seeking
the pregnancy test results although the authorities have not identified
a suspect and therefore have no reason to believe that the mother was a
clinic patient. Authorities don't even know that the mother lived in the
area." -By Rekha Basu
-WomensEnews.org
PPGI.org
- "Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa."
"EBay
Buying PayPal for $1.3B in Stock." ... "Mountain
View-based PayPal essentially lets buyers and sellers exchange money via
e-mail. Buyers make payments online through credit cards and bank accounts,
and PayPal relays the funds to sellers' accounts, taking a fee based on
the amount transferred. About 60 percent of its business comes from eBay
users." (1, 2)
-By
Brian Bergstein -AP
via -WashingtonPost
"Labels
to Net Radio: Die Now: You’d think the record
companies would love Internet tunes—instead they’re trying to kill them."
... "The apparent irony is that Webcasting seems like something that the
record labels would want to nurture, not smother in the cradle. There’s
no Napster problem: Web radio uses streaming technology—real-time transmissions
that can’t easily be downloaded and stored. Just like real radio, it’s
free exposure for artists, especially ones that have difficulty getting
air time in the cookie-cutter world of FM radio. And Webcast listeners
find it easy to buy what they like: musical cuts are clearly identified,
and often there are direct links to allow an instant CD purchase." -By
Steven Levy 20020715
ed. -MSNBC /-Newsweek
"Smallpox
Vaccine Program Readied: Inoculations May Surpass
500,000 Under U.S. Plan." ... "Federal health officials say they are finalizing
a plan that would vaccinate hundreds of thousands of emergency medical
personnel against smallpox this fall and expand to include other health
care and rescue workers most at risk if the deadly virus is unleashed in
the United States." -By Ceci Connolly -WashingtonPost
20020702
- "Planned
Parenthood fights order on records: Planned
Parenthood cites patient privacy; Buena Vista officials say no medical
records are involved." ... "Planned Parenthood officials in Iowa are fighting
a judge's order to provide investigators with the names of women who took
pregnancy tests in Buena Vista County, where the search for the mother
of a newborn baby left at a recycling center in May has hit a snag." -By
Staci Hupp -DesMoinesRegister
/ News
"New
drugs restoring vision in elderly." ... "To doctors'
amazement, experimental new medicines are rescuing people from the brink
of blindness so they can read and drive and sometimes even regain perfect
vision." ... "Several competing medicines are in development, all based
on similar principles. They are designed to stop the two top causes of
adult blindness -- the "wet" form of macular degeneration, which affects
the elderly, and diabetic retinopathy, the biggest source of blindness
in working-age people." -AP
via -CNN
"PluggedIn:
Rhapsody brings 'celestial jukebox' closer to earth."
... "With the announcement Monday that it had clinched a deal with Universal
Music , Listen.com's Rhapsody service became the first authorized Internet
song provider to offer music from all five major labels, along with more
than 50 independent labels." -By Andy Sullivan
-Reuters via -Forbes
OPINION
- "Tragedy,
Media and Marketing." ... "Last week, CNN devoted
a whole program to the mysterious process by which some tragedies -- the
Death of Di to name one -- get staggering amounts of media coverage, while
others -- like Mother Teresa's death the same week -- merit relatively
little." ... "It was striking to realize that none of CNN's panelists came
close to the simple truth: media are market-driven, not idea-substance-or-content
driven." -By Jon Katz
-Slashdot
"New
drugs restoring vision in elderly." ... "To doctors'
amazement, experimental new medicines are rescuing people from the brink
of blindness so they can read and drive and sometimes even regain perfect
vision." ... "Several competing medicines are in development, all based
on similar principles. They are designed to stop the two top causes of
adult blindness -- the "wet" form of macular degeneration, which affects
the elderly, and diabetic retinopathy, the biggest source of blindness
in working-age people." -AP
via -CNN
"PluggedIn:
Rhapsody brings 'celestial jukebox' closer to earth."
... "With the announcement Monday that it had clinched a deal with Universal
Music , Listen.com's Rhapsody service became the first authorized Internet
song provider to offer music from all five major labels, along with more
than 50 independent labels." -By Andy Sullivan
-Reuters via -Forbes
20020701
"FCC
policies hurt high-speed Web, group says." ... "By
easing regulations on incumbent cable television and local phone companies,
the Federal Communications Commission will hasten the demise of independent
Internet providers who reach users over existing phone and cable lines,
the Consumer Federation of America said." -By Andy
Sullivan -Reuters
via -InfoWorld
ConsumerFed.org
- "Consumer Federation of America." -Telecommunications
-- Phone, Cable, Internet
OPINION
[PDF] - "Administration's
Broadband Policy Would Strangle ISPs, Destroy Competitive Internet Marketplace."
-ConsumerFed.org
OPINION
[PDF] - "The
Importance of ISPs in the Growth of the Commercial Internet:
Why Reliance on Facility-Based Competition Will Not Preserve Vibrant Competiition
and Dynamic Innovation on the High-Speed Internet." -ConsumerFed.org
"Internet
Law Notes." -By Dan
Gillmor -SiliconValley
"Computers
reach one billion mark." ... "One billion personal
computers have been sold across the world, according to hi-tech consultancy
Gartner Dataquest." -BBC
/News
"DNS
flaws put Net connected systems at risk." ... "Affected
are the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) DNS resolver library, developed
by the Internet Software Consortium, and the Berkeley Software Distribution
(BSD) DNS resolver library, according to an advisory released on Friday
by the U.S.-based Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center
(CERT/CC)." ... "A buffer overflow vulnerability in the libraries could
allow a remote attacker to take over systems using the affected software
by sending a malformed DNS response, according to CERT/CC. After a successful
attack on a router, for example, an attacker could tap or divert traffic,
said [security consultant Joost] Pol." -By Joris Evers
-InfoWorld
"Scientists
estimate 30 billion Earths." ... "Their assessment
comes after the discovery of the 100th exoplanet - a planet that circles
a star other than our own." -By Dr. David Whitehouse
-BBC /News
20020701
exoplanet
<Google>
"FCC
policies hurt high-speed Web, group says." ... "By
easing regulations on incumbent cable television and local phone companies,
the Federal Communications Commission will hasten the demise of independent
Internet providers who reach users over existing phone and cable lines,
the Consumer Federation of America said." -By Andy
Sullivan -Reuters
via -InfoWorld
ConsumerFed.org
- "Consumer Federation of America." -Telecommunications
-- Phone, Cable, Internet
OPINION
[PDF] - "Administration's
Broadband Policy Would Strangle ISPs, Destroy Competitive Internet Marketplace."
-ConsumerFed.org
OPINION
[PDF] - "The
Importance of ISPs in the Growth of the Commercial Internet:
Why Reliance on Facility-Based Competition Will Not Preserve Vibrant Competiition
and Dynamic Innovation on the High-Speed Internet." -ConsumerFed.org
"Internet
Law Notes." -By Dan
Gillmor -SiliconValley
"Computers
reach one billion mark." ... "One billion personal
computers have been sold across the world, according to hi-tech consultancy
Gartner Dataquest." -BBC
/News
"DNS
flaws put Net connected systems at risk." ... "Affected
are the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) DNS resolver library, developed
by the Internet Software Consortium, and the Berkeley Software Distribution
(BSD) DNS resolver library, according to an advisory released on Friday
by the U.S.-based Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center
(CERT/CC)." ... "A buffer overflow vulnerability in the libraries could
allow a remote attacker to take over systems using the affected software
by sending a malformed DNS response, according to CERT/CC. After a successful
attack on a router, for example, an attacker could tap or divert traffic,
said [security consultant Joost] Pol." -By Joris Evers
-InfoWorld
20020628
"Software
bugs cost $59.5 billion a year, study says." ...
"Software bugs costs the U.S. economy an estimated $59.5 billion per year,
or 0.6 percent of the gross domestic product, according to a newly released
study by the U.S. Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST)." -By Paul Krill
-InfoWorld
"NPR
Retreats, Link Stink Lingers." ... "In response to
furious criticism of its online linking policy, National Public Radio will
no longer require webmasters to ask permission to link to NPR.org." ...
However, NPR is still insisting that there are limits to what linking it
will permit, to which one blogger responded, ""Boy, this is stupid," said
Cory Doctorow, who has been criticizing the link policy on his
blog. "The problem I had with this policy all along was that they implied
that there was a need to request permission, and they're continuing to
promulgate this idea. This is the worst lie you can tell about the Web.""
(1, 2)
-By Farhad Manjoo -Wired
"Cable
Firms Faulted For Restrictions On Internet Service."
... "Some cable providers have imposed "troubling" restrictions on how
their high-speed Internet networks can be used by consumers and businesses,
a coalition of high-tech companies has told federal regulators."
-By Jonathan Krim -WashingtonPost
"Internet
group leaves ordinary surfer high and dry." ... "The
group that oversees the Internet's name system voted on Friday to exclude
ordinary Web surfers from its board in a move critics say allows mainstream
interests to tighten their grip on the online world."
-Reuters via -CNN
ICANN.org -
"The Internet Corporation for Assigned Namesand Numbers."
20020625
"Did
adoption lawyer really work 44 hours in one day?"
... "On Monday, April 9, she [the lawyer] worked 34 hours. On Tuesday,
she worked 44 hours. On Wednesday it was 29; 33 on Thursday, 25 on Friday,
42 on Saturday. On Sunday, she took it easy, with only 3.4 hours. Monday
it was up to 18 and Tuesday it was 44." -By Abdon
M. Pallasch -ChicagoSunTimes
"Cracks
leave space shuttle fleet grounded." ... "Choosing
safety over schedule, NASA has grounded the space shuttle fleet while engineers
try to determine why tiny cracks are developing in the fuel line feeding
the main rocket engines." -AP
via -USATODAY
20020624
OPINION
- "Your PC's
enemy within: Spyware, adware controversies
show why Net needs new laws." ... "The Wild West days of cyberspace are
over--and, like it or not, it's time for government to change its laissez-faire
attitude toward the Internet and create laws that clearly prevent unscrupulous
businesses from preying on unsuspecting consumers and seizing control of
computers." -By Evan Hansen, John Borland, and Rachel
Konrad -CNET
/News
OPINION
- "Addressing
the cause, not symptoms." ... "At first, the signs
are subtle: Your computer is slower than usual, something is different
about your browser, occasionally you're redirected to an unfamiliar Web
site for no apparent reason." ... "When you finally figure out the problem,
you discover that someone has been tracking every keystroke on your keyboard
for days while using your PC's resources to maintain a network that researches
extraterrestrial life. Adding insult to injury, you find that your 8-year-old
son agreed to the whole mess to get some software given away online."
-By Evan Hansen and John Borland -CNET
/News
20020623
"The
Bible and the Apocalypse: The biggest book
of the summer is about the end of the world. It's also a sign of our troubled
times." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Nancy Gibbs
-TIME.com
"AMA
endorses 'short' work weeks for medical residents."
... "The association, which claims 278,000 doctors as members, endorsed
a new 80-hour-a-week work limit for medical residents in an attempt to
keep them from becoming so bleary-eyed they hurt themselves or their patients."
-AP via -CNN/Health
20020621
"Governments,
Businesses Placing Internet's Openness at Risk."
... "Vint Cerf, co-developer of the Internet's basic communications protocols,
worries that big, traditional businesses could gain unprecedented control
through technical manipulation of the next-generation, high-speed services
that are delivered over cable and phone lines." -By
Anick Jesdanun -AP
via -GovTech.net/news
Google:
<Internet
Society>
-
"Webcasting
Determination Announced by Librarian of Congress."
from the Serious-Power dept.
-By Hermit :-( -Posted
1st @ LISNews.com
-
"Internet
Radio Criticizes Rate on Royalties." -By Amy Harmon
-NYTimes via -Moreover
-
"Groups
Mull Internet Music Rates." "Opponents of Thursday's
ruling can appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit within 30 days. The court could modify the decision or set it aside
if it finds the ruling was highly unreasonable."-By
David Ho -AP
via -excite / News
-
"Royalty
fees threaten Net radio: The royalty rates
for online radio have been agreed - they are less than the proposed .14
cent, but some radio stations still fear they will be crippled by the cost."
... "The first monthly payments for companies that play music online are
due in November, for the period beginning in September. Back payments will
also be due in October for any music played online since 28 October, 1998."
... "Some small stations began pulling their own plug just moments after
the decision was made available online." -By John
Borland -CNET
/News via -ZDNet.co.uk
-
"Radio
Webcast Ruling Plays to Big Favorites." -By By George
Mannes -TheStreet.com
-
"Web
radio royalty rate for songs criticized." ... "In
a joint statement, U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and Rick Boucher, D-
Va., said they were considering legislation to lower Webcaster fees because
the current rate "will lead to the elimination of hundreds of small businesses
and does not provide a viable model to serve both the Internet radio industry
and recording artists."" ... "The recording industry association's president,
Cary Sherman, however, said the rates were still too low." -By
Benny Evangelista -SFGate.com
-
"Curtain
Call for Webcasts? Some Decry Order to Pay
Royalties to Musicians." -By Christopher Stern -WashingtonPost
-Washtech
"Webcasting
Royalty Rates Set--For Now: Fees are half the
previously proposed rates, but the recording industry and online radio
stations are still unhappy." -By Scarlet Pruitt
-IDG.net
-PCWorld.com
20020620
"Public
Protests NPR Link Policy." ... "On a form on its
website, NPR says that "linking to or framing of any material on this site
without the prior written consent of NPR is prohibited."" (1, 2)
-By Farhad Manjoo -Wired
"Inside
a Net extortion ring: ‘Zilterio’ wreaks havoc
with banks, Web sites." ... "For over a year, Zilterio has been hacking
into online companies and financial institutions, stealing data, then demanding
extortion payments." -By Bob Sullivan
-MSNBC
"Supreme
Court rules that states can force HMOs to allow second opinions."
... "The state laws are intended to let people get second opinions, and
sometimes force health maintenance organizations to pay up if an independent
review shows a surgery or other care is justified."
-By Gina Holland -AP
via -Boston/Globe
Google search: <Rush
Prudential HMO v. Moran, 00-1021>
20020619
"The
sky is not the limit for Internet, Cerf says." ...
"Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf predicted an interplanetary Internet will
be in place by the end of the decade, with communications satellites in
orbit around Mars and linked with the Earth."-By William
Jackson -GCN.com
"Drug
Firms Among Big Donors at GOP Event." ... "Pharmaceutical
companies are among 21 donors paying $250,000 each for red-carpet treatment
at tonight's GOP fundraising gala starring President Bush, two days after
Republicans unveiled a prescription drug plan the industry is backing,
according to GOP officials." -By Jim VandeHei and
Juliet Eilperin -WashingtonPost
20020618
"RIAA
Settles With Audiogalaxy: Another file-trading
surface is forced to block unauthorized access to copyrighted files."-By
Colin Devenish -RollingStone.com/news
"Foreign
Country Doctors: The effect of doctors with
degrees from overseas institutions on the U.S. health care system."
-Hosted By Fred de Sam Lazaro -PBS
/NewsHour
"Waiting
for Google: What's Not Speedy About Web Search
King? Its Plans for IPO." -By Peter Dizikes
-ABCNEWS.com
20020613
- "Beijing
Newspaper Retreats, Apologizes for Capitol Gaffe:
After originally refusing, it retracts its report that U.S. Congress threatened
to leave its digs unless a modern replacement was built." The Beijing
Evening News explained that after ""our reporter in Washington checked
out [the story], he discovered that some of its contents were identical
to the Onion's joke article."" ... "Besides acknowledging its own lapse
in judgment, however, the paper also criticized the Onion, apparently still
not fully aware of the publication's mission as a purveyor of satire and
laughs." ... ""Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat
news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money,"
the paper said. "This is what the Onion does."" -By
Henry Chu-LAtimes
20020609
- ";-)
Beijing Paper Takes TheOnion.com Spoof Seriously."from
the Evaluate-Before-You- Disseminate dept. -By Hermit
;-) -Posted
1st @ LISNews.com
20020612
war
driving
20020611
"Stalker
tech: Students at the University of California
at San Diego are tracking their friends' locations with PDAs." ... "The
university is equipping hundreds of students with personal digital assistants
that allow them to track each other's location from parking lot to lecture
hall to cafeteria. The technology is sophisticated enough to pinpoint where
a person is in a building -- say, a dorm -- within a margin of error of
one floor." -By Randy Dotinga
-Salon
20020607
-
"2
Tinkerers Say They've Found a Cheap Way to Broadband."
... "The pair's company, known as Etherlinx, has taken the 802.11b standard
and used it to build a system that can transmit Internet data up to 20
miles at high speeds —enough to blanket entire urban regions and make cable
or D.S.L. connections obsolete." ... "Their secret weapon is a technology
known as a "software-designed radio," which has permitted them to create
an inexpensive repeater antenna that can be attached to the outside of
a customer's home." -By John Markoff
-NYTimes via Userland
20020603
-
TX
- ANTHRAX
NEWS -
"The Promise of a
Cure: Researchers develop antibodies that may
stop anthrax threat." ... "In a series of laboratory tests conducted last
summer, rats given the antibody survived 10 times a normally lethal dosage
of anthrax toxin." UTexas.edu
/ features
-
"Napster
files for bankruptcy." ... "Napster, the Californian
company that pioneered the mass-market swapping of music online, has filed
for bankruptcy protection from its creditors."-BBC
/News
-
Discussion
- "Napster
files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy." -Slashdot
20020530
-
OPINIONMessaging"The
next hacker target: instant messaging." ... "Unfortunately,
widespread use of encrypted instant messaging (either at the consumer or
enterprise level) is not expected for a few years. In the meantime, Ingevaldson
recommended Trillian, a chat app that connects users to all the major IM
clients: AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. Trillian offers
128-bit blowfish encryption for AIM and ICQ, something these products currently
do not provide on their own." -By Robert Vamosi
-ZDNet>News
-
"Time
is money, professor proves: A mathematical
formula calculated by a British university professor has found that time
actually is money." ... "The formula is: V=(W((100-t)/100))/C, where V
is the value of an hour, W is a person's hourly wage, t is the tax rate
and C is the local cost of living." -CNN
20020529
-
Messaging"Instant
messaging at work can open door to hackers." ...
"That's because popular free IM systems, such as AOL Instant Messenger
and MSN Messenger, lack basic security features needed to protect corporate
networks." -By Michelle Kessler
-USATODAY
20020528
-
![''Ben Affleck's new film 'The Sum of All Fears' [by Tom Clancy] delves into the world of terrorism and nuclear destruction.'' -ABCNEWS.com](../../../images/fair-use/thumbnails/news/abc/fair-use-thumbnail-20020528-Ben-Affleck=from-ABCNEWS.jpg)
"Too
Real, Too Soon? Ben Affleck on His New Film
About Terrorism and Nuclear Threats." ... "In The Sum of All Fears,
a film based on Tom Clancy's best-selling book, Ben Affleck plays CIA hero
Jack Ryan. In the film, which was shot before Sept. 11, his character tries
to stop the world's superpowers from bringing on the nuclear destruction
of the human race. Affleck talked about the film and the controversy surrounding
it in an interview with ABCNEWS' Diane Sawyer."-ABCNEWS.com
-
"Odyssey
Finds Water Ice in Abundance Under Mars' Surface."
-NASA.gov /Today
-
"2001
Mars Odyssey Home Page." -NASA.gov
-
"2001
Mars Odyssey Gamma Ray Spectrometer." -Arizona.edu
-
"Ice
reservoirs found on Mars." ... "Water-ice has been
found in vast quantities just below the surface across great swathes of
the planet Mars." ... "It confirms early observations that also pointed
to enormous reservoirs of ice just below the surface." ... The water ice
appears to be "in the regolith - the layer of loose rock and dust on the
surface." ... "Melted, [the ice] would create planet-wide ocean 500 metres
deep."
-By Dr David Whitehouse -BBC
/News
-
"Study
Touts Broccoli to Fight Ulcers, Cancer." ... "It
started in 1992, when Hopkins pharmacology professor Paul Talalay and his
colleagues showed that sulforaphane -- a substance produced in the body
from a compound in broccoli -- could trigger the production of phase II
enzymes. The enzymes can detoxify cancer-causing chemicals and are among
the most potent anti-cancer compounds known." -By
Rick Weiss -WashingtonPost
20020526
-
- "New
'superbug' found at hospital." ... "The extended
spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) superbug is reported to have claimed the
life of one patient at Hairmyres in East Kilbride, one of Scotland's most
modern hospitals." -BBC
/News
