History's Worst Software Bugs

Perhaps not as debatable as a Top 10 Movie list but Wired'sHistory's Worst Software Bugs is an interesting read.

Republicans Miss the Point on a New Leak Investigation

A week ago a story broke that the CIA had a secret network of detention centers in several countries around the world including eastern Europe. Which if true, would violate European Human Rights principles, but apparently not US ones. Condoleezza Rice dodged questions about the prisons, suggesting it's true. Great.

Mirroring the events of the Plame affair, the CIA general counsel made a referral to the Justice Department for an investigation into a leak of classified information. Which also suggests it's true.

So what do Republican Congressional leaders Bill Frist (R-TN) and Dennis Hastert (R-IL) do? They call for a congressional investigation into the....leak, missing the point entirely. Now expect the Republicans to say well if you have to investigate leaks about Plame you have to for leaks like this as well. There's a difference, Plame wasn't a humans rights violation or an embarrassment to our country.

John McCain has Tivo

He just said so on the Daily Show :) And he loves the TV show "24".

Kansas Anti-Evolution Hat-Trick

For the third time in 6 years the Kansas Board of Education
has voted against evolution in their curriculum. This time around students will learn evolution and learn about Intelligent Designs issue with it.

While that might sound okay it misses the point. ID should not be taught in science class because it's not science. It's not a theory that makes predictions of things that can be tested. But Kansas took care of that too: "In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena."

"This is a sad day. We're becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that," said board member Janet Waugh. I'd laugh at them if it weren't so sad.

It Continues to Get Worse for Bush

Things are just miserable for the Bush Administration. His Latin America trip was useless (remember when he ran against Gore, one of his strengths was his relationship with Latin America and the fact he spoke Spanish). Torture and Cheney dominate the news and the administrations seems incapable of doing anything right.

Now The Independent publishes an article entitledUS forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah which points to video evidence from an Italian news channel. If this is true I don't know how Bush finishes his second term in office.

3 Stories on Bush Today

Bush is in Argentina but the questions he's gotten (at least from US reporters) have been about indictments and prisoner treatment. Here are 3 news stories today about it. They're all pretty short and it's worth reading them to see the difference.

From ABC News we have Bush Declares: 'We Do Not Torture'.

In the Washington Post we have Bush Defends CIA's Clandestine Prisons.

From Aljazeera we have
Bush: Terror Suspects Not Tortured.

Apple has Taste, MS Doesn't

I guess I really have become a mac lover. Look at the slides and UIs shown at this Microsoft Technology Preview. Aren't these ridiculously ugly? Compare them with one of Steve Jobs' presentations.

Avoid Call Center Hell

Hate those automated voice systems you get when you call a company? Know the trick that dialing zero often gets you to human? Annoyed that it's working less and less? Paul English was and developed an online Cheat Sheet to Find-A-Human. There are hundreds of companies in it.

More Proof Bush Lied About Iraq

The New York Times is kinder to Bush than I am. In their article they write Senator Levin (D-MI) said "called the Bush administration's misuse of prewar intelligence to try to justify the war in Iraq". I call it lying.

A newly declassified document that the source for much of the info Bush, Cheney and Powell used to justify the war was known to be likely fabrications months before This seems to be the first of much more info to come out. If true, it's clearly justification for impeachment if not war crimes. Remember all those times we were told there's "no doubt" and "we know".

Tomlinson Tried to Make PBS Partisan, Worked With Rove

Ken Tomlinson was the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which funds PBS. On Tuesday CPB's Inspector General issued a report detailing Tomlinson's efforts to impose a partisan agenda on PBS, NPR and other publicly funded programming.

On Thursday he resigned and is now the subject of a criminal inquiry which it seems involves communications with...Karl Rove. Wow the man is everywhere.

13,997 Pork Projects in Fiscal 2005

Citizens Against Government Waste have released their 2005 Congressional Pig Book.

"Once again, Congress porked out at record levels. For fiscal 2005, appropriators stuffed 13,997 projects into the 13 appropriations bills, an increase of 31 percent over last year’s total of 10,656. In the last two years, the total number of projects has increased by 49.5 percent. The cost of these projects in fiscal 2005 was $27.3 billion, or 19 percent more than last year’s total of $22.9 billion. In fact, the total cost of pork has increased by 21 percent since fiscal 2003. Total pork identified by CAGW since 1991 adds up to $212 billion."

Torture is a crime, not a policy

I've never heard of the Cincinnati Post but they seem to be the first paper in the country to call out Bush for his torture policy. Thankfully someone is.

Opinio Juris: The Sands-Yoo Debate

The Opinio Juris blog points to a Debate between Professors Philippe Sands and John Yoo about US Torture policies. Yoo worked in the Justice dept between 2001 and 2003 and helped to form the current policy about obligations to enemy combatants under the Geneva Convention. Sands nails him hard a couple of times. There are audio downloads of the slightly over 1 hour debate.

More on Alito

Bill Scher on the Huffington Post has more on Alito. Again we get the bit that his rulings aren't necessarily his opinions but those of the law and the Supreme Court's rulings which he is bound by. Ok. He also points to some articles saying Alito is bad on the environment, works rights, and equality for women and minors. In trying to follow those cases I found them to be less than detailed, but you may find differently.

The Google Print Issue

Groklaw as a phenomenal summary of the Google Print issue. If you don't know, Google wants to index all the worlds books and make their content searchable online. The Author's Guild has filed a class action suit on behave of 8000 authors, claiming that it would be copyright infringement. Groklaw gives a good summary of the project and of the legal issues involved. Well worth a read.

Italy Denies Distributing Dossier On Uranium

Remember those reasons to go to war with Iraq? One of them was a dossier from the Italian Secret Service (SISMI) that said Saddam Hussein tried to by uranium from Niger. Well according to the AP, yesterday, Enzo Bianco, chairman of an oversight committee on secret service denied that SISMI ''ever had a role in the dossier that was supposed to have demonstrated that Iraq was in an advanced phase of possession of enriched uranium." Previously we knew the dossier was a fake, but now it seems we don't even know where it came from. I wonder where it did come from....

Did Cheney Authorize Torture?

Dan Froomkin writes about Lawrence Wilkerson's claims that while chief of staff to Colin Powell "he had uncovered a 'visible audit trail' tracing the practice of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers directly back to Vice President Cheney's office." I'm shocked, just shocked. It's still hearsay but I'd really like to hear Cheney speak up.

Alito Conflict of Interest

This Boston Globe article describes a 2002 case that Alito ruled on in spite of an alleged conflict of interest. The plaintiff Shantee Maharaj, was suing Vanguard. Alito had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in Vanguard funds and ruled in Vanguards favor.

"In 1990, when Alito was seeking US Senate approval for his nomination to be a circuit judge, he said in written answers to a questionnaire that he would disqualify himself from 'any cases involving the Vanguard companies.'" In 2003 responding to complaints by Maharaj he said ''I do not believe that I am required to disqualify myself based on my ownership of the mutual fund shares."

You know he'll be asked about this in the hearings.

Alito's Abortion Ruling in Casey vs O'Connor's

The Pitsburgh Post-Gazette had this interesting analysis of Alito's abortion decision in Casey compared to O'Connor's. I did more research on the topic and found this Slate article which seems a little more complete. If you want further reading, I found this 5 page PDF helpful.

City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health was a 1983 case where the court found that 5 provisions regulating abortion were unconstitutional. O'Connor was in the minority and wrote a dissent stating that the trimester framework of Roe was unworkable and she put forth an "undue burden" test.

In 1989s Webster v Reproductive Health Services, 4 Missouri statutes were challenged including restrictions on use of public facilities and funding to perform abortions. Basically the court held 5-4 that the restrictions were okay. There were 3 concurring opinions and O'Connor wrote one that reiterated the "undue burden" test, now in a concurring opinion, it is law.

Then comes Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey which tested five provisions of PA law: informed consent, spousal notification (not consent), parental concent (with bypass), a 24-hour waiting period and certain reporting requirements for abortion facilities. The District Court found all five were unconstitutional. In 1991 the appeal went to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals where Alito sat with two other judges. All three agreed that they needed to determine if the restrictions were an "undue burden". All three judges agreed 4 of the regulations were not an undue burden and upheld. On the spousal notification issue there was disagreement. The other two justices said it was an undue burden and won, Alito dissented saying it was not an undue burden. So the question is, what constitutes an "undue burden".

In fact it was a question asked before. In his concurring opinion on Webster, Justice Scalia wrote: "I know of no basis for determining that this particular burden (or any other for that matter) is 'due.' One could with equal justification conclude that it is not." I wonder how he would define a "reasonable doubt".

Circuit Court judges must work within existing Supreme Court decisions. Alito pointed out that O'Connor had once written that an undue burden "has been found for the most part in situations involving absolute obstacles or severe limitations on the abortion decision." He reasoned, that since it was just notification and not consent it wasn't a veto (which was explicitly disallowed in Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth (1976)) And since the husband would have a "compelling interest" in the welfare of the fetus the state had a rationale for the restriction.

Supreme Court Justices are not limited by previous decisions, though almost all use great caution in overturning previous decisions. The Supreme Court ruling on Casey in 1992 was significant in that it explicitly upheld Roe, but it also changed the rules, "Roe's rigid trimester framework is rejected." Instead, it said "a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability" and it reaffirmed Roe's holding that "subsequent to viability, the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother". The rules restricting abortions "must not be an undue burden" and "may not impose unnecessary health regulations that present a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion". So now the test is "substantial obstacle" which Rehnquist argues in his dissent, isn't much clearer. Under the new "substantial obstacle" rule the Supreme Court found 4 restrictions did not pose an undue burden and were allowed. The spousal notification restriction was found to be an undue burden and was overturned.

The proposed notification law had exceptions if the spouse isn't the father, could not be located, would cause bodily harm to the mother, or if the pregnacy was the result of a reported spousal sexual assault. Still, O'Connor found that there were "many many" women who would be blocked from an abortion in situations such as: an unreported sexual assualt or "devastating forms of psychological abuse from their husbands, including verbal harassment, threats of future violence, the destruction of possessions, physical confinement to the home, the withdrawal of financial support, or the disclosure of the abortion to family and friends". So she found "the spousal notification requirement is thus likely to prevent a significant number of women from obtaining an abortion. It does not merely make abortions a little more difficult or expensive to obtain; for many women, it will impose a substantial obstacle."

The Post-Gazette article quotes Planned Parenthood's lawyer in Casey saying "O'Connor's view of what was an 'undue burden' changed significantly. The Casey opinion was one of the most feminist decisions in history." As the Slate article descirbed it, Alito had a "sunnier, husband-centered version of marriage". But O'Connor wrote in the Casey decision: "The proper focus of constitutional inquiry is the group for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom the law is irrelevant." We should understand that Alito was bound by what the current Supreme Court rulings were at the time, and O'Connor was able to change them. Nevertheless, the other 3rd Circuit Judges found the spousal notification restriction was and undue burden but since their decision isn't online, I can't read it.

Michael Brown Emails During Katrina

This CNN article is just amazing. A LA congressman posted some of the email and it's really disgusting. During the crisis he's sending emails trying to find a dog sitter. An aid is telling him to roll up his sleeves on camera to look more hard-working, and pointing out that even Bush did so.

He sent this on Mon, Aug 29th at 7:52 AM, about 2 hours after Katrina made landfall in LA: "I got it at Nordsstroms. Email McBride and make sure she kniows! Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?" That's a hell of a job Brownie.

Sony Boycott over DRM

The Inquirer has a good story about the new Sony DRM scheme. I think it was Mark Russinovich who originallyfound the problem. To summarize, he bought the Van Zant's brothers CD "Get Right with the Man" which is marked as a "Copy-Protected CD" but then found it surreptitiously installs very nasty software on your computer made by a company called First 4 Internet.

Mark's article describes how bad the software is. It uses techniques that viruses and other really nasty programs use. It slows down your computer and is not easily removed (in fact, trying to do so might damage your computer). The Inquirer article describes Sony's reaction: "So, rather than come clean, Sony minimises the problem, blames the user, and refuses to help you out."

So here's the problem. Companies want to prevent illegal copying. I'm fine with that, but the problem is there's no way to do that without restricting legitimate users from doing legitimate things. I also think there are more good users than bad users. I might loan or give someone a song or album thinking they might like it. If they do, they'll go buy it or other music by the group, that's a good thing. The pirates are bad, but they are also ones who weren't going to give the record companies much money anyway. I don't think they are losing business as much as being stolen from, there's a difference and they shouldn't hurt their legitimate customers to correct it.

Data and software really should stay separate, you should be able to open a data file with any program you want, not just what the owner wants you to use. This allows for competition in software, smooth upgrades, and protection of content if a company goes out of business or discontinues a product. This is why MA is trying to switch from MS Office documents to an Open Document Format that many programs can read. It's a good thing, but I also don't think it can be legislated. I think the only way to fight this is economically. Sony just lost my business, until they stop such practices.

Today Show Embarrasses Science

The Today show had a segment this morning on the 2005 Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge. They began with a spokewoman from the Discovery Institute explaining that we lose kids in science in middle school and they are trying to change that witheducational programs and contests. I note the today show couldn't get the name of the contest right for the text on the screen, they just wrote "Discovery Scientist Challenge".

They introduced Neela Thangada, 14, who was the grand prizewinner this last year. As she described it, she cloned potatoes to produce a higher yield of crops. In her profile linked to above, she measured the effects of different nutrient concentrations on the cloning process.

The theme of the challenge this year was "forces of nature" and they had two museum-like experiments set up. They had two water containers setup, one was a tornado and the other a tsunami. In one they created a vortex and then put a propellor in to measure the windspeed. It's closer near the vortex then further away. In the other they had a shoreline setup and pulled a lever to generated a wave to see the effects on the shore and on some buoys setup off shore.

The Today show host was David Gregory, who I normally like in the White House Press room, but here he was an idiot. While Neela was explaining the experiments he tried to keep up and to dumb down her descriptions for the audience. She said "the model was 1/20 the size of the actual experiment". He had to explain "so this is a minature version". As the vortex started and there were lots of bubbles in the water he says "are we making a smoothie or a tornado?" She asked his prediction for where the higher speeds were (that would be forming a hypothesis to test). He said "Hmm, I don't know how about away from the...I say closest to the ah funnel actually". You know his ear piece corrected him. Then as he had problems putting the measuring device into the tank he said "There's something in there. There's a shark in there!"

They then moved to the tsunami demo as they were running out of time. Neela described it well in about 30 seconds. He then came in and said "all right, all right, we're gonna have to leave it there, lets keep doing it, seeing how it works here". He then pushed the lever back and forth to make a huge wave, much as a child would. Neela was literally laughing at what he was doing. When they came back from commercial the next segement James Blunt singing a song from his new album. Edward R. Murrow must have been rolling over in his grave.

Restaurant Review: Morimoto

For my one dinner in Philadelphia I choose Morimoto. A friend recommended it and I was a fan of Iron Chef so I had to try it. It's one long narrow modern room. See the site for pictures, mine didn't come out. The booths aren't really booths but free standing tables and chairs (and benches) with thick plastic walls separating the tables. As you progress through your meal, you realize the plastic walls slowly change colors. At some point you think, wasn't that blue before? There's a menu but the specialty is Omakase which is a chef's choice. It's priced at three levels, $80, $100 or $120 per person. The difference is the quality of ingredients they choose from. For $60 more you can have wine paired with the dishes. I choose the $120 figuring I wasn't coming back any time soon and skipped the wine instead opting for a Morimoto Martini (Sake, Vodka and some slices of cucumber) which was tasty. They asked if I had any alergies and then brought out 9 courses of surprises.

My 1st course was Toro Tartare. It was tuna mashed with something a little crunchy stuff, topped with caviar. On the side was wasabi and I was instructed to have a little wasabi with each bite. It was absolutely delicious. A great texture and flavor, very fresh. Next to the wasabi was a small fruit called Yamamomo which I was told is a small mountain peach and was a refresher for between courses. Inside is a pit but the flesh was sweet and tasty.

My 2nd course was 3 oysters served on the half shell. One with Champagne, one with a thin slice of jalapeno and one with some salsa. Now I don't like oysters but II hadn't mentioned this and was willing to try anything, so I did. They were good, particularly the champagne and jalapeno ones. Forgive the picture, I forgot when the dish came out, so picture the oysters being in the shells you see.

My 3rd course was Thai Red Snapper, 4 slices sashimied, seared and served in some olive oil. It was just ok. The fish was nice but it was very oily. Again, sorry about the pic, just imagine 3 more slices beneath this one. Really I got better at this.

The 4th course was I think called compache, supposedly an exotic form of yellowtail. It was two sashimi slices and some microgreens in a very tasty umi soy vinaigrette. Only problem was the fish was little tough, I had to eat each piece in one bite.

The 5th course was a palette cleanser, a scoop of sherbert. I tried a bite and it was very good, raspberry I thought. I had a few more bites and tasted some wasabi. At first I thought it was left over from the tuna tartare, but that didn't make sense and I only tasted it while having the sherbert, not between bites. I asked and yes, the palette cleanser was a raspberry wasabi sherbert. It was good and the wasabi was very mild, but I never would have thought to use wasabi cleanse your palatte.

My 6th course was tilefish. It was cooked and served over japanese vegetables and some grain and sliced almonds. It was in a fantastic sweet soy dressing. There were some small tempura somethings. They might have been peas but seemed a little big for that. They were hot from the fryer and really good.

My 7th course was a half lobster that was spiced and broiled. Instead of butter it was served with a citris crème fraîche which made this absolutely decadent. I'm not a big lobster person. I normally just think the flavor is ok and can't be bothered eating it from the shell. This was amazing and I picked the meat out of every small leg and place I could find. This was the best part of the meal.

While waiting for my next course I looked down at the sushi bar and realized their sushi would probably be really good. i wondered if the chef would be insulted if after the meal I ordered a few pieces of sushi to try. Well it turns out my 8th course was six pieces of sushi. From left to right: otoro, yellowtail, salmon, something, squid, and mackerel. This was the best sushi I've had in the US. I can't really explain why. I think because I had the more expensive meal they were high quality cuts of fish. Whatever it was, it was yummy.

While waiting for dessert I realized I should have said I loved chocolate. Again, they seem to have read my mind and brought a chocolate cake for my 9th course. With the cake was a scoop of (I think vanilla) ice cream, a sake flavored jelly and 3 almonds. The sake jelly was awful and I didn't like it with the rest of the flavors. The ice cream was fine, smooth and creamy. The chocolate cake was unfortunately not molten but was rather cupcake-like, which was disappointing. Though I have to say, the three almonds were by far the best I've ever had, they were just astounding. The black coffee was very strong.

So that was it. $150 total and two hours long. Very tasty but not consistent, I had some amazing things (the tuna tartare, sushi and the lobster) and some just ok things. I wouldn't say the best meal I've ever had though I would definately come back and have the omakase again, though I'd probably get one of the cheaper ones.

Movie Review: Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

I love the Wallace & Gromit films. If you haven't heard of them, Wallace is and inventor and Gromit is his very intelligent dog. They have been in several animated shorts, two of which ("The Wrong Trousers" and "A Close Shave") have won Academy Awards. They are done by Nick Park of Aardman Animation in painstaking claymation. Park also did Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" music video which you might have seen. Their first feature length film was Chicken Run and this is the first time Wallace and Gromit have been in a full length (85 minute) feature.

In this film, our duo run Anti-Pesto, a humane pest remover which the whole town seems to have hired to protect their prized vegetables from rabbits. There's an annual fair coming up and they all want to win. They of course have some wonderful devices to help them, including the Bun-Vac 6000 (which has two settings: Blow and Suck). While Anti-Pesto seems to be protecting the town efectively, soon a giant beast starts attacking and they have their work cut out for them. Their premire customer, Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter) also runs the fair and hopes to win. Her suitor is Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes) who wants to pursue a less humane way to deal with the beast.

The animation is of course amazing, though I noticed some small special effects thrown in in a couple of places. In their first film, A Grand Day out, the flame on a match was clay, didn't look like it in this one. The plot moves pretty quickly and there are several good chase scenes and a lot of puns. However I did find it quite predictable. I couldn't guess to far ahead, but very often I knew what the next step was, and that's all you really need to blow any suspense. The other thing I was disappointed in was that there wasn't enough Gromit. The Wrong Trousers was very effective at making you feel sorry for Gromit and giving you a big emotional attachment to the film. A Close Shave couldn't quite match that. In this film, Gromit's seems mostly reduced to inaudibly groaning at Wallace's incompetence and of course saving the day. I enjoyed the film a lot and laughed out loud several times, but I liked the last two more.

Cheney's Accountability

I think Andrew describes my views on this well.