Carter: Guantanamo Detentions Disgraceful
Quote:
Carter also criticized the U.S.-led war in Iraq as "unnecessary and unjust."
No surprises, here. Carter is a moron.
Okay, I know 62.193.231.242 isn't a real person but an open proxy, but some pest asshole using that proxy is hitting one of my sites constantly, and it's annoying.
Naturally I have blocked 62.193.231.242 with htaccess, but it's still annoying.
Hollywood sock-puppet senator faces tech insurgency | The Register
Steve Urqhart is running against Orin Hatch for Senate in Utah. Hatch is a total disaster for techies, so if you are a conservative techie, consider throwing some money Steve's way. (Links in the article.)
And if you're not a conservative techie, cosider throwing some money Steve's way anyway. If Hatch loses, his successor won't have all the seniority positions that Hatch holds, and there's no way a Demo(c)rat is going to be elected in Utah, anyway. So think of it as an anti-Hatch move. And anti-Hatch is pro-tech.
Here's some cheerful news: EPIDEMIca // H5N1 // M-J Milloy
So are the Chinese covering up a major avian flu outbreak at Qinghai Lake? They concealed how bad the SARS outbreak was until it was out in the world, and couldn't be concealed any more. That makes this story very plausible.
And then there's the story of the "mysterious" bacterial infections from pigs that have killed 24 people so far, with no good treatment available yet. No good treatment for swine strep?
It's going to be an interesting winter.
Update: more from epidemica:
More victims Chinese "mystery disease"
While the number of victims has increased to 27 dead, 21 critical and 131 infected, China's pig disease in Sichuan remains a mystery; Chinese officials have stated the cause is streptococcus suis bacteria (swine flu); still, the high number of victims and the large area in which infections are reported are very unusual for the bacteria, and there are no independent reports, since China refuses to let anyone in; the WHO has nobody on the ground in Sichuan, but a spokesman in the Philippines says "the situation is still very localised", "this doesn't pose a real threat to international public health", "it's not an explosive situation"; how can he be sure of all this, all the way from Manila? the Chinese told him!; in another nice twist, a Chinese daily reports sick pigs being eaten, sold, and even dug up after being buried / RM
Nothing to see here, move along.
Russians REALLY don't like spam: Russia's Biggest Spammer Brutally Murdered in Apartment - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM
Rebecca MacKinnon has more information on Cisco's China trade: RConversation: My conversation with Cisco
Just to be perfectly clear, the word picnic has no racial associations.
Kenny Rogers, the immature bully of the Texas Rangers Baseball team, had to bond out of jail today on the assault with injury charge he's facing.
I hope he gets a judge and prosecutor who aren't dazzled by his "celebrity" and has to do some jail time.
Wired News: Give Your DVD Player the Finger
This is all about how "University of California at Los Angeles engineering professor Rajit Gadh is leading research to turn radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags into an extremely restrictive form of digital rights management to protect DVD movies."
Obviously, the content providers (i.e. movie studios) think the consumer will put up with literally anything to get access to their product. I mean, first you have to go buy an entirely new DVD player so that you can play their DRM-crippled disks, and then everytime you buy (or rent) one, you have to give up your privacy by giving a fingerprint (how long before police agencies start trolling those records for wanted persons?), and then you have to give your fingerprint again before it will play.
My question is, who's funding this moron? Who in hell actually believes people will put up with this crap just to watch "Jackass the Movie" or some such crap? The "content providers" need to just look at the falling theater revenues and get a clue -- we don't need your crap. If you lock it up like this, we just won't buy it. And then what will you do to buy your floozies and nose candy?
More on Cisco in China: Barnes & Noble.com - Losing the New China: A Story of Commerce, Desire, and Betrayal
As long as you make a dollar, it's all right, right?
(I won't link to Amazon's entry -- Jeff Bezos can take his one-click patent and stuff it.)
FT.com / World / Asia-Pacific - Top Chinese general warns US over attack
Yes, they are the enemy. The sooner we start acting like it, the better. (Hint - Microsoft? Cisco?)
... just get ready for it: CDC - Influenza (Flu) | Recent Outbreaks in Asia
This winter flu season is going to be a doozie.
Battlestar Galactica -- distant future, unimaginable technology, so why do they plan their battles on a situation board that looks just like the ones used in World War 2?
And why do they need corrective lenses, can't they cure astigmatism yet?
Microsoft Downgrades Claria Adware Detections
That's Claria, also sometimes known as Gator, one of the most insidious purveyors of adware/spyware/malware ever. There are rumors circulating that Microsoft is about to buy Claria, and now they have given Claria software a pass in their "anti-spyware" app.
Now one must have confidence that when you install anti-spyware software, it will actually, you know, detect and remove spyware, and will not suddenly stop doing that because its parent finds it convenient to join forces with the bad guys.
But of course Microsoft operates outside all normal ideas of ethics and proper business behavior, so they see nothing remiss in turning off detection of some of the most obnoxious spyware in circulation.
Microsoft is a rogue company that should never be trusted with anything. Learn this now or regret it later.
Running out of oil? FT.com / International Economy / Oil - Saudis warn of shortfalls as oil hits $61
Scotsman.com News - Top Stories - Hundreds of casualties in London rush hour terror attacks
One thing I am fairly sure of: the British are not big pussies like the Spaniards; the jihadi may have just bitten off a lot more than they can chew.
SCO denied motion to change IBM case again - Computer Business Review
NOVELL: Lead Story - McDonald's Germany Implements IT Infrastructure with SUSE LINUX
Heh, SCO is dying the death of a thousand cuts, as they manage to alienate and drive away the customers they haven't actually sued yet.
Here's an analysis from last year on New Zealand's carbon problems. Problems the Kyotophiles in the government ignored: 5/11/2004 -- NEW ZEALAND: Kyoto tree planting credits won't be much help
So it was known a year ago that the magic tree wasn't sufficient to save NZ from Kyoto costs. "... not to ratify Kyoto would be to set fire to a very large cheque." Wow, that sure didn't work out, did it?
"New Zealand treaty negotiators pushed for this stipulation to be written into the 1997 Kyoto Protocol at a time when new areas planted in trees in this country was at its peak, at about 100,000ha in 1994. Regrettably, the rate at which land was switched to commercial forestry has declined rapidly ever since, to an estimated 15,000ha last year. "
Bureaucrats always seem to think that a commercial trend, like forest conversion in this case, will continue unabated for the imaginable future, ignoring all economic incentives for it not to do so. It certainly didn't help that the NZ Kyotophiles caught NZ at the absolute peak, rather than a median point, so their numbers were hopelessly optimistic. Now they get to pay for their folly.
New Zealand is a good left-wing, environmentalist country. They were in a rush to sign the Kyoto treaty, and save the planet, and besides, as a net carbon absorber, they are going to make a ton of money selling carbon exchanges to the rest of the world. Right? Wrong: Kyoto's price - $88 a year from each of us
You can't make stuff this funny up.
Here's a hearty screw you going out to NOAO for not planning on enough bandwidth to accomodate more than what, four or five connections during the Tempel I impact event?
I mean we've only known about the slashdot effect on the web for what, five years?
So, really good planning there, guys. I was really entertained all night by the "Timed Out" alerts popping up.
Morons.
So it seems from this entry by Rebecca MacKinnon: RConversation: More on Cisco in China
Why these corporations believe they can aid the enemies of America without any consequences is beyond me. Oh, wait, they can.
Chip Salzenberg, noted member of the Perl community, protested his employer's unethical web practices and was arrested in retaliation!
This is cool: Live View of the Deep Impact Mission to Comet Tempel 1
The image will update every 45 seconds around the impact time, 12:52 AM CDT on July 4.